You're eating WHAT ?!?

I've gotten more than the usual inquiries lately regarding the origin of the title of this blog, and though I've answered the question "What is 'Brains and Eggs' and why do you call it that?" many times, I haven't done so here.

Brains and eggs were considered a breakfast delicacy by my maternal grandmother, who lived in the South -- mostly Arkansas and Louisiana -- and through the Depression. I suspect that what she ate was cow brains scrambled with eggs, because during her life people rarely disposed of any part of a beef cow, and the two items cooked together have a similar consistency and texture. But it could have been calf brains or even pork brains that she was so fond of (perhaps my mother, who reads this blog, will post a comment and clarify).

KookyChow.com has an interesting page informing us that a 5.5 oz can of Armour's Pork Brains contains almost 12 days of the recommended (?) value of cholesterol:



More references to "brains and eggs" appear online; a Yahoo search turns up an episode of the television comedy "3rd Rock from the Sun" by that name which first aired in January of 1996, and contained some of the following dialogue:

Dick: I think we underestimated the life on this planet. The people have so much courage. Here they are hurling through space on a melting rock on at 67,000 miles an hour and the only thing that keeps them from flying out of their shoes is their misplaced faith in gravity.

Mary: For future reference I have a red Volvo.
Dick: Please, Dr. Albright, we barely know each other.

Nina: Is your wife out of town?
Dick: Er, Mrs. Solomon is no longer with us. She... er, burned up on re-entry.
Nina: I had a boyfriend who used to burn up on re-entry. He walks with a limp now...

There are recipes and accounts of having served as well as consumed the dish. I have never tasted brains and eggs and probably won't, and not just because of bovine spongeform encephalopathy. I find simply the consideration of consuming them perhaps as you do: nauseating.

A few songs have been recorded with the title "Brains and Eggs"; here's a place to download an mp3 of Los Straitjackets' riff. Before Aimee Mann formed 'Til Tuesday, she was in a band called the Young Snakes, who wrote a different version by the same name. I can't seem to dig up any published lyrics, so go give a listen.

I'll be happy to answer any further questions you may have ...

(This morning it's Total mixed with Honey Nut Cheerios, a banana sliced over the top and sprinkled with cinnamon. Tomorrow, back to the soy protein shake with strawberries and blueberries blended in. I don't drink cow's milk and haven't for years; Silk Soy Milk -- the Enhanced version with omega-3s and such -- is what replaces it.)

More arrogance and incompetence from the Texas Attorney General

The Corpus-Christi Caller-Times reports this rather alarming -- even for Greg Abbott -- defiance of a federal judge:

U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack is incensed at Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for seizing X-rays, some of which are now missing, that are key to federal and state investigations into potentially fraudulent diagnoses of the lung disease silicosis.

Jack made national headlines last year when she issued an opinion that the majority of more than 10,000 silicosis lawsuits before her were about litigation rather than medical care and that the "diagnoses were driven neither by health nor justice: they were manufactured for money."

Abbott's office, along with a congressional committee and the U.S. Attorney's Office, have been investigating since.

Four armed agents from Abbott's office visited the storage facility where thousands of X-rays related to the case were being housed on behalf of the federal court with a subpoena June 23, threatening to arrest the storage supervisor if he did not turn them over.

When Jack learned July 5 that the state attorney general's office had removed the X-rays, she ordered the office to return them by noon the following day, according to court records.

Forty boxes of X-rays came back, but an inventory by records custodian Gary Cosgrove showed that 152 X-rays are missing.

"Let me tell you that real, real clearly. It may be a criminal matter, and we're going to have to turn this over to the appropriate people," Jack said during an Aug. 11 telephone hearing that included representatives from Abbott's office. "The arrogance of taking those documents from a federal court supervised depository is astounding. You all took documents that did not belong to you, under - with armed guards."

How is it beneficial to anyone -- the plaintiffs, the defendants, the courts, an atmosphere of cooperation between federal and state authorities and oh, maybe all of the people of the state of Texas -- when the OAG runs amok, seizing X-rays from a US federal record depository using men with guns, and then losing some of them?

Or are the X-rays even actually "misplaced"? Can we next expect Greg Abbott to grandstand something outlandish in order to bring attention to himself in an election season?

Abbott, suddenly realizing that he's in a tough re-election fight, is scrambling to show that he has been doing something -- anything -- to justify his term as the state's chief law enforcement officer and protector of Texas consumers (clue: he hasn't done a damn thing for anyone except conservative evangelicals and greedy corporations). All he's got to show for the past four years is a couple of online child predator convictions and some charges of voter fraud against little old ladies who took mail-in ballots to the post office.

Appalling. This is what it looks like when power-mad Republicans get desperate. To paraphrase the car commercials: they are arrogant, incompetent, and built to stay that way.

Of course, no matter how this matter is eventually resolved between Judge Jack and Abbott -- whether by sober discussion, flying subpoenas or flying bullets -- you have a clear choice in the Texas Attorney General's race.

Update: Tom Kirkendall links to the New York Sun, which has more on the legal backstory.

Update II (8/24): The Houston Chronicle remains mute on this story. They didn't even pick up the AP report, which the Dallas News had first, and the Austin Statesman and several Texas radio and TV stations managed. To the Chronic's credit, however, somebody over there reads (and maybe even likes) this blog, because this posting appeared on the Opinion page (it's now cycled off; it was listed shortly after I put it up). Other blogs commented ...

Pink Dome:

Short story: A federal judge was keeping thousands of X-rays under lock and key. They were to be used as part of a federal investigation into potentially fraudulent diagnoses of the lung disease silicosis. 4 armed men from the Attorney General's office, carrying a subpoena, threatened to arrest the owner of a storage complex if he wouldn't fork over the X-rays. They then walked off with the X-rays. Thing is, the Constitution bars states from intervening in a federal court's jurisdiction. Abbott could now be deposed in a federal court if it turns out he ordered the seizure of the X-rays.

Daily Kos (TXsharon's diary):

There's more to this story then an overzealous attorney general. That is out of character for Greg Abbott who is a corrupt, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay crony and an enabler of predatory corporations and monopolists.

John Colyandro, who worked for Karl Rove, was laundering Tom Delay's TRMPAC money while on Greg Abbott's campaign payroll during 2002. Colyandro has been indicted for money laundering and also faces 13 charges of unlawful acceptance of corporate political contributions.

Abbott's biggest donor is Bob Perry, tycoon homebuilder and financier of Karl Rove's Swift Boat smear campaign tactics.

I have a burning desire to discover those doctor's names and see if they happen to show up on Abbott's Texas Ethics Commission report. I do note that doctors seem to contribute heavily to Abbott.

McBlogger:

This isn't, by any means, an exhaustive list of the things which should not be entrusted to Attorney General Greg Abbott so please, just because you don't see something here, don't assume that Attorney General Greg Abbott can be trusted to care for it.

In fact, it would be best if you just didn't trust Attorney General Greg Abbott.

