Cornyn 47, Noriega 43

Rasmussen. Also from Eric at Talking Points ...

Noriega will have his work cut out for him, though -- the latest FEC reports show Noriega with only about $300,000 cash on hand, compared to the incumbent's $8.6 million cash on hand.

God damn right he does. Can you help us get rid of Senator Box Turtle?

Update: Kos has more, including the presidential numbers. Texas is already purple and right on the verge of turning blue. Right now.

Does pastorbation lead to blindness?

Or is it the other way around?

Now that the corporate media has completed another week-long Pastorbation, the question remains: did the people see through it -- or fall for it? Will voters in North Carolina, Indiana, and the other remaining states read the reporters' game of pursuing trivial wedge issues and exacerbating cultural tensions for the sake of ratings? Or will they succumb to the base appeals of fear and prejudice?

We will sure enough get some answers on Tuesday. And so let's discuss ...

-- Why did our presstitutes pastorbate with such enthusiasm again?

Does our media see their children and the future of this country in the same way as the rest of us do, or do they divorce themselves from their patriotism in order to do their jobs (i.e. get paid handsomely)? Do they see the harm that their yellow journalism costs our nation, or do they just not care? Do they rationalize their actions and words to themselves, or do they simply shut their eyes to their handiwork?

We are all guilty of buying into what they sell us time and time again. Hillary supporters loved it when she was "inevitable" for a year, and Obama supporters likewise when the press cherished him during some of that same time. There were those of us who became fans of John Edwards in 2004 when he was held up as being able to talk owls out of a tree -- and encouraged to be selected as vice president to John Kerry. Kucinich, Richardson and Biden supporters, whose candidates never even saw the light of day, know this best of all, as they have rarely if ever been pleased about anything that the media had to report.

In other words, we have all been through "it" to varying degrees.

-- So what's the lesson (for those of us who haven't learned, or have forgotten it) ?

I had pretty much learned this in 2000, 2002, and in 2004, but it appears -- like many others -- that I fell prey again this year. Believe me, these world-class manipulators understand exactly how to push our buttons, line us up one against the other for their own purpose, which has nothing to do with information, fairness, reason-ability or patriotism or any of that.

How else can we explain eight years of George W. Bush?

Allow me a digression. The us v. them, good guys versus bad guys mentality pervades everything in our society. Case in point: last weekend I attended the San Jacinto Festival, where a re-enactment of Sam Houston's famous charge and capture of Gen. Santa Anna in the pivotal battle for Texas independence was reprised. As I stood near the line where the Mexican encampment was recreated -- in order, I correctly guessed -- to watch the charge of the Texicans to victory, I heard someone behind me say: " We're on the wrong side. Let's go stand on the Texas side." I turned and remarked, "If you wait a minute, this will BE the Texas side." A few people around me chuckled in low tones, but the woman and her children moved on down without looking back. I then turned back and said, "This isn't a football game, is it?" to more hearty laughter.

So what can we do? If one POV is always being played against the other, and the corporate media successfully retains the appearance of objectivity to at least enough of the viewers, aren't we really ALL being played?

I try not to watch a lot of cable news these days, because I simply cannot afford to be fooled time and time again. I see how they set off one faction against another, which is why they keep winning the battles and are indeed having a larger voice than they should as they wrestle for control of our democracy.

I believe that it is all of our jobs now to turn off the corporate news, particularly the Sunday Talking Heads. Whether they are on our side This Week versus being on the other side the next, we are enabling them to have power and influence over us when and how they want it. Today it is Barack Obama they are against, but tomorrow it will be Hillary once more. Once the Democratic nominee is finalized and the General Election Smackdown foes are established, it will be Republican v. Democrat with the TV talkers taking someone's message and presenting it as news, alternating weeks depending on the salaciousness it. In other words, we cannot support the traditional media and believe that we are being well-informed; indeed we are only being manipulated, and never for the greater good, but rather for their corporate good.

