Kudos to the happy couple

Annise Parker and Kathy Hubbard are now wife and wife.

(O)n the 23rd anniversary of the start of their lives together, Mayor Annise Parker and Kathy Hubbard got married in Palm Springs, California.

The marriage had been anticipated for several days, but it wasn't known exactly when it would happen.

Wayne had it first.  And let's move on past this also.

The mayor's office also explained that: "Ms. Hubbard has other insurance options available to her and will, therefore, not participate in the new policy granting city health insurance benefits to the spouses of legally-married city employees," which means they've avoided an attack by anyone saying Parker pushed for the change just so she could benefit from it. 

As Josh Marshall observes: when even Utah, Oklahoma, and the Supreme Court have ceded the moral high ground their legal objections... you know that Texas will make every effort to be dead last.  That's right; behind Alabama and Mississippi, despite what the immortal Nate Silver predicted last spring.

So say good night to Phil Robertson and Mike Huckabee and Greg Abbott and all of the losers who commented negatively here with their real names and their fake names, and everybody who lines up with them, and all the rest of the best of the worst conservatives in the world.  Congratulations to you all as well: you're as finished as is this latest chapter in American bigotry.

The proud Texans among your number might inquire of your elected representatives whether they will vote to decriminalize marijuana or pass casino gambling before they legalize marriage in the Great State.  You know, those sins you actually commit that aren't as high up your list.

And please let us know if they give you a straight answer.

Update: Houston Press' Hair Balls, with the six most pathetic objections to Mayor Parker's marriage (and gay marriage generally).

Davis "on her own two feet", Scherr hits at Alameel

-- This is going to rile up the compassionate conservatives.

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Did you catch that?  Why, it's almost as offensive as that "Greg Abbott walks into a bar" joke.  The fauxtrage generated by the ilk of the fellow who coined the phrase 'AB' is your Belly Laugh O'Day.

(Special to Greg: Clean up your own house.  And start with that pig Erickson.)

-- After Wendy Davis endorsed the wealthy dentist running for US Senate to begin this week, it was inevitable that this attack would present itself.  This e-mail is signed by Victor Reyes, Scherr's deputy campaign manager, and arrived in my inbox yesterday.

David Alameel, the alleged Democrat running for the US Senate, has bankrolled the anti-choice Republican agenda for years.  I'm not talking about a couple thousand dollars here.  He has given $1.6 million dollars to the Republicans who oppose Roe v. Wade and vote to erode a woman's right to choose at every turn.

Here are a few specifics on Alameel's record on supporting the Republican agenda:

• Alameel gave $150,000 to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst who led the charge to pass anti choice legislation and called women who went to protest in the Capitol an “unruly mob”;
• Alameel gave $4,200 to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who voted to allow any employer to refuse to cover contraception or any health service required under the health reform law for virtually any reason;
• Alameel gave $8,400.00 to Senator Orin Hatch who sponsored an amendment that “would ban any organizations that provide abortions, including hospitals, from receiving Medicaid family planning funds -- even if those abortions are to save a woman's life”;
• Alameel gave $25,000.00 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee who defended the comment that abortions should not be legal even in the case of rape;

So I have a big question that we Democrats need to resolve before the March 4th primary:

If Texas Democrats care about women’s rights and protecting choice, then how can we possibly nominate a candidate who has a long track record of funding the Republicans who are anti-choice?

An excellent point.  I won't be helping nominate the good doctor in any way, shape, or form.  I'm putting him in the same folder as Kesha Rogers.

Update: Texpate has a more nuanced and critical view of Scherr's broadside, but also thinks there is more to be learned -- perhaps by some enterprising corporate journalist -- about Alameel's stances on reproductive rights.

It's all about the money.

You can find all the reports you want about fundraising everywhere you look -- on the blogs, on your Facebook wall, in your Twitter feed, and even on your teevee and in the newspaper.

Bu that's really not the news.

Marianne Williamson is a motivational speaker and author running as an independent against one of California's most entrenched Democratic Congressmen.  I'll be checking in with her campaign a lot, because she represents everything I look for in a potential elected official.

In other words, she is the polar opposite of someone like David Alameel.

So while the bloggers and political consultants rave and the media laps it all up -- and then vomits it out for you to lick up -- try to keep in mind that what we are experiencing at the moment is what eventually results in the wonderful set of circumstances our politics has become, in Austin and in Washington DC.  And even at the county courthouse and at city hall.