SouthTexas Chisme:

Ok. I understand the war on class action suits. Republicans don't want little people to band together to fight the big guys when the big guys do bad things. I understand that companies want plantiffs near death when they begin the process to sue for medical injury. What I don't understand is the battle between the judge who wanted the injured near death and the AG who is a Republican tool.

Capitol Annex reported the story and also David Van Os' response:

“I’m not surprised by this arrogant conduct. Greg Abbott is part of the silk-stocking social clique that runs Texas government as if it were their private club. This it the same Greg Abbott who lets the Texas Department of Transportation hide its contracts with foreign companies, who uses the taxpayers’ money to file legal briefs and maps on behalf of the Republican Party, who employs Tom Delay’s cronies, and who refuses to challenge the oil companies on behalf of the people of Texas. Seizing and then losing working people’s personal medical records from a court file is par for his course.”

Your thalamus is a club bouncer

Having a little trouble waking up this morning? Perhaps your brain stem isn't transmitting enough nitric oxide to your thalamus ...

As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.

Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain functions, according to a new study.

Let me pause the article for a moment and say that I am one of those weirdos who has always been able to wake up early in the morning, and wake up wide awake. I inherited this from both parents; my mother would pop out of bed at 5 a.m. intense and focused; my father was at the refinery before 7 a.m. throughout his working career. I have become even more pronounced in this pattern as I've gotten older (witness many of my postings here as evidence). Furthermore, it took me a long time to understand that I am the exception compared to most other people. I spent quite a few years being harsh on those with whom I shared living arrangements -- siblings, roommates, spouse -- who could sleep soundly until noon. (Frankly, most of my life I thought they were simply lazy.)

In these first moments of the day, sensory information floods the system—the bright sunlight coming through the curtains, the time on the screeching alarm clock—and all of it needs to be processed and organized, so the brain can understand its surroundings and begin to perform more complex tasks.

"The thinking part of the brain is applying a sort of stencil to the information coming in and what the nitric oxide is doing is allowing more refinement of that stencil," says Dwayne Godwin, an associate professor at Wake Forest University and lead author of the study, which was funded by the National Eye Institute.

The little two-atom molecule, it seems, is partly responsible for our ability to perceive whatever it is we're sensing.

...

The thalamus was thought to be a fairly primitive structure, sort of a gate that could either open and allow sensory information to stream into the cortex, the higher functioning part of the brain, or cut off the flow entirely.

Godwin says the new research shows it's more accurate to think of the thalamus not as a gate but as a club bouncer, who doesn't simply allow a huge rush of people to go in or no one at all, but picks and chooses whom to let in and out.

"Instead of vision being a process going straight from eye to cortex, it's more of a loop," Godwin explained. "This constitutes a new role for the thalamus in directing, not just modulating."

While this study is the first to identify nitric oxide's role in the thalamus, elsewhere in the body it was already known to have an important, if somewhat different function. The molecule is actually integral to controlling blood flow and is, in fact, the molecule Viagra targets in order to increase blood flow to the penis.

The teeny molecule might have other medical uses.

"This study shows a unique role for nitric oxide. It may help us to someday understand what goes wrong in diseases that affect cognitive processing, such as attention deficit disorder or schizophrenia, and it adds to our fundamental understanding of how we perceive the world around us," Godwin said.

The club bouncer uses Viagra. Well, he's so obese that I guess he has to. What a simultaneously compelling and repulsive visual (within my own personal subcortex, of course).

There might be more postings today live from Camp Wellstone, as I can find a few moments. There are about sixty or so of us in attendance, most from Houston and elsewhere in Texas but also an independent candidate from Oklahoma, a guy whose family owns a restaurant in Chicago and a New York author of erotica.

You're all on notice!

Create your own at this link.

Barbara vs. Kay, Camp Wellstone, Fire Thunder and Feingold

The Dallas Women Lawyers Association confirms that Barbara Radnofsky will debate Kay Bailey Hutchison on Friday evening, September 29, at 6 p.m. at Dallas' Belo Mansion.

I'll be attending Camp Wellstone this weekend, as well as ROADWomen's Fork in the Road dinner on Saturday, which features Cecelia Fire Thunder as guest speaker.

And Senator Russ Feingold will headline the Harris County Democratic Party's Johnson-Rayburn Dinner, to be held Saturday, September 30, at the JW Marriott here.

Congratulations also to Jamaal Smith and Sandra Puente on their new gigs at the HCDP.

Jocularity! Jocularity!

This is a photograph of former Ohio State football hero Maurice Clarett's front seat, after he was arrested in a standoff with police in which he was first Tasered, then Maced because the Taser didn't work (he had on a bulletproof vest):


Only one observation:

When you finna throw down on tha playa-hatahs, it's important to be lint-free.

I found this while bumping around in Ted Stevens' tubes. It's a mock-out of both Star Trek and those inspirational posters that have been around for a few decades now:


There are many more here.

Texroots Tuesday

Chris Bell and Maria Luisa Alvarado are traveling together through the Rio Grande Valley the next few days.

Supreme Court Justice nominee Bill Moody started his walk across Texas this week; Land Commissioner candidate VaLinda Hathcox has joined him. (See photos here and here.)

David Van Os continues his Whistlestop Tour to county courthouses in North Texas (Comanche and Archer City and Wichita Falls) and West Texas (Albany and Sweetwater and San Angelo).

And the inaugural trio of Texroots-endorsed Democrats still need a little juice from you. Here's an excellent Q&A on what the Texroots are all about, and here's more on Hank, Shane, and Juan, courtesy of Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex:

Juan Garcia. [Website, Bio, Volunteer] Juan Garcia is running against entrenched Craddickat incumbent Gene Seaman (R-Corpus Christi). This is one of a hand-full of races that can be “flipped” from Republican to Democratic control this fall. While Seaman has a massive warchest on hand from previous election cycles, Garcia is actually leading the incumbent in fund-raising right now. To boot, he’s flipped a number of Seaman’s contributors and supporters who are tired of this district being in the hands of someone who is more concerned with staying in Tom Craddick’s good graces than serving the people. And, who could forget Seaman’s vacation to his home-away-from-home in Vail.

Here are some other good Garcia coverage: Why You Should Vote For Juan Garcia (South Texas Chisme), Where In The World Is Gene Seaman (CapitolAnnex), Juan Garcia vs. The Culture of Corruption (Truth Serum Blog), Gene Seaman Is Already Running Scared (The Red State), Juan Garcia Conference Call (CapitolAnnex).

Shane Sklar. [Website, Bio, Volunteer] At 30, Shane Sklar has already headed one of the state’s largest agriculture groups and made a name for himself in the agriculture community. Now, he’s seeking to unseat failed Libertarian Presidential Candidate turned Republican Congressman Ron Paul (R-Surfside) to give the people of Congressional District 14 effective representation. Paul’s main pet projects including voting against nearly every piece of legislation he has the opportunity to vote against—including aide for parts of Texas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and bemoaning the fact that the U.S. is no longer on the “gold standard.” Polling in the district earlier this year shows that voters are dissatisfied with Paul’s “Dr. No” attitude and his failure to support legislation that would benefit the district.

