Perrspectives has assembled a clearinghouse of resources at the link above (click the headline). They're also responsible for the poster. It makes me think of Dubya's deck of cards associated with Iraq's Most Wanted.I'm betting Perry will have a tough time winning in a field of four. Dems who would have voted for Kinky in a field of three, might vote for a Dem in a field of four under the premise of "hey, we could win this thing." (This provides a direct answer to Kinky's campaign slogan "Kinky, Why the Hell Not?"). If anyone besides Perry wins, it'll mean a shakeup of the Texas Republican Party. If CKS wins, she'll let some moderates back into the Rebublican ballgame, and will undercut the national right wing agenda from within its home base. If CKS doesn't win, it'll likely mean a further purge of moderates from within the Republican Party -- which will only lead to further independent challenges from within the party. Whatever you think of CKS, just be glad she kicked Perry in the groin. It won't be the last time, either. And Kinky's entry into the race will guarantee that whatever happens to the Republican Party in Texas will be witnessed, live, across the nation.
If Chris Bell holds onto the 37% that voted for John Kerry and the 40% that voted for Tony Sanchez, he wins.
What scares me is the possibility that Strayhorn's trail-lawyer benefactors will continue to throw their money at her for the rest of the campaign. Without that kind of financial support, I fear that Bell or Bob Gammage will get squeezed out monetarily. Strayhorn already has a bunch of cash, and Kinky Friedman says he's got close to a million bucks. Where is the Democratic candidate going to get campaign funding amid all that?
Gov. Rick Perry will kick off the 2006 campaign season with a 30-second television ad airing during today's Cotton Bowl matchup between Texas Tech and Alabama.
The ad will debut just hours after Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn announces whether she will challenge Perry in the March Republican primary or run for the office as an independent.
"Our people are compassionate, our visions bold, our values strong. The best is yet to come," Perry says in the ad, which also will run during Wednesday's Rose Bowl, when Texas will take on Southern California for the college football national championship. "I'm proud of Texas. How 'bout you?"
Perry campaign spokesman Robert Black said the ads will run during a time when Texans are particularly proud of their state — and two of its athletic teams.
"There will be some in this campaign who will try to make Texans believe that Texas is little more than a third-world country," Black said. "But Gov. Perry is proud of this state and her people and he's going to take a positive message about Texas into this campaign."
The top deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused two years ago to approve important parts of the secret program that allows domestic eavesdropping without warrants, prompting two leading White House aides to try to win the needed approval from Mr. Ashcroft himself while he was hospitalized after a gall bladder operation, according to officials knowledgeable about the episode.
... For years, law enforcement used so-called roving wire taps to investigate organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order-and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example.
(T)here were "times when you have to go above the written law."
On one day in the spring of 2004, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without success—to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping. Miffed that Comey, a straitlaced, by-the-book former U.S. attorney from New York, was not a "team player" on this and other issues, President George W. Bush dubbed him with a derisive nickname, "Cuomo," after Mario Cuomo, the New York governor who vacillated over running for president in the 1980s. (The White House denies this; Comey declined to comment.)
The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.
During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners would not identify the money's origins.
Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).
The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy.
...
Whatever the real motive for the contribution of $1 million -- a sum not prohibited by law but extraordinary for a small, nonprofit group -- the steady stream of corporate payments detailed on the donor list makes it clear that Abramoff's long-standing alliance with DeLay was sealed by a much more extensive web of financial ties than previously known.
And there's a whole lot more at the link, including how DeLay's wife went on the payroll, how the cabal purchased a townhouse and went into contortions to wriggle around the financial and disclosure rules, and so on and so on.
This is another example of Tom DeLay's personal hypocrisy, as demonstrated in his own words, and another reason why he's a dead man walking (politically speaking only, of course -- Hello, NSA).
Because if Ronnie Earle can't nail him, Jack Abramoff will.
Update: More details about the DeLay/Abramoff/Russian connection from MSNBC, here.
Update#2: Josh Marshall summarizes.
Marshall resident and attorney Ben Z. Grant on Thursday announced he will be a candidate for Texas Lieutenant Governor in the March Democratic primary.
Grant, 65, a former state representative who also served 17 years as justice of the Sixth Court of Appeals in Texarkana, said he is looking forward to the statewide race.
...
Grant retired from the Sixth Court of Criminal Appeals when his term ended in 2002. He served as a state representative from 1971 until 1981.Grant was also a district judge for the 71st Judicial District Court in Harrison County and was appointed to the court of appeals in 1985 by then-Gov. Mark White. He said he spent 37 years in government, starting his career as a school teacher.
Grant has also been a columnist for the M N-M, giving them the scoop here. If he gets some competition in the primary, we won't know about it until the end of the filing period, which is next Monday.
Enron's former chief accounting officer, Richard Causey, has struck a plea bargain with federal prosecutors and will avoid going to trial with the fallen energy company's two top executives, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. ...
Causey, 45, agreed to testify against his former bosses, Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, in exchange for a much lesser prison sentence than he would receive if convicted on all counts. The trial is scheduled to begin next month, but a delay is considered likely since defense attorneys would want more time to prepare for the government's new witness.Causey is charged with fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, lying to auditors and money laundering for allegedly knowing about or participating in a series of schemes to fool investors into believing Enron was financially healthy. The company imploded in late 2001 amid disclosures of complicated financing schemes that gave the appearance of success.
As indicated, the trials of Lay and Skilling will likely be postponed while their lawyers scheme a strategy to attack Causey, who is now a hostile witness. Causey ranks higher on the totem pole than Fastow, was an insider to the boardroom where Lay and Skilling managed the company, and is without the stain of self-enrichment that accompanies Andy Fastow:
Causey could be more damaging to Lay and Skilling than former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow, who joined the government's cadre of cooperating witnesses when he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in January 2004. Unlike his former peer, Causey didn't skim millions of dollars for himself from shady deals and therefore would bring less baggage to the witness stand."While they were preparing to deal with Fastow, Causey is another matter," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor. "Fastow has been so demonized by the books and media accounts of the Enron collapse that he is an enticing target for the defense teams."
And finally, for the trivia buffs:
Causey would become the 16th ex-Enron executive to plead guilty and agree to cooperate with the government.
Could it be more embarrassment for the Republicans in the new year as the Enron thieves turn on each other?
