#LtGovDebate: Reality check

Something is see-sawing.

It was lively and contentious, but just as devoid of actual debate as the first Davis-Abbott matchup.

In the only scheduled debate in their race for lieutenant governor, state Sens. Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte faced off on Monday night in a lively exchange that displayed their divergent positions on everything from health care and immigration to school finance and taxes.

Both candidates played offense: Patrick, R-Houston, attempted to portray Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, as “out of step” with Texas voters. Van de Putte used the back-and-forth to try to pin Patrick down on votes he'd taken on cuts to public education. But one of the biggest points of contention in the hour-long showdown in Austin was over the state’s tax structure.

Patrick recently called for reducing the state’s dependence on the property tax to fund public schools and relying on the state’s sales tax instead. On Monday, Van de Putte used Patrick's position to argue that he would raise the sales tax, which she said would hurt businesses and consumers. Patrick sought to clarify his proposal, saying he would only support increasing the sales tax “by a penny or two” to compensate for reduced revenue from property taxes.

“There's two people standing on this stage, and I’m the only one that doesn’t want to raise your sales taxes,” Van de Putte said. “To burden Texas businesses and families with a sales tax increase ... well, that’s not being pro-business.”

When you have a spare hour, watch it and see for yourself.

The live-Tweet stream was entertaining, and Forrest Wilder's live-blogging also.  Here's your take-away.

It can’t be stressed enough: Dan Patrick sounds about as radical as he ever has. By comparison, LVDP sounds like a moderate Republican, I think what Patrick would call a RINO.

Patrick took a similar approach as Abbott did a week ago, throwing out red meat to the Tea Party base of the GOP. There's no attempt whatsoever to reach swing voters or independents or even employ that tired "across the aisle" cliche'.  He fear-mongered over illegals coming over the border with hepatitis, declared he would swap a state sales tax increase for a property tax cut, bragged about cutting education spending, and stood firm in the eyes of the Lord against abortion even in the cases of rape or incest.  As well as gay marriage.

He was right about one thing: the choice is as clear as it ever has been.

Debate Week

Tonight it's LVDP versus Patrick; tomorrow night is round two of Davis-Abbott.

Find a watch party, a list of those outlets telecasting, or watch online.  Follow the geek fighting on Twitter at #TexasDebates or #ltgovdebate.

Update: And just announced... Cornyn vs. Alameel on October 25.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everybody read at least one banned book last week as it brings you this weeks' roundup of the best blog posts from the left of Texas.

Off the Kuff presents interviews with two of the many dynamic and well-qualified Democratic women running for legislative offices this year: Rita Lucido in SD17 and Susan Criss in HD23.

Libby Shaw, writing for Texas Kaos and Daily Kos, laments the dire consequences of voting Republican or of not voting at all.  Oh come on Texas, surely we can do better than THIS?

WCNews at Eye on Williamson claims Greg Abbott's latest TV ad is full of dissembling: Abbott's Fundamentally Dishonest Transportation Ad.

Eric Holder was certainly not as bad as Alberto Gonzales, but his tenure as US attorney general still did not merit a passing grade, at least according to PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value said there is no inherent conflict between involvement in traditional politics, while at the same time looking for non-conventional protests and movements as a way to move society in a better direction. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Though the new routes are far from being finalized, Texas Leftist shares that Houston METRO has now fully committed to the System Reimagining Plan. After this week's vote by the METRO board, there's no turning back.

Texpatriate had a questionnaire from Harris County DA candidate Kim Ogg (who also debated the Republican incumbent on Sunday morning teevee) and passed along a few more names thrown into the hat for Houston's 2015 mayoral election.

Bay Area Houston wonders why Greg Abbott sat in traffic for a decade before figuring out something needed to be done about it.

BlueDaze has documentation revealing the air pollutants from fracking in Denton, while Texas Vox notes that Texas waters are already polluted, toxic, and unprotected.

====================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Socratic Gadfly reported on the continuing financial challenges of newspapers large and small.

jobsanger relates the news about the powerful capitalists who insist that the minimum wage must be raised.

The Rag Blog follows up on the scandal involving an East Texas church.

Eight Feet Deep passed on a few headlines from Southeast Texas, including John Travolta's surprise appearance at a Beaumont gym.

SciGuy gives us a look at Russia's astronaut training facility.

Newsdesk reports on Rep. Dawnna Dukes' abortion disclosure.

The Great God Pan Is Dead argues for the elimination of art fairs.

Texas Clean Air Matters cheers Austin and San Antonio's leadership in clean energy.

Andrea Grimes points and laughs at Breitbart Texas.

The Bloggess encourages you to support your local no-kill animal shelter.

The TSTA blog calls out Greg Abbott for lying about his authority as AG to settle the school finance lawsuit.

The Current has more reporting on the shady practices and uninformed advice at crisis pregnancy centers.