Somebody ask Ben Hall or or Bill White or David Dewhurst or even Meg Whitman -- she of the $144 million dollar personal campaign budget -- how all that money they spent on their efforts for elective office worked out for them.  And then ask yourself: how much better would things be if the richest man (or woman) had won?

That's how the 'experts' handicap races.  They do it with baseball teams, too.  And the Yankees don't win every year.  How about that.

Wendy Davis is on pace (no matter how one counts it) to amass the fifty million dollars the talking heads said she had to raise in order to have a chance to beat "Wheelchair Ken".  In other words, if she loses then she won't be able to say she couldn't raise enough money as an excuse.

I have contributed to her campaign, and I sincerely hope she doesn't lose.  But I also don't see any deviation from a path we have trod for decades now, which shows not even the smallest sign of changing the kind of government we have.  The one that gets bought and paid for every two years.

Water wars come to Texas

Yes, West Virginians have much bigger problems, and the national media ignores them, but what's happening in South Texas is a harbinger of battles to come.

Schools are closed in a one-stoplight South Texas town after the city shut off their water amid a dispute over the bill.

The city of La Villa shut off water and sewer service to the La Villa Independent School District in December, shortly after students started their holiday break. The city had increased a water surcharge and the school district has refused to pay the higher rate.

The district's approximately 625 students were supposed to return to classes Monday, but instead found this message on the school district's website: "All La Villa I.S.D. schools will be closed until further notice."

Students raising pigs at the district farm just behind the baseball field had to find new homes for their projects. The boys and girls basketball teams have had their home games converted to away games until the dispute is resolved. They beg court time for practices from other area districts. Seniors fret — perhaps prematurely — over whether they might be forced to finish out their final year in another district.

"It's a really sad situation knowing they can't come to terms," said Angie Reyna, who on Monday coaxed her daughter Amanda, a senior in La Villa, into coming to work at a relative's drive-thru convenience store in Elsa on Monday.

South Texas Chisme has been on the case, and the Republican candidates for Texas agriculture commissioner are even starting to come around... when their attention can be directed away from abortion and Duck Dynasty, that is. (Yoo hoo, Tex Trib: even the Dems are talking about water).

The dispute has been festering for more than a year in the town of about 2,000, 25 miles east of McAllen. In December 2011, the city approved adding a surcharge for water and sewer service to the school district on top of the usage rate. It was initially set at $10 per person — students, staff — but the district fought it down to $6 and the two sides inked an agreement in November 2012. But the city commission turned around the following month and raised the surcharge to $14.

The school district has continued paying at the $6 surcharge rate, but the city says it's more than $58,000 in arrears.

"We got here because some adults are irresponsible," said school district Superintendent Narciso Garcia.

He said the city's financial problems and decrepit water plant are well known, and that desperate commissioners are just trying to squeeze the school district to get back into the black. The school district and a private jail housing federal prisoners are the town's two main employers.

In a letter to the Texas Education Agency in December, Mayor Hector Elizondo wrote: "This was a raise in rates that was absolutely necessary in order that the City upgrade its aging utility systems and meet quality standards set by (the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality)."

What does the school district do when they can't afford to pay for the city's water? What does the city do when the water system finally peters out?

A last ditch attempt at resolving the dispute over the weekend foundered when the two sides, meeting simultaneously blocks apart from each other Saturday night, could not agree. The school district offered to pay a $7 surcharge, the city countered with $12, so the school board decided to go home.

Both sides are scheduled to appear Wednesday in Austin before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The school district has requested an emergency order to compel the city to turn the water back on. School officials made a similar request in December, but the TCEQ declined to act then. If the TCEQ gets the water back on, Garcia said schools could reopen Friday.

These sound like small numbers, but it's what's facing every small town and school district across Texas. A crumbling infrastructure, a declining tax base, and a withering natural resource are all contributors to the crisis, and a neglectful gang of politicians just exacerbates it.

You don't suppose the state legislature could be convinced to raise some fees or taxes to address something they've already ignored for decades, do you?

Update: Yes, I am aware of the Lege's efforts in the last session to address the state's water emergency.  I am also aware of the bombast in taking credit for "solving" it.  It's not solved, and the bills passed last year are not making a difference in remediating the problems, especially as fracking and its insane water demands proceed apace throughout Texas.