The FairTax and other right-wing populist scams

I came home late last night to the New Hampshire returns because I was on the program (along with David Mincberg, Michael Skelly, and Steven Kirkland) at the meeting of Galleria Democrats to debate the Fair Tax.

Well, 'debate' isn't the right word. It was more like a beatdown of the poor guy advocating in its favor.

Anyway, on the news that Kuffner posts regarding the alliance of former Houston mayor Bob Lanier and FairTax founder Leo Linbeck Jr. and others to camouflage their latest elitist-welfare scheme as grassroots populism, it's worth pausing to note the various "citizen activist" efforts Linbeck is involved in, such as Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

(Recall that one of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist's fundamental strategies for starving the Democratic Party has been to starve plaintiff's attorneys by reforming tort laws; in Texas, with Republicans controlling every statewide office including all nine seats on the Texas Supreme Court as well as most of the Texas Legislature, they managed to push through damages caps on lawsuits like medical malpractice, for example. This article details the effects of that on the local legal community -- and the injured patients wounded a second time by tort reform.)

Linbeck is simply another stinking-rich conservative Republican who doesn't have enough yachts to water-ski behind. His activism consists of his actively looking for ways to hoodwink uninformed suburbanites who have mindlessly cast their straight GOP tickets for self-devastating causes like these before. And he's almost as successful at that as he is at making millions in his core businesses.

FairTax, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and now Houstonians for Responsible Growth. Orwellian truthspeak in name, nefarious welfare-for-the-wealthy in intent.

Let's not get fooled again, shall we?

Well, well. We got a race.

Clinton 39, Obama 37, Edwards 17 (81% in).

On the Republican side, not so much surprise: McCain 37, Romney 32, Huckabee 11, 9iu11ani 9, Paul 8 (78%). Thompson 1%. LMAO

OK, back to the presidential race (emphasis mine):

After Iowa, Clinton and her aides seemed resigned to a second straight setback. But polling place interviews showed that female voters — who deserted her last week — were solidly in her New Hampshire column.

She also was winning handily among registered Democrats. Obama led her by an even larger margin among independents, but he suffered from a falloff in turnout among young voters compared with Iowa.

Word of Clinton's triumph set off a raucous celebration among supporters at a hotel in Nashua — gathered there to celebrate a first-in-the-nation primary every bit as surprising as the one 16 years ago that allowed a young Bill Clinton to proclaim himself "the comeback kid."

Ah, the Comeback Gal will be the story for the next few weeks. More on that girl thing:

So there's a huge gender gap. Massive. Apparently, women didn't take kindly to people beating up on Hillary for -- gasp! -- tearing up. Can you believe it? In a way, this is a nice middle finger to that bullshit double standard.

Had a nice lively conversation today about whether that statement by Edwards was sexist or not. I thought it wasn't, but maybe obviously I was wrong.

Update (1/9): Two different yet similar opinions on why Clinton snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Not how. Why.

FOX News: now even conservatives know it sucks

After Ron Paul was denied the opportunity to participate in a debate of Republican presidential candidates carried by FOX, he held his own forum in New Hampshire. The local Paulistas took the Chron's bait and posted diatribes against the Fairly Unbalanced news network, calling them "traitors" and "scumbags" -- epithets usually reserved for capital criminals, victims of Joe Horn, and Democrats. Some of the 'nicer' comments:

Torque wrote:

Fox, Fox News, their supporters, and sponsors just earned a LIFELONG boycott from me! I suggest all Ron Paul supporters do the same. They should have let him debate, them neo-facist Nazi War MONGERS pretending to be fair media! Lies.

Kind-of sucks for me too because COPS was one of my favorite shows.

Clearspeak wrote:

According to the numbers, Mr. Paul had a right to be included. Fox is trying to put in a "fix", blatantly manipulating the contest, and should have their license pulled by the FCC.

Josey2006 wrote:

If you're upset with Fox News, do like I've done: Buy a share of their stock and crash their stockholder meeting in October.