Scott Braddock tells the tale of a wingnut catfight.

Finally, our old friends at BlueBloggin are getting ready to make a comeback.

Abbott recovers $1.4 million of TEF funds... into his campaign account

Is there a corruption tolerance limit that can be exceeded?  I suppose we'll find out.

Republican governor nominee Greg Abbott has collected more than $1 million in campaign contributions from beneficiaries of a state business fund cited in a scathing audit for lax oversight of taxpayer dollars.

[...]

An independent audit released this week found the Texas Enterprise Fund awarded $222 million to entities that never submitted applications or promised to create jobs.  The picture that emerged from the state auditor’s report was of an agency that, at least in its early years, gave away taxpayer money without proper evaluation or consistent criteria.

Abbott has received at least $1.4 million in contributions from beneficiaries of the enterprise fund since 2003, according to state records.

Three investors in the biotech company Lexicon, which received $35 million, are Abbott campaign contributors — businessman Robert McNair and chemical executives William McMinn and Gordon Cain. McNair has given $463,000 to Abbott, McMinn $110,000 and Cain $60,000.

Well, there goes my rooting for the Houston Texans any longer.

Update: More in greater detail from Carol Morgan at the Lubbock Avalanche Journal.

Sunday Funnies

Texas, our Texas

-- Christy Hoppe broke the story a few days ago of Governor Perry's most recent (to come to light) financial misdealing.

The first independent audit of the Texas Enterprise Fund shows that the governor’s job-creating fund awarded $222 million — almost half the money granted — to entities that never submitted applications or specific promises to create jobs.

The 98-page report by the state auditor, released to lawmakers Thursday, paints a picture of a $500 million fund that, at least in its early years, gave away taxpayer money without a set evaluation process or a consistent criteria.

Early grants were awarded to companies or universities without their submitting formal applications, and some large projects were never required to create a single job — although that is the legislative mandate by which the fund was started.

Numerous contracts showed inconsistent requirements, weak compliance monitoring and led the auditor to state that it cannot verify many of the jobs or investments that were credited to the program.

Of course this also implicates Greg Abbott, whose job was oversight.  He failed.

As has typically been the case with respect to Republican scandals during this election cycle, Texas media that didn't break the story seem a little slow to push the story, and Texans reading and watching the media would rather read and watch something about a 'latte salute'.   Or 'Muslim prayer rugs at the border'.

Update, TexTrib:

While critics were hounding Gov. Rick Perry a decade ago about his job-luring Texas Enterprise Fund, his lawyers went to Attorney General Greg Abbott to block the release of applications that supposedly had been filled out by the entities requesting taxpayer subsidies.

Abbott’s office, tasked with deciding which government records have to be made public, told Perry's lawyers they must keep the applications secret under exemptions to state transparency laws, according to attorney general rulings and news reports.

Now, though, information contained in a blistering state audit shows that at least five of the recipients that were named in Abbott’s 2004 rulings — and which got tens of millions of dollars from the fund — never actually submitted formal applications. And if no applications ever existed, it’s not clear what Abbott was telling Perry he had to keep secret or why the public is just now learning that millions were awarded without them.

-- The criminal investigation into the Republican nominee for Texas attorney general won't begin until after the election.

The Travis County District Attorney has confirmed that any investigation into the criminal felony complaint filed against Republican candidate for attorney general Ken Paxton would take place after the November 4th General Election. It's a clear signal to voters that electing Paxton would subject the Texas AG's office to immediate post-election uncertainty, disruption and dysfunction.

[...]

According to the Houston Chronicle article, “if the district attorney launches criminal proceedings after November, it would mean Paxton could be facing a grand jury in his first few months as a statewide elected official.”

Paxton has already admitted to committing a felony violation of state securities law. In addition to the criminal investigation, Paxton also faces a complaint before the State Bar that could result in his disbarment.

Paxton’s strategy for avoiding publicity and scrutiny of his criminal behavior has been to avoid public events and refuse to speak with media. At an appearance earlier this summer, Paxton’s campaign aide physically blocked a reporter from getting close enough to ask a question.

Paxton is being shunned by other Republican nominees who, like Greg Abbott, rarely mention him by name.

Some Texans -- some who would typically be alarmed by news like this, that is -- just shrug.  It seems to this Texan that in any other campaign season in almost any other state, this development would be enough for sensible people to go to the polls and clean house.  It happened in Texas, once upon a time.  Yet the odds are good that despite the overpowering stench of corruption, the majority of the Texas electorate will goose-step with linked arms to the polling places and re-elect these vermin.

And to be clear: they are most certainly vermin.  Poisonous, disease-riddled rodents that have crawled out of the sewer and into public office on the strength of an (R) behind their name.  All of that "DemocRATS" business is just projection.  Despite the vile smell of it all, there's no bleach strong enough to get rid of them.