Here are some other links related to Shane Sklar: Guest Post at Off The Kuff, Interview with Shane Sklar (via Kuff, mp3), Sklar blasts Paul for voting against Relief (Baytown Sun), Captain Ron (In The Pink Texas), Interview with Shane Sklar (AustinNews.net), Bad Poll Numbers for Ron Paul (Kuff’s World).

Hank Gilbert. [Website, Bio, Volunteer] Remember Todd Staples (R-Palestine)? The State Senator who was one of the architects of DeLay’s redistricting scheme and is one of the Trans Texas Corridor’s best friends in the Legislature? He’s now running for Agriculture Commissioner, although no one can quite point to any major achievements he made for agricluture while in the Texas Senate. Hank Gilbert is a rancher and former high school ag teacher who actually wants to be agriculture commissioner, instead of simply use the post as a stepping-stone to higher office, like Leininger devotee Susan Combs. Hank’s fierce opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor and his common-sense goals for the Texas Department of Agriculture are far more suited to a state that boasts such an important agribusiness economy than those of his opponent.

Here are some links on Hank (or, in the case of the first link, against his opponent): Don’t Get Stapled, Hank Gilbert Or Corporate Interests–You Choose (Jobsanger), Hank Gilbert For Ag Commissioner (Burnt Orange Report), Hank Gilbert, 40/40 Project (Burnt Orange Report), Hank Gilbert: Candidate for Ag Commissioner has Better Solution (The Open Road [note: this is an anti-toll road blog, not a progressive “D” blog, but I thought it added some variety to this list), Interview with Hank Gilbert (mp3, via Off The Kuff).

So…what are you waiting for? Click here to support these three great candidates! You can split your donation among all three candidates or make separate donations to each campaign.

Update: The Blogging Representative has a report with photos of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor in the Valley. And I wish to express a humble 'thank you' to all who helped push David Van Os over the top in his "$30,000 in thirty days" fundraising appeal. (Note also the graphic in the right sidebar.)

Photos of Cubans

...who are now Cuban-American.



That's Nilda and Israel Behar-Ojalvo (my mother- and father-in-law) leaving the courthouse in Matanzas, Cuba, shortly after they were married in 1957.

This is Mrs. Diddie's brother Johnny (Juan) and aunt Delia, in Cuba, approximately 1954.



Left: a first winter (February, 1962) in the US, with those unsuitable overcoats. Right: with baby sister Nildita in 1964.

Shorter Lieberman

Yes, I know, not quite timely due to my being MIA around here since Monday. My absenteeism notwithstanding ...

"I care too much about democracy to respect the outcome of a fair election, and I have too much regard for the people of Connecticut to actually pay attention to the message they are sending."

Don't you wish that Joe Nomentum would have put up, oh, maybe half as much a fight in Florida in 2000, when he was the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nominee?

"So now I will continue to run against a candidate who has already beaten me, against a party I expect to remain a member of."

Sadly, his cowardice in 2000 wasn't the end of Lieberman's political career but possibly the beginning. Out of disaster rose a (thankfully, doomed-from-the-start) presidential run in 2004. This latest twist to the story -- if handled with a previously-undiscovered grace -- could be the end.

(Unless of course President Rove names him Secretary of Defense on the occasion of Donald Rumsfailed's sudden retirement.)

We now return to your regularly scheduled snark

So what's up with this latest Red Alert?

Thank God the world is finally being made more secure from the likes of Dasani (a terrorist surname if ever there was one) and Paul Mitchell and Bausch and Lomb.

Is anybody testing those confiscated lotions for explosive content, or are they all being thrown away? Can't they be resold by DHS in the airport gift shops to fund the extra personnel needed?

Is any data being collected on those airline passengers who are surrendering their toothpaste and mouthwash? It seems we ought to be able to add to the bad-guy database if we knew precisely which al-Qaeda members were still trying to sneak Pond's onto planes.

This is what our airports are going to look like shortly after the next terrorist attack:

Do you feel safer?

Bicho malo nunca muere

Part Two of mi Cubana's story follows. Part One is here.

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

My family left Brooklyn for Hopewell, Virginia in 1963, after my father was hired by the Allied Chemical Co. as a mid-level engineer at a plant in Chesterfield, VA. We lived in a small frame house, but as my father was able to save a little, we moved to a larger home after the birth of my sister, who was named after my mother Nilda (and called Nildita). My brother Johnny had entered college, and my aunt Delia had remained in New York with her new husband Luis Quintero. She held a doctorate in pedagogy from the University of Havana, but she worked as a seamstress and attended night school to get her teaching certification here. My aunt taught in the New York public school system until she retired in 1984. She had met Uncle Luis in Cuba, and they were married in New York in 1963. He was a pharmaceutical sales rep and a Teamster.

Though I was only a first-grader, I can recall the heated discussions my family would have about the developments in Cuba. They were all incensed about President Kennedy's failure to support the soldiers at the Bay of Pigs in '61, and they really never got over it. (Most Cubans of my parents' generation have always voted Republican, and this is the primary reason.)

My dad was promoted to plant management with Allied and we moved to New Jersey in 1970. Sadly, my brother Johnny passed away in 1976, at the age of 28, the day before my sixteenth birthday. I spent my formative years in Freehold Township (Springsteen country!) and my father continued rising through the ranks at Allied-Signal, receiving a promotion to manage a chemical facility in Orange, Texas, where we moved in 1980.

That's where in the winter of 1981, at a fraternity party, I met the man who became my husband. Perry and I married in September of 1986, my father retired from Honeywell in 1988, and my parents moved to Miami to join my aunt and uncle and many of our relatives in Little Havana. They later moved back to Texas, joining my sister and I in Houston after my nephews joined the family in the mid- to late '90s.

My mother, who had long suffered from a defective heart valve, had an operation in 1994 to replace it but suffered several small strokes as a complication of the surgery. She recovered most functionality, but her mental condition has generally declined over the years since to the point where she now has severe dementia and must be cared for around the clock. My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2003, and has sent it into remission four times with a battery of chemotherapy treatments administered by the fine doctors at Baylor and Methodist Hospital, in the Texas Medical Center.

My uncle Luis passed away in 1990, and my dear aunt Delia, who was like my second mother, lost her battle with cancer in May of this year.

My parents and I had become United States citizens in 1967. Though their parents had always spoken of someday returning to Cuba, my mother and father had made a new life for themselves and were happy and comfortable here. They never spoke seriously of returning, though they both had many relatives on the island whom they would never see or speak to again. My mother, who is only a few months older than Fidel, often said of him: “Bicho malo nunca muere”, which translates to “A bad bug never dies.” She couldn't have guessed how prophetic that would turn out to be.

I have some interest in visiting Cuba, but as a naturalized Cuban-American it would not be possible until the Communist regime is done away with. I hope one day in the not-too-distant future that my husband and I can visit the land of my birth, perhaps see some of my distant relatives and complete the circle of discovery that my family began so many years ago.