Hankskool wrote:

Why would Fox want to invite a true fiscal conservative to rain on their reckless parade? Somehow they've already bamboozled millions into believing they provide a conservative "balance" to the rest of the "liberal" news coverage despite the fact that their idea of fiscal conservativism , both for the individual and the nation, is to borrow as much money as you can and blow it all. How many ads a day did they run on behalf of the subprime frauds anyway? So much for conservative having anything to do with "conserve". Most of their pundits have already endorsed Rudy G.. A smaller government conservative ? No, actually if he had his way the U.S. would be a full blown police state with one cop for every citizen, hardly smaller government from the free individual's standpoint.
FAUX NEWS-- We've taken the conserve out of conservative!

So then the Paulites decided to protest outside the Faux News building in New York, where they ambushed Sean Hannity as he was leaving (you have to watch the video).



This on top of Bill O'Reilly's meltdown at an Obama campaign event, where he screamed at, grabbed and shoved an Obama staffer. Secret Service agents actually surrounded the guy. Yes, there's a YouTube of it also, though it isn't as embarrassing to O'Reilly as it could have been:



Boycotts, protests, embarrassing actions by their anchors videotaped -- how long before FOX's core audience really does put down the Kool-Aid, sober up and start deserting them?

As with the rest of the crumbling Republican monolith, are we watching the beginning of the end of Faux News' media "dominance"?

Pop the corn.

Update: Robert Greenwald's video is a more thorough report on the flap between FOX and Obama that O'Reilly apparently is exacerbating.

2008's first Weekly Wrangle

And they're off!

TXsharon burned despair's chair. See Bluedaze for an inspirational New Year's message of hope.

Off the Kuff asked a variety of interesting people to write a post named Looking Forward to 2008. Topics ranged from music and television to local, state, and national politics. The entire series, which wrapped up last week, can be found here.

Barfly at McBlogger says thank you to our neighbor to the north for giving us some of our most cherished celebrities. Like Celine Dion.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston lists who is running for officeand who is not in Clear Lake.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News saw the Iowa results as a progressive sweep and picked out the winners and losers.

winding road in urban area declared that of all the undignified events surrounding the Harris County District Attorney's office, the announcement regarding assistant district attorney Kelly Seigler's run for her boss' job has taken the proverbial cake. It is just charming that Ms. Seigler said on camera, that aspects of being district attorney "sucks." Nothing says "get to know me" the first time a voter may see a candidate like saying the job I want, "sucks!"

nytexan at BlueBloggin points out the newest GOP stunt to block the Senate and screw up another presidential election. With the primary season underway for the presidential race the Federal Election Commission has shut its doors.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes James 'Rick' Perry ignored ceremony for fallen Texas military hero. That's how Republicans support and honor our troops!

It was a bad start to 2008 (if you happened to be a Republican), no matter if your name was Vicki Truitt, or Chuck Rosenthal, or Jared Woodfill, or Mitt Romney. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has more on the conservative misery.

To kick off the new year for Texas Kaos, Lightseeker takes a look at some of The Big Texas Issues we'll be talking about in the coming year.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson opines about the death of Ric Williamson and who will be the next leader of TxDOT.

Muse is only now able to get her bulls---t detector to quiet down after Harris County DA, Chuck "Romancethal" Rosenthal, told the Houston Chronicle that he was only sending romantic emails to his secretary because she had personal problems. Right (wink, wink, former FBI agent wife). What else happened? Pity sex?

Phillip at Burnt Orange Report takes a preliminary look at some numbers on filings for the Texas House, including the large number of Republicans that are facing both a primary and general election opponent.

Texas Toad at North Texas Liberal introduces the new slate of Denton County Democratic candidates, as revealed at a press conference promoting the strength of the local party with high hopes for 2008.

The Texas Cloverleaf cautions you to smoke 'em if ya got 'em, but you still might go to jail. DFW area law enforcement is ignoring the new option to give citations to pot smokers.

On The Texas Blue this week, contributor David Gurney explains that he doesn't really buy this business of a "war on Christmas."