Because this is still Texas.  With respect to what Texans might do about it...

-- The Dallas-Fort Worth area has the greatest number of unregistered and eligible-to-vote Texans.  Houston isn't far behind, and San Antonio and Austin are right behind.  The total of those four metros: well over one million potential votes.  A conservative estimate of the Democratic votes among them would be two out of three, or 67%.

This is why Texas isn't changing, and won't until these Texans change their habit.

-- On a brighter note...

The number of uninsured patients treated at hospitals dropped sharply this year, top White House officials said Wednesday  – cutting costs dramatically for states that opted to expand Medicaid.

Texas isn’t one of those states.

Oh well, it's at least nice to know that some folks -- those who did not have insurance before, those taxpayers who were paying for their care before -- are benefiting.

In states other than Texas, that is.

Eric Holder was certainly no Abu Gonzales

Not even Richard Nixon's John Mitchell, for that matter.

Still, there remain any number of good reasons his departure is long overdue.  Way past time that he make like cow chips and hit the dusty trail.  Head on back to where he came from, or perhaps Goldman Sachs or some such.

Holder’s tenure as Attorney General has been a tragic one. Not only has he been engulfed in partisan scandals over an incompetent gun running sting known as “Fast and Furious,” he has been under fire for attacking the First Amendment rights of the media and is widely seen as having given his friends and former clients on Wall Street a complete pass on the criminal conduct that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

Holder’s involvement with the war on whistleblowers, tracking and intimidating reporters, killing Americans without judicial review, and the abysmal failure to enforce the law against criminals in the financial services industry has left America a more divided and unjust society. Not a particularly good legacy to leave behind.

America not only saw a white collar crime wave go unpunished, but saw Holder himself announce a doctrine that has been called Too Big To Jail. Holder claimed in congressional testimony that some Wall Street banks could not be prosecuted because of their size, saying  “If you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

Holder made no corresponding effort to break up the banks so they could become the appropriate size for him to feel comfortable prosecuting them when they broke the law. Instead, the comment signaled to everyone that if you were big and powerful enough the Holder Justice Department was not coming after you in criminal court – which still holds true as there has not been any major prosecutions against the banks or bankers.

I appreciate what Eric Holder has done in standing up for the Voting Rights Act, and more specifically I am grateful for his fight against Greg Abbott over photo IDs for Texas voters.  How that case eventually turns out may well be a star in his crown.  In terms of admiration, it's difficult for me to remember the day, nearly six years ago, that the Senior Box Turtle from Texas stalled Holder's nomination to AG because Cornyn disagreed that waterboarding was torture.

Ah, the memories.  From June of 2008, Eric Holder, speaking to the American Constitution Society.

"I never thought I would see the day when a Justice Department would claim that only the most extreme infliction of pain and physical abuse constitutes torture and that acts that are merely cruel, inhuman and degrading are consistent with United States law and policy, that the Supreme Court would have to order the president of the United States to treat detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention, never thought that I would see that a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens. This disrespect for the rule of law is not only wrong, it is destructive."

And in June a year ago.

Eric Holder did do some good as attorney general of the United States, but his refusal to prosecute so many more crimes and injustices -- to say nothing of the broken promises of transparency -- is a black mark in the history books.  A very easy bottom line: as long as war criminals and Wall Street thieves walk about free while thousands of petty offenders of marijuana laws languish in jail, Holder's grade as the nation's top law enforcement officer is a failing one.

James O'Keefe might be in Houston, and other things

-- There's some folks who think the destroyer of ACORN might be in town to try to catch some voter "fraud"... or something.

Though it probably did take him a couple of weeks to hitchhike up here from the border after his latest stunt, he's still a little too soon for early voting.  So beware all you people getting folks registered between now and the deadline for that.  You don't want to be on Candid Conservative Camera.

Update:

-- Frankly, I don't understand why Republicans are so worried about their election results in Texas.  Maybe they're listening to what Harvey Kronberg (Quorum Report) and Ross Ramsey (Texas Tribune) are saying, and also taking no solace in Politico's assessment of the gubernatorial contest.

-- Ladies and gentlemen: here is your Texas NORML Voter's Guide.

-- Awful DC leftists blast Hillary Clinton in secret e-mails.  The Hill has finally gone TMZ, complete with autoplay video.

The Hill reviewed hundreds of emails from a progressive members only Google group called the “Gamechanger Salon,” a forum where nearly 1,500 activists, strategists and journalists debate issues and craft messaging campaigns.

The group includes prominent Democrats, Sierra Club officials, journalists who work for The Huffington Post and The Nation magazine, senior union representatives, leaders at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the president of NARAL.

In the emails spanning over a year — starting in June 2013 through July of this year — frustration with Clinton is evident.