And as always, certainly at some later date, once it no longer matters, the media will re-examine itself, and matter-of-factly admit what it has done ... in hopes that we will believe that they recognize the error of their ways.

Problem is that they will not pay a price, and they will not stop doing what they are doing in the future.

And so I have decided that they will not again manipulate me. I have decided that I will no longer trust, watch or participate in encouraging the corporate media's "news" programs. They are a danger to our democracy, and to believe otherwise is to successfully be taken for a fool over and over and over again at our own collective detriment. I know, because it has happened to me. Over and over again.

"Bishop of the Poor" elected president of Paraguay

Boosh may want to re-consider that large parcel of land he purchased there as insurance for war criminal proceedings against him in the wake of this news, from Democracy Now! ...

AMY GOODMAN: A former Catholic priest once known as the Bishop of the Poor has been elected president. Fernando Lugo will be the first Paraguayan president since 1946 not to be from the conservative Colorado Party. Lugo won 41 percent of the vote, beating Blanca Ovelar, who received 31 percent. Lugo has pledged to crack down on corruption and channel Paraguay’s wealth into social programs.

PRESIDENT-ELECT FERNANDO LUGO: [translated] May we never again, in the political class of Paraguay, never again base our politics on clientism and enticements, because it has done so much to damage our national politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Lugo’s win ends more than six decades of one-party rule in Paraguay. Election officials said Sunday’s voting had the highest turnout, about 66 percent, of any presidential election since 1993.

Lugo is the first bishop ever to become president of a country. Both Paraguay and the Vatican ban clergy from seeking political office, so Lugo resigned in December 2006. Lugo says he was influenced by the liberation theology of the ’60s. He told the Associated Press he would not move to the presidential palace, remaining instead in his modest house in a middle-class suburb. He said the first lady would be his eldest sister.

Washington has signaled a willingness to work with Lugo and hailed his election as a “step forward” in Paraguay, but a State Department official told the Los Angeles Times his victory had left Washington worried about its waning influence in Latin America.

In a pre-election interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lugo noted Washington’s sometimes-contradictory role in Latin America, saying, “The United States…has sustained the great dictatorships, but afterward lifted the banner of democracy.” He went on to say Washington must acknowledge a new scenario in which Latin American governments “won’t accept any type of intervention from any country, no matter how big it is.”

Rest of the story here.

Sunday Funnies

An Offical Moran

"Excellent Point: In Houston, a Texan protesting amnesty for illegal immigrants argues that anyone who can't master English doesn't deserve to live in America."

This moran replaces her counterpart for biggest public conservative fool not a Talking Head...

I believe the tide IS turning.

In all seriousness. And it makes me nauseous to say so.

And I would not have said it even last week, but I now believe it is apparent that Mrs. Clinton is gathering momentum for a late surge to capture the Democratic nomination.

If she pulls out Indiana and makes it close in NC -- as the recent polling indicates she is doing -- her case for the nomination becomes stronger. Obama is having difficulty shaking the seemingly endless Wright controversy, and every day that is the news it hurts him.

One other statistical observation as evidence in the case for Mrs. Clinton: both retail store figures as well as eyewitness accounts across the country report a collapse in sales of thong underwear and a strong increase in that of 100% cotton granny panties.

(Gotcha.)

Fact-checking Voter ID

"It's especially worrisome that the court has sent a signal making it easier to put up barriers to people voting," said Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. "There's a real risk that people will see this as a green light to pass restrictive voter ID laws in other states."

Uh, yeah ...

Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hailed Monday's Supreme Court ruling that approves states' efforts to pass a voter identification law and said he looks forward to passing such a measure when the legislature meets again next year.

The ruling galvanizes a Republican-inspired effort that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

"With this legal challenge now behind us, I look forward to passing a fair voter ID law in Texas next year that fully protects the voting rights of all U.S. citizens registered to vote in Texas," Dewhurst said.