"Texroots" rolls out first endorsements

See, a bunch of us have been talking, and we finally figured out how to leverage the Internets into something meaningful. This is how we do it:

The Texas Progressive Alliance today launched 'TexRoots,' an online fund-raising campaign designed raise funds for Democratic candidates in Texas via the internet. The launch of 'TexRoots' is the first major unified fund-raising effort by Texas blogs of its kind.

The Alliance, a group of blogs and bloggers united to promote Democratic and progressive candidates and causes, launched 'TexRoots' Monday with solicitations for three Texas candidates: Hank Gilbert, candidate for Agriculture Commissioner, Juan Garcia, candidate for Texas House of Representatives in District 32, and Shane Sklar, candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 14. The Alliance's goal is to raise a combined $3,000 for the "Texas Trio" of Gilbert, Garcia and Sklar. TexRoots works with the nationally recognized fund-raising tools of ActBlue.com.

So, your mission -- should you choose to accept it -- is to support the effort by contributing what you can to these fine Democrats. Take out your credit card, click on the box at the top right and help us turn Texas a little bluer.

Dejando A Cuba, No Mas Libre

As promised, Part One of the guest post from mi Cubana:

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

My family in Cuba was easily what would be considered upper middle class. We had a large home in the province of Matanzas, east of Havana, and employed domestics -- cooks, maids, people who did the laundry. My father, Israel, was a pharmacist and then a manager in a chemical plant which produced rayon. My mother Nilda was a teacher before she married my father and became a full-time housewife after the birth of my older brother Johnny in 1947. Johnny was my half-brother; my mother divorced his father and married my dad in 1957. I was born in 1960, twenty months after Fidel Castro overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista.

My family was horrified at the prospect of a communist Cuba. The thought of the schools, hospitals, businesses large and small being taken over by the state, with free speech not only stifled but clamped down, with boys conscripted at age 14, all was a terrifying thing to them. My maternal grandfather, Luis Felipe Lizazo, was a journalist and political activist; he ran for office in the years prior to La Revolucion challenging the party of Batista (as a capitalist, of course). He was also the highest degree Freemason and head of his lodge. After Fidel came to power he was almost immediately imprisoned for counter-revolutionary activity. So was the man who later married my mother's sister in the US -- my uncle Luis -- and my mother's cousin Elsa, who was detained for several days in very unsanitary conditions with a large group of other women.

The Cuban political prisons were as bad as anything you have heard. Once my grandfather got nothing to eat for a month but mashed pumpkin. There were mock executions, where a prisoner would be taken out of his cell and even fired at, but not upon. My grandfather was in and out of Castro's El Principe until he passed away in 1967.

The last straw for my parents came in 1961, when my brother was approaching his fourteenth birthday, and at that time boys of his age were taken from their family to military training camps. A large army was of course needed to continue La Revolucion. My father felt things in Cuba were only getting worse, and my mother was adamant that Castro would not get her son.

My dad concocted an elaborate ruse in order to escape; many professionals at the time were leaving the country while on vacation, and he believed he was under surveillance, so he took his vacation without traveling anywhere. A few weeks later, he reported to his plant supervisor that his father had suffered a heart attack, and he had to take time off to go see him in a neighboring province. They packed less than what you might take on a weekend trip -- a few clothes, some extra cloth diapers for me -- and left their home unlocked and all their money in the bank, and instead went to the airport in Havana.

My family's paperwork -- Papi applied for a passport long before Castro ceased processing them -- had initially been held up because my dad's name matched that of an avowed Communist, and that naturally meant he would be unable to qualify for political asylum in America. That matter had taken weeks to clear up, long before he took his vacation and arranged the "illness". But the most harrowing part of the journey came at the Havana airport: our flight to Jamaica was delayed for unexplained reasons for several hours. My father told me years later that those hours waiting were the most agonizing of his life. Had he been discovered he would have been thrown in jail, probably for the rest of his days. All of the trappings of wealth he had acquired were lost anyway, but the thought of his wife and son and infant daughter serving a Castro regime in destitution while he languished in prison was more than he could bear.

Finally we were all able to depart without incident, and my family, together with my aunt Delia, spent a few weeks in Jamaica getting the assistance of a Jewish organization to come to the United States. We arrived in New York in October of 1961.

My dad took a job in a pharmacy, but because his licensing was delayed, he performed janitorial work until he could be certified. My mother and aunt spent their first winter in the States with unsuitable overcoats, and they told me that as they trudged through the snow carrying groceries home, it was so cold that they cried.

Next: Bicho malo nunca muere

On call with Barbara Radnofsky

The next Senator from the Great State spent some time with a few of us blog-types on the phone last night, talking about her campaign, her opponent, and the brightening Democratic prospects in November.

Radnofsky had spent the day in Southeast Texas -- Jasper, Beaumont, Orange, Port Arthur, and Baytown -- talking to newspaper editorial boards and seeing firsthand the still-unrepaired damage from last summer's Hurricane Rita. In our 45-minute call we discussed immigration, education, healthcare, and veterans' affairs as well as polling and debates.

Some highlights follow, dear reader, but first take a moment and go read a little about Pence-Hutchison, our incumbent Aging Prom Queen's response to the immigration 'problem'.

Shorter version: Kay Bailey is asking all people in the United States without proper documentation to "just please go home".

Seriously. She calls it 'self-deportation'.

Once they do so, they can proceed to Ellis-Island type 'centers' -- buildings to be constructed by Halliburton, I'm guessing -- where they will be medically examined and biometrically tagged.

I'll bet you think I'm making this up, don't you?

Those people who get the US Government's Seal of Approval get a shiny new ID card matching their ear tag and the chance to apply for something called a Good Neighbor SAFE visa, and while they wait, Uncle Sam gets busy tightening up border security Republican-style (which means triple fences, more helicopters, guards, and much larger detention facilities). This process appears to be designed to last two years, and then once the President of the United States has certified our country's borders as "secure", then people get to begin returning – provided, that is, that they can prove they have a job waiting for them.

Oh yes, one more thing, this 'guest worker' program is limited to citizens of Latin American countries which have ratified NAFTA and CAFTA.

After twelve years -- seventeen if they need the extra time -- these folks can apply for citizenship without leaving the US. Yesterday on Lou Dobbs' program they were calling this legislation the "Amnesty for All" bill.

That label alone likely queers the deal with the conservative hard-liners.

Fabulous plan, isn't it? I'll bet the eleven to twelve million undocumented workers here now will be rushing to take advantage of this opportunity.

Hutchison's own opinion of her legislation?

"What Mike and I are trying to do -- we've been meeting for a month -- is put something out there and say, 'Let's start.' We're not saying this is perfection. We're not saying this is the end result."

OK, now that you've managed to stop laughing, let's point out that Barbara Radnofsky thinks this idea is just as bizarre and doomed to failure as you do. This is unfortunately typical of the impact Hutchison has made throughout her tenure; it’s another example why the senior Senator from Texas has been so ineffectual. After thirteen years she still has no idea how to craft or even advance legislation, much less serve the interests of any but a narrow band of her constituents.

Radnofsky used a fishing term to describe Hutchison's incompetence: "she hasn't put out the traps." I don't know if Barbara has ever done any crabbing along the Texas coast, but I have, and I damn sure know what that phrase means: it means someone is too lazy even to catch themselves something to eat. Barbara probably meant that Hutchison hadn't done her due diligence. I took it to mean that Kay Bailey has simply done the same thing she has done all her life -- waited for someone else to catch, clean, cook and serve the food she eats -- and do the dishes afterwards.

And that's really an apt microcosm of Kay Bailey's political career. Cheerleader, homecoming queen, TV weather girl. She's never worked for anything in her entire life; it's all been handed to her. It's also part of why she refuses to agree to a debate with Barbara, describing herself as "too busy" even as she skips votes in the Senate.

Kay Bailey is weaker than rainwater. She’s the human equivalent of pablum. And everyone -- her colleagues, her supporters, and her constituents -- all know it. It’s why when you write or call her office you never get anything but a canned response.

KBH did manage to become a lawyer, though her interpretation of the law occasionally falls short of the law's actual definition, such as when she considered Karl Rove's (alleged) perjury to be a technicality, or when she recently asked Alberto Gonzales to simply overlook the anti-trust provisions being violated in the Wright Amendment.

These are only a few of the reasons why the woman once described as "the most popular politician in Texas" is suddenly slumping in the polls, even as Radnofsky begins to creep up. Texans -- like the rest of America -- have developed an acute case of Bush fatigue, and Kay Bailey has been one of the many enablers of its disastrous agenda.

At the conclusion of our conference call I asked Barbara specifically about the odd phenomenon of Democratic disillusionment, expressed in MSM articles like this one, and she said she'd experienced it in her nearly five hundred trips around the state, and that she, like Chris Bell and David Van Os in previous Texblogosphere calls before her, had also sensed a turning of the tide. The outrage of Republican policies in Washington and Austin has been expressed repeatedly by the Republicans who have shown up at Courthouse Tourstops and Trans-Texas Corridor hearings. The momentum is clearly shifting, the Traditional Media is largely unaware of it, and Democrats up and down the ballot will be the beneficiary.

Next week, as part of the push to November, the Texas Progressive Alliance (of which this blog is a founding member) will announce our first Texroots-endorsed candidates. Many of the Democratic candidates you have already read about here will be featured. A call to arms -- including of the financial kind -- will be part of that appeal.

Texas is going to turn a little more blue, and we're all going to have a hand in it.

Chris Bell on stem cell research

"To me it's not just an issue, it's personal."



Where does Grandmaw stand on this issue? Should we even bother asking Dick Friedman?

Tom gets to run, after all

according to an early flash from the Chronic.

I think this is good news, though replacing him would've suited me fine as well. District 22 is electing Nick Lampson, regardless of opponent.

This race no longer qualifies as all that interesting -- except for hearing that last crunch of The Coackroach being squashed on November 7.

On Castro and regime change

With this news that Fidel has handed off some of the titular responsibilities of running Cuba to brother Raul -- no spring chicken himself -- I have asked a Cuban-born American citizen to guest-post here in the next few days.

She emigrated in 1962 1961, in the arms of her mother and father, and lived in New York and Petersburg VA before moving to Texas in the late '70's, where I met and later married her.

Mrs. Diddie has a few blog-worthy tales to tell about her family's experience as political dissidents, asylum-seekers, immigrants, and then US citizens. Regarding the man ultimately responsible for my being introduced to my wife, I only hope that his now-timely demise doesn't force her to hasten a thoughtful posting. Her mother has end-stage Alzheimer's and her father suffers again from a return of the bladder cancer that he has valiantly beaten back five times over the past ten years, so getting a few of their recollections of La Revolucion published is urgent enough as it is.

Look for this post here hopefully by the end of the week.

"Killing people is like squashing an ant"

A former US soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl compared killing people in Iraq to "squashing an ant," in an interview with a reporter about a month before the attack.

Steven Green, 21, a former private with the 101st Airborne Division, is under arrest in Kentucky and could face the death penalty if convicted of the March 12 murders of the Iraqi girl and three of her relatives.

Writing in Sunday's editions of The Washington Post, Andrew Tilghman, a former correspondent for the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes, said he interviewed Green several times in February at his unit south of Baghdad.

"I came over here because I wanted to kill people," he quoted Green as saying. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be.

"I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience," Green was quoted as saying. "And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.'

"I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing," Green was quoted as saying. "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant.

"I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"

I don't think I can support a troop like Pfc. Green, nor for that matter any of the others who commit similar atrocities. I hold them less accountable than the liars who sent them to kill, though.

And as the world burns, Our Leader greets the American Idol finalists and keeps his T-ball season going.

Do you feel safer?

More rumor-endo

Since this blog so rarely traffics in rumor and innuendo, it's time for me to catch up with some of the latest scuttlebutt associated with our National League affiliate.

ESPN's Steve Phillips said tonight that the Rangers have offered Hank Blalock to the Astros for Brad Lidge.

They ought to take that deal. But the two teams might be discussing various trades; Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll says the Rangers have offered Brad Wilkerson and Rod Barajas for Lidge, Morgan Ensberg and Fernando Nieve, something that seems too lopsided for Texas. If the Astros took Blalock for Lidge, they could then send Ensberg to San Diego for Scott Linebrink, with either Linebrink or Chad Qualls or Dan Wheeler closing.

The Orioles and Astros have also discussed a Miguel Tejada deal that includes Roy Oswalt, according to both BP and the Baltimore Sun. Morgan Ensberg and Adam Everett would complete the package and go to Baltimore.

I don't see how this makes the Astros better. Tejada is a huge offensive upgrade, but that doesn't make up for the loss of Roy O and the defensive downgrade. The Orioles may not be especially interested anyway, since they'd likely only have Oswalt through 2007. And Oswalt appears to have been taken off the table for now.

Next year the 'Stros gain many millions of dollars in the expiring contracts of Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettitte, money which they could use in pursuing free agents for 2007. I'd rather see them reload for next season rather than try to punch through something costly in order to try to capitalize on Clemens' final season (and possibly Pettitte's as well). That urgency alone suggests Tim Purpura may do something rash.

I hope he doesn't, but we'll know for sure by tomorrow's trading deadline.

The train don't come by here no more

That is, if the Republicans, led by Rick Perry, get their way. From the Houston Chronicle:

The venerable Texas State Railroad may run from here to Palestine, but it's about to get sidetracked in Austin.

The 110-year-old railroad is the most endangered of the 114 properties in the state parks system, which is going on the offensive for increased funding after more than a decade of tight budgets that have led to decaying facilities and reduced services. ...

"Best I can determine, we're either going to become a static display, or (local railroad boosters are) going to find a private operator," said Robert Crossman, the railroad's superintendent. "Nobody has come back to me and said, 'If funding greatly improves, y'all are going to continue to operate.' "Ellen Buchanan, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department regional director, said she's been told her agency will not keep operating the trains even if funding increases in the next legislative session. Crossman is hopeful money can be found to keep it rolling a bit beyond the planned Dec. 31 closure, but he isn't optimistic.

Most of the parks in Texas are in shambles:

More than half the state's parks, historical sites and other preserves have considered or enacted service limitations because of money problems. They include the slowed reconstruction of Sea Rim State Park after Hurricane Rita, and the Sunday-Tuesday closure of the Varner-Hogg State Historic Site in Brazoria County.

Penny-pinching for more than a decade also has affected quality, said Walt Dabney, the state's parks director.

"We're absolutely in the ditch," Dabney said.

Dabney fondly recalls working at the Inks Lake State Park near Burnet as an intern in the late 1960s. And then there's the recent memory of a visit to the rest rooms he once cleaned.

"They are absolutely amazing. Just worn out," Dabney said. "You can see the building is literally collapsing in on itself."

From the Tyler Morning Telegraph:

(Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris) Bell said that the railroad is just one of the state parks suffering to the brink of closure. Texas ranks 49th in state park funding, and per capita, Texans spend $1.20 on state parks annually, compared to the national average of $7.50.

Money problems have been mounting at state parks for years, forcing Texas Parks and Wildlife to cut park hours and staff and limit maintenance.

Bell said that the Battleship Texas is held together with "tape and Silly Putty," and that the elevator at the San Jacinto Monument no longer goes all the way to the top.

"Seriously, sometimes the punch line writes itself," he said.

More at the links.

Somervell County Salon has more of the Democratic candidates' whistlestop in Palestine yesterday, including photos, and will have video of the speakers posted later now; click here.

If you want to save our state parks, then you have no business voting for any Republican.

Rick Perry's A.S.S.

Of course, some of his biggest supporters are huge asses, but this news isn't about them:

A bunch of Texans upset with the governor's support for a new business tax acted on their frustration by giving him campaign checks for 2 cents earlier this summer. Some sent in checks for 3 or 5 cents and a few mailed 1-cent checks.

The Perry campaign coded them as "ASS 06."

Political campaigns routinely code contribution checks to keep track of which event or mailing inspired them. Because the unsolicited protest checks were not tied to any specific event, "they were coded as 'A Small Supporter,' " Perry campaign spokesman Robert Black said Friday.

"In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best choice for an abbreviation," Black said.

Has any governor ever been deserving of greater ridicule than this one?

I say we kick Governor Good-MoFo'n-Hair out on his A.S.S in November. You conservatives have two other former Republicans on the ballot to vote for, so get to work and git 'er done, please.

Over 1500 Texans at a TTC meeting

... in Temple this week, and a grand total of eleven of those present were brave enough to raise their hands in favor of Rick Perry's massive toll road. Yet there are those on the right of Blogistan who don't yet know where they stand on the issue.

Displays of political tone-deafness such as this please me greatly.

Somervell County Salon has links to the video of some of the speakers, including Mary Beth Harrell, who is challenging "Exxon John" Carter in CD-31. Carter not long ago visited Iraq and posed for a photo shaking hands with Harrell's son, a soldier there, without knowing who it was. Carter was also in the news more recently, you may recall, for his opposition to extending the Voting Rights Act because, and I quote the Congressman directly here ...

“I don’t think we have racial bias in Texas any more.”

These are what wedge issues for Democrats look like (but don't tell the Republicans).

My ActBlue page is live, and some linkapalooza

Bad and statewide, to paraphrase a little ol' band from Texas. Kindly give a few clicks, and a few bucks to those with whom you agree are worthy.

On a related fundraising note, my man David is trying to raise $30,000 in thirty days, with an August 15 deadline. That's about how much he raised in the entire last reporting period. No Texas Democrat has been a greater inspiration to others. Please show him a little love.

There will be a debate among the candidates for Texas Governor on Thursday October 5, televised live and all over Deep-In-The-Hearta, in Spanish and English. (Take that, you anti-immigrant assbites.) Incumbent Mofo hasn't committed to attending yet. Yes, I'm sure he'd rather be clipping his toenails or even sharing something plastic with Geoffrey Connor, but he won't dare not show up.

Finally, Judge Susan Criss posted at Grits for Breakfast -- ahead of the Yates verdict -- about the failure of of our state to adequately fund programs that might prevent a similar tragedy:

What frightens me the most is knowing how many other severely mentally ill persons there are in Texas who are not getting treatment. The Texas legislature has consistently cut funding to MHMR resulting in eliminating treatment options for thousands of mentally ill Texans. There are countless other tragedies of the magnitude of this case that could be prevented but will not be.

That's what I think of every time I make the mistake of clicking on this shit. This guy's just about to lose his last marble. One more week of run-of-the-mill frustrations, a few slightly larger upsets, maybe a cat dying or something, and he's going to start shooting people.

Get some real professional help, pal.

The two new Democratic primaries are great news for one 2008 candidate

Actually Nevada is a caucus like Iowa and South Carolina is a primary, as is New Hampshire, but it's still excellent news for John Edwards:

They've got to be celebrating over at Edwards' HQ, because this map is designed to give him a huge boost.

Caucuses, unlike primaries, really are exercises in organization. Witness Kerry's victory in Iowa in 2004. And Nevada is a serious labor state. In fact, labor is essentially the organizing arm of the Nevada Democratic Party, especially UNITE-HERE's Local 226 of the Culinary Union. It's 60,000 strong, and firmly behind John Edward's candidacy.

The serious competition in Nevada will come from Richardson, who pushed hard for a southwestern state that wasn't NM to help his bid. People underestimate Richardson at their peril, and he has huge appeal in a Latino community that is growing like wildfire in Nevada. Can he build an organization to rival Edwards' allies at Local 226? Who knows, but let's hope he makes huge progress. Activating the state's Latino voters, in addition to a motivated an invigorated labor operation could mean trouble for Republicans in Purple Nevada.

Edwards pulled off his surprise 2nd place finish in Iowa in 2004, and he and his organization never left the state. It wouldn't be far fetched to see Edwards 2-0 going into NH. (Though Iowa will be fiercely contested by everyone -- Feingold is local to the region, Hillary has money and organization, Warner will want to make the early splash, Kerry will try to replicate his 2004 success, etc.)

Next is NH, with Kerry, Hillary, and Feingold fighting for supremacy. Edwards makes the required cursory efforts, but instead focuses on South Carolina, which is close to being home-field advantage. And for all Edwards knows, NH may follow suit as in 2004 and rubber-stamp the Iowa decision. The media boost for the winner of Iowa will be HUGE, with the media essentially coronating the winner. It's the problem with the 24-7 media environment.

Who is perceived as the loser in this reconfigured primary/caucus schedule?

Hillary, whose point person at the DNC, Harold Ickes, fought scheduling SC because it would give Edwards too big of a boost. She seems squeezed in this calendar.