Clinton’s too much of a hawk, too cozy with Wall Street, hasn’t spoken out enough on climate change, and will be subject to personal questions and criticisms, members of the group stated in the emails.

The existence of the group was reported earlier this year by the conservative outlet MediaTrackers.org, but this is the first time the emails have become public.

Will more developments like this convince Bernie Sanders to run as a Democrat in 2016?

-- After almost nine years and more than $79 billion, the F-22 Raptor flew its first combat mission.  "Successfully".

The stealth F-22 has had chances to fight before – during Air Force operations in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well as its role in the no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 – but in each case the Air Force said the high-tech jet was not an “operational requirement.” 

The Pentagon apparently decided the U.S.-led strikes against ISIS in Syria, for which the Syrian government says it was given warning, were different. 

Do you think this fresh new war is going to lift the fortunes of Democrats in November?  After all, Rush Limbaugh and John Bolton and Sean Hannity are all afraid it might.

I would simply observe that Syria became the 7th predominantly Muslim nation to be bombed by the 2009 Nobel Peace laureate.  And that perhaps that's where all these new terrorists might be coming from. As for wars, bombing, 'protecting the Homeland', etc. and so on...

Hogan whines about endorsement of Kendrick

Earlier today, Texpatriate endorsed Kenneth Kendrick for Commissioner of Texas Agriculture.  A fairly significant development, considering that they usually pick mostly Democrats and the occasional Republican.

Junior Samples, who is on Twitter as Internet Jim Hogan, got upset about it.

.@Texpatriates You endorsed @KennethKendrick without even talking to me? Whom next- the @statesman @HoustonChron @dallasnews @BOR ?
— Internet Jim Hogan (@jimhogantx) September 23, 2014

Hogan wants to be interviewed by the blogs now, after refusing interview requests all year?  Hilarious.  Hey Junior: I hate to go all grammar Nazi on you, but learn how and when to use who and whom, please.  *Update: Yes, it could all be a joke, not just Hogan only.  I'm trying to take his candidacy as seriously as I can.

But really you should rest easy, big boy.  If the Houston Chronicle can fumble the endorsement in the county clerk's race, they can sure as hell screw up and endorse you.  And I wouldn't be scared about missing on "The New BOR", either.  They're now calling themselves 'the most progressive blog in Texas', but they're still just the house organ for the TDP.  (Hint: not all that progressive, y'all.  Just like Jim Hogan.)

You'll still get about 35% of the vote because of all the straight-ticket-voting Democrats, who don't know enough about you to know they shouldn't be voting for you.  Congratulations!

Today is National Voter Registration Day

In 2008, 6 million Americans didn't vote because they missed a registration deadline or didn't know how to register. In 2014, we want to make sure no one is left out.

On September 23, 2014, volunteers, celebrities, and organizations from all over the country will "hit the streets" for National Voter Registration Day. This single day of coordinated field, technology and media efforts will create pervasive awareness of voter registration opportunities--allowing us to reach tens of thousands of voters who we could not reach otherwise.

Texas, as we know by now, is one of the worst states of all in this regard.  There are very likely millions of Texans who don't vote as matter of habit, and thus aren't registered to vote, for whatever their personal reasons for not doing so happen to be.  And it's all but impossible, particularly at this stage of the election cycle, to convince someone who is skeptical of their power -- who is on the fence about whether they should participate in our democracy (or representative republic, if you prefer) -- to exercise that power.  As the deadline to register to vote in the midterm elections closes in, the focus will soon shift to get-out-the-vote efforts.  But for about two more weeks, if there's anyone you know who needs to get registered, or who needs to be certain they are qualified (by Texas Republican standards) to vote, then today is the day to do that.

Our local voter registrar, Mike Sullivan, is doing his part.  Here is a map of all the locations in Harris County where you can go and register to vote today.  If you need proper documentation to verify your citizenship in order to register, you'll be told where and how to get that, and how much it might cost, and how long it might take.  That might be the most important thing a person who is not registered to vote can learn today: "what extra things must I do to make sure I can vote?"

So you can spin it either way, left or right: control of the US Senate is at stake, so get registered and then get back to the polls next month (early) or in November (on Election Day).  "The future of Texas hangs in the balance", blahblahblah.

Voter registration efforts -- indeed, solicitations for voting by mail -- should be nonpartisan, but they aren't.

I thought the blossoming coffee stain was a nice artistic touch, don't you?   I'm sure this is all perfectly legal in Texas.  Just like creepshots.

And the Texas Democratic Party appears to be doing something similar, as Charles reports, and if that's the case then everybody's hard at work, even the election law attorneys for both parties making sure everything is above board.  This is separate and apart from today's voter registration push, of course, and falls in line with GOTV efforts by both major parties to increase their turnout.

So the message is: whatever you do and however you do it, get it done. And don't do anything that's against the law when you do.