Except that Voter ID is legislation to fix a problem which only exists in the minds of Republican conspiracy theorists:

Republican Claim: Voter Fraud is an "Epidemic" in Texas

FACT CHECK: Even fiercely partisan Republican Attorney General Abbott has admitted that after spending millions of Texas and federal taxpayer dollars investigating, "there have been few [voter fraud] prosecutions in Texas." The Austin American Statesman editorialized: "Voter fraud is not an issue because Texas is not being flooded with unregistered voters and illegal immigrants flocking to the polls. That just isn't happening." (Source: Austin American-Statesman, April 26, 2007)

Republican Claim: Non-citizens voting is a major problem throughout the U.S.

FACT CHECK: The Department of Justice’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative has resulted in just 14 convictions of non-citizens voting in the entire United States between 2002 and 2005. That is less then 5 noncitizens voting a year. (Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Public Integrity Section, Election Fraud Prosecutions & Convictions, Ballot Access & Voting Integrity Initiative, October 2002 – September 2005; The Politics of Voter Fraud, Minnite, Ph.D. Columbia University)

Republican Claim: Everyone has an ID

FACT CHECK: Even the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute admitted that 37% of Texas residents over the age of 80 did not have a driver's license. (TCCRI Commentary, May 1, 2007)

Republican Claim: Democratic operatives are pushing the opposition to the Voter Suppression Bill

FACT CHECK: The objections to the voter ID legislation are broad and bipartisan. The bill is opposed by non-partisan groups like the AARP and League of Women Voters, as well as every major Texas newspaper and many local newspapers. (Source: Associated Press, April 23, 2007) Former Republican Party Political Director Royal Massett has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the bill saying: "Anyone who says all legal voters under this bill can vote doesn't know what he is talking about." (Source: The Houston Chronicle, April 26, 2007)

http://www.lonestarproject.net/archive/2007-11-30VoteSuppress.pdf

So back to the point ...

Across the country, as many as 20 million people lack such identification, most of them minorities and the elderly who don't have drivers' licenses or passports and are unable to afford the cost of obtaining documentation to apply for such identification, advocacy groups say.

In Indiana, more than 20 percent of black voters do not have access to a valid photo ID, according to an October 2007 study by the University of Washington.

In Marion County, 34 Indiana voters without the proper identification were forced to file provisional ballots in an offseason local election. According to Indiana's photo law, voters have 10 days to return to the county courthouse with the proper identification. They can also file an affidavit claiming poverty.

"Who's going to do that?" asked Bob Brandon, president of Fair Elections Legal Network, a nonpartisan network of election lawyers. "Who's going to show up and sign an affidavit saying 'I'm poor'?"

They just have to make it close enough to steal

Sure, the media is obsessed with trashing Obama or Clinton, depending on the week or sound byte that can be taken out of context and twisted to insinuate that Democrats hate America or love terrorists or whatever other utter horseshit that they can conjure up to distract from the fact that John McCain is dangerous, or contradictory or just a flat out liar.

But the corporate media as well as McSame himself are just two pieces in a larger puzzle: the one to keep “The Base” happy and wealthy. We can hear lie after hyperbole after projection about how the Democrats are weak or that Hamas wants McCain to lose or that Osama secretly cast his ballot in 2004 for Kerry.

We know that is all nonsense -- and that thankfully, many more Americans are waking up to that fact as well. And with a growing number of Americans thinking that the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections were stolen, not to mention the US Attorney purge, the Justice Department’s gaming the system from the inside, illegal redistricting, illegal phone jamming, voter ID laws that serve to suppress likely Democratic voters and FEC commissioners who have a history of illegal partisan voter suppression, it isn’t like there is ample evidence that Republicans steal elections -- and that is before you even get to the hanging chads, questionable SCOTUS decisions and Diebold hacking.

Need more? Go on.

The Weekly Wrangle

Here's the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog round-up, from submissions by member blogs from the week just past.

North Texas Liberal analyzed the arguments from Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Flower Mound, and Newt Gingrich in favor of the flat tax. See their conclusions here.

The Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas is a monumental ass. PDiddie of Brains and Eggs has the dirty details in "Discussted".