There is another possibility -- that everyone except for Edwards and Richardson ignores Nevada to focus on New Hampshire. The political press, which is East Coast-based, won't want to travel to Nevada when New Hampshire, and its wealth of candidates, is just a short flight away.

My take is that HRC would concentrate on a win in NH, though she's got the dough to do everything at once. Where do Clark and Warner, other moderate Southerners, focus their efforts? It might be too late if they pick SC to do so.

Yeah, yeah, it's still too early to speculate, and I prefer to think of the Gregorian calendar as suspended, at least until we get some Democrats elected in about 100 days.

Not guilty, thank God.

Andrea Yates will likely spend the rest of her life in the state facility at Rusk.

Some of us are relieved that the jury reached this verdict, and some are not. Dwight has aggregated the cogent and the not-so (particularly this fellow, whose blog -- nay, his entire worldview -- is so obviously full of shit that he can no longer think clearly).

Click on the Dwight's link to read an excerpt of the insanity of the two that follow, and let's hope they can get some good mental health care just like Mrs. Yates.

One other thing: if anyone should have been found guilty of murder, it should have been Rusty Yates.

"Texas parks are in dire shape, close to disaster"

Following the Texas Progress Council's press conference yesterday calling attention to the problem, the Chronic reports that Rick Perry has suddenly realized he's got a big mess on his hands. Let's turn the newspaper's attention away from the Republican governor's spin, though, and put the focus back where it belongs, on the state of our state parks:

"Texas state parks are in dire shape, close to disaster," Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, said.

Some of the state's 114 parks "are embarrassing," he said. Declining budgets from $253 million in 2004 to $197 million this fiscal year have resulted in staff cuts, reduced operating hours, deferred maintenance, old equipment and a vehicle fleet averaging 10 years old. To raise money, Parks and Wildlife officials nearly sold 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park last year until public outrage forced them to back down.

This is the real story.

Governor Adios MoFo -- together with enablers like Tom Craddick and Jerry Patterson and Greg Abbott, and the influence of bagmen like Tom DeLay, James Leininger, and "Swift Boat" Bob Perry -- has created a legislative environment where there will be no money for anything. Not for schools, not for health care, not even for state parks.

Oh wait, there will be money for toll roads.

Do Texans really want to continue being the laboratory for Grover Norquist's experiment of drowning government in the bathtub?

Why is Rick Perry selling off God's Country?

Glenn Smith of the Texas Progress Council asked this question today at a press conference in Austin.

So why is the Governor of Texas -- a man called MoFo -- selling off public lands while at the same time starving our state parks of the most basic maintenance necessary to keep them going?

From the presser:

Recently, Texas Parks & Wildlife warned that budget cutbacks ordered by Perry might require the sale or closure of 18 state parks. Also, Parks & Wildlife transferred 12,000 acres of the Black Gap Wildlife Area in Big Bend to the General Land Office so it can be sold.

This land is some of the most beautiful and important in our state. It includes Rio Grande River canyons considered among the wildest in America. A portion of the Rio Grande that runs through Black Gap has been designated a Wild and Scenic river by the federal government.

And Rick Perry’s going to sell it.

Perry’s spokesman was recently quoted saying the Parks system should consider selling even more land. Belt tightening, they call it. It’s more like strangling the future of Texas.

Watch the video:




And if this bothers you, then send the Governor and the Land Commissioner a message now, and again in November by voting for their two opponents.

Statewide candidates to travel on Texas State Railroad, discuss parks funding

Chris Bell, Maria Luisa Alvarado, David Van Os, Hank Gilbert, and VaLinda Hathcox will hold a press conference in East Texas this weekend to talk about the woeful condition of our state parks due to legislative budget cutting.

Saturday, August 29, at 12:30 pm at the Texas State Railroad train depot in Palestine. Be in Rusk to catch the train to Palestine at 10:00 am (boarding at 10:15, departure at 10:30 11 am. $17/pp roundtrip, call 903-683-2561 or toll-free 800-442-8951. It's a good number; you just have to keep dialing until someone answers. Hey, it's East Texas; no whining.)

I have been hoping that our campaigns wold hold an event like this for some time, and I plan on riding the rails while I'm there.

Care to meet me in East Texas for a train ride?

Update: The Texas State Railroad website. The Fares, Schedules, and FAQ. Note that you must pick up your reserved tickets one hour before departure, or they are released for resale.

Update II: The Democratic Party group is departing from Palestine at 10 am, with a halfway out-and-back trip. According to Kathy at the toll-free number above, climate-controlled seating is not available.

David Van Os calls on Blogland

Blogland responds with overwhelming force. Overwhelming.

I don't revel in the Israeli-Palestinian comparisons, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Greg Abbott suffered a fate comparable to Hezbollah at Texas polls in November.

Figuratively speaking only, of course. No blood shed, but many tears by conservatives.

Abbott's World

The response to the Attorney General's brazen partisan plays reached a crescendo among both the traditional media and the blogosphere last week. Read these reactions:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott four months ago urged Republicans to give former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay another two years in office. Abbott on Friday urged a federal appeals court to let Republicans replace DeLay on the general election ballot.

R.G. Ratcliffe, Houston Chronicle

Equally misguided is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's decision to intervene in the case. He has every right to file a friend of the court brief, but his stated reason shows a slight grasp of the particulars of the case.

A spokeswoman for Abbott said Sparks had declared a portion of the Texas election code unconstitutional. In fact, neither the Democratic Party that sued to keep DeLay on the ballot nor the judge made that argument.

The judge actually ruled that the U.S. Constitution sets eligibility for congressional candidates and that a candidate's residency can be determined only on Election Day. GOP officials had declared DeLay ineligible after he won the party primary but moved his official residence to Virginia. DeLay and his wife continue to maintain their house in Sugar Land.

For the Texas attorney general to use the resources of the state to help his party win a favorable court judgment would be an intolerable conflict of interest. If Abbott does file a brief, it should recognize that Texas law prevents parties from replacing unpopular primary winners such as DeLay with stronger candidates — exactly what the state GOP is trying to do.

Houson Chronicle editorial

Yesterday's story that Attorney General Greg Abbott would file a amicus brief in an effort to have the Fifth Circuit reverse Judge Sam Sparks ruling that Tom DeLay could not be replaced on the ballot ignited quite a bit of conversation, especially among outraged Democrats. They argue that the AG's participation is improper because Sparks' decision did not find Texas law unconstitutional -- the predicate for an Attorney General's intervention.

As part of the trial, Secretary of State Roger Williams' office submitted an amicus letter to the federal district court outlining the time line and mandatory election deadlines that were in play. At the conclusion of the letter, SOS General Counsel James Trainor wrote, "As noted above, the Secretary of State does not currently take a position as to how the court rules on the merits of the case before it."

However, today Williams' spokesman Scott Haywood said that Sparks' ruling had the effect of declaring some part of the statute unconstitutional. Although he had not yet seen the amicus brief, he said the intent of the brief was, " to insure that the election code and the statute is not found as being unconstitutional."