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News informed his readers about the local elections and other events taking place in a Local Early Voting Edition.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has this week's Transportation Wrap-Up.

WhosPlayin resumes his watch on Michael Burgess, and joins North Texas Liberal in rejecting his "flat tax" proposal as a tax increase on the middle class.

Hal at Half Empty wonders why Texas' junior senator, John Cornyn, doesn't support our troops.

Over at McBlogger, Captain Kroc has a real problem with some of the concessions the City made to a certain developer looking to build condos on Lake Lady Bird.

The Texas Cloverleaf promotes a story about more shenanigans in the Texas Youth Commission, this time forcing a Denton County superintendent to quit before she is fired.

Last week, KUHT (PBS Channel 8) in Houston ran a special on immigration and public attitudes towards it called Houston Have Your Say, which included public officials, activists, ordinary citizens, and a couple of bloggers. Off the Kuff was one of those bloggers, and he wrote about his impressions here.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the Texas Association of Business is calling for education reform and wonders if anyone else sees the hypocrisy in that situation.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin looks at yet another VA screw up and continues to ignore the welfare of our troops in the VA Caught In Suicide Coverup.

Sunday Evening Funnies

"Discussted"

I was a big fan of Rich Hall's Sniglets in the '80s. Lately, in both the e-mail I receive and the various blogs and online fora I visit, I regularly find myself laughing out loud at misspelled words with brand new meanings, such as the one in the title of this posting.

How many times have you found yourself in a conversation meeting the description above, after all?

Judging by this article in Texas Monthly, and this article and the reader comments in the Chron, it must happen to everyone within audio range of the Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas inside of 15 seconds:

Jerry Patterson is a concealed-weapon-carrying, tobacco-dipping, canvas-death-trap-flying maverick whose management of the Christmas Mountains has ticked off everyone from Rick Perry to the Sierra Club. Not that he cares.

"Proving once again that I grew up weird, when I was a kid I enjoyed it when we were driving behind a Houston bus — loved the smell of diesel fumes," Patterson recently confessed in an e-mail to supporters of a program that helps governmental entities switch their fleets to clean-burning natural gas. "That might explain my thought processes as an adult." ...

"Many would describe me as kooky, but I don't really care," he said. "If the voters disagree with what I'm doing, there's the next election, or there's impeachment. I do what I think is right, and I don't concern myself with public opinion."

Jerry Patterson has been both dipshit and embarrassment for too long now. Let's find someone and send him some public opinion he can't ignore in 2010.

Former GOP White House counsel chokes on sheep balls

Maybe it was just one. Surely he wasn't trying to swallow more than one ...

Former senator Paul Laxalt's all male, annual lamb fry dinner at the Georgetown Club tends not to be an especially raucous affair. The 28th dinner the other night, prepared as always in Basque style in honor of Laxalt's heritage, featured the usual delicacy of the night, lamb's testicles, which are said to have unusual medicinal qualities.

And while some of the tuxedoed and slightly aging pols and pals -- including Vice President Cheney, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), former House Republican leader Bob Michel, retired Marine Gen. P.X. Kelley, former GOP chairman and now lobbyist Frank Fahrenkopf, former Veterans Affairs secretary and former ambassador to the Vatican Jim Nicholson, and legendary lobbyist Bill Timmons -- don't move as fast as they used to, they can still hop to it in an emergency.

And they did when White House counsel Fred Fielding appeared to be choking -- not on the featured delicacy, we are assured. Ron Kaufman of Dutko Worldwide (and a volunteer for Mitt Romney's campaign) and then Ed Rollins (who played a lead role in Mike Huckabee's bid for the White House) took turns trying the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge it. Rollins brought over a chair to stand on for extra leverage, one guest said.

There's some disagreement about what happened next. One attendee said Rollins popped the obstruction out, another said Fielding eventually swallowed it. Well, either way ...

Oh I see now the article says he wasn't gagging on a lamb's testicle. Perhaps it was his conscience, then...