But Democrats are insistent that nothing in Sparks' ruling undermines the statute and argue that something else is at play. The ruling simply enjoins Republican Party of Texas chairman Tina Benkiser from declaring DeLay ineligible and prevents the Secretary of State from certifying any other candidate to be on the ballot.

Quorum Report (7/20/06)


The blogs were quite a bit more direct, as usual:

In what can be called the biggest pair of flip flops ever seen, Greg Abbott rolls over for Tom DeLay, first by urging voters to support DeLay in the primary, then supporting DeLay's right to quit on the voters after the primary.

Bay Area Houston

So why is Greg Abbott using his office to help the GOP avoid the mess DeLay made? Why is the AG writing that Tom DeLay should be allowed to manipulate the law and parties should be allowed to switch out an unpopular candidate in the middle of a race? Why is Abbott kow-towing to lawlessness and electoral chaos?

I bet you David Van Os could tell you why....

The View from 22

Why the state has such a vested interest in making sure DeLay can be replaced is pretty unclear. If the state wanted to make sure the people of CD-22 were represented, Governor Perry should have called on DeLay to resign earlier and set a special election. But, they didn’t take that route, and now the state is doing its best not to live with those consequences.

Capitol Annex

Under the "Republicans Have Less Shame Than a Pavement Princess" Department, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is about as worthless as cornflake recipes, filed an amicus brief in favor of -- hold on, now -- the Texas Republican Party.

There are incest laws in this State, dammit.

Juanita's - The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon

I wonder what will convince Texans we need a new Attorney General. Greg Abbott is not a friend to Texans (to say he is weak on consumer issues is giving him too much credit), but some people will vote against their own interests. His campaign is bankrolled by his corporate cronies who have him in their pockets (the ever ubiquitous Bob Perry, for one). Some people just ignore that. His latest shenanigans make you wonder if he understands even basic legal issues, which you would think would be in the minimum job requirements for becoming attorney general of a whole state.

Muse's musings


What, indeed?

Perhaps most revealing is the criticism that comes not from the blogs or the corporate media but from The Conservative Voice:

So of course I decided to look into this Greg Abbott guy. And what do you think I found? Big Oil connections up the wazoo. It appears that Texans have been pressing for some time for Abbott to lay bare his business dealings with one John Colyandro, a central figure in the Tom DeLay-TRMPAC money-laundering scandal who also served on Greg Abbott’s campaign payroll during the same time frame in 2002. Colyandro is also the spokesman for Koch Holdings, LLC, which owns a group of companies engaged in trading, operations and investment worldwide. According to their profile, these companies “have a presence in nearly 60 countries in core industries such as trading, petroleum, energy…” In short, the company is involved, among its many other interests, in Texas crude oil production. ...

There are few things that raise as much frustration and are a threat to our national economy, as well as personal and business finances, as escalating gasoline prices. It’s bad enough when Big Oil itself engages in practices deserving of prosecution under RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), but it’s even more heinous when Americans like Greg Abbott - who are beholden to uphold the law - conspire to quash commerce and industry’s efforts to give Americans respite from this national economic crisis.

David Van Os could not have said it any better than that. Well, maybe a little bit better...

Take a close look at this picture

It was taken last week during the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. Look at Bush, and look at Putin looking at Bush. (Click on the photo for a larger, clearer picture; Blogger slightly distorts these when they are translated.)

Now look at the beer bottle in front of Bush.

And what appears to be more beers chilling in a bucket next to the buffet table.

Look again at the two men.

Feingold, Clark, Edwards, Warner

That's the order from one to four of the top vote-getters in the Daily Kos presidential straw poll for July/August.

Over 12,000 respondents, with "Other" and "No Freakin' Clue" continuing to out-poll Senator Clinton along with her fellow DLC-ers. The netroots no likey them.

My personal preference remains General Clark, but the man whose name I hear mentioned most often offline is John Edwards. Senator Feingold is slated to speak to Houston Democrats at the annual Johnson-Rayburn Dinner in September.

Not just Iowa and New Hampshire any more

This is a hell of a good idea:

Democrats are on track to jumble the states in the presidential primary calendar in response to growing criticism that the same predominantly white states hold many of the cards in early voting. And not even complaints from a former president and a half-dozen White House hopefuls can stop them.

Iowa would still go first in the new calendar, but a Western state -- possibly Nevada or Arizona -- would be wedged in before the New Hampshire primary. A Southern state -- possibly Alabama or South Carolina -- would follow New Hampshire.

The national Democrats' rules and bylaws committee expects to vote on the proposal this weekend.

Critical Democratic constituencies such as blacks and Hispanics have clamored for a major role in early primary voting, arguing that Iowa and New Hampshire are hardly reflective of a diverse electorate.

Iowa's population is 95 percent white, New Hampshire's is 96.2 percent, according to the latest Census numbers.

Lots more, including the revealing demographics, at the link. This makes sense for so many reasons I can't count them all. For one: how many times have you been irritated that the candidate winning IA or NH went on to become our nominee, eliminating your personal favorite almost before he got out of the gate?

I just can't wait to see which southern and southwestern states they pick. My guess is that it will be the ones whose media costs the least, which would seem to make NM and Alabam' the favorites.

I'll update this post with the official announcement.

Update (7/22): So much for my powers of divine prophecy; it's Nevada and South Carolina, subject to final approval ...

Democrats bucked decades of tradition Saturday by moving to wedge the state of Nevada between the long-standing one-two punch of Iowa and New Hampshire in the leadoff nominating contests for president in 2008.

In an effort to provide more diversity in early voting, the Democrats' rules and bylaws committee recommended that Nevada be allowed to hold a caucus the Saturday after Iowa's leadoff caucus — likely to be held Jan. 14. The rules panel also awarded South Carolina an early primary, which would be held a week after New Hampshire's Jan. 22 primary.

The full Democratic National Committee will have to approve during its August meeting in Chicago before the changes are put in place.

"Greg Abbott laid down the gauntlet"

Following the latest partisan stunt by the Office of the Attorney General, I asked Lt. Col. Bill Burkett for permission to republish his remarks here. He agreed, and they follow:

I personally believe that the recent acts of continued collusion of Greg Abbott and Tom Delay make certain that the defeat of Mr. Abbott is the FIRST priority for the Texas Democratic Party and all Texas Democrats this fall.

But this is not just a Texas issue. This is where the National Democratic Party must weigh in with "jawbone" support and also get some fund raising assistance working toward the Texas Democratic Candidate - David Van Os.

Now, it's no secret that David and I are close friends. But my feelings of this nature have always been that the most important seat to gain this fall was that of the Attorney General. Greg Abbott has always been the "enabler" for the Texas GOP and especially DeLay, Perry, Dewhurst, and Craddick. He has always been the one that gave legal approval through the power of his office for the Texas leadership to do very illegal and unethical things.

Without that wink and nod lawyer (only continuing the tradition of Alberto Gonzales during the Bush Administration) there is a major speedbump and possibly a fighting chance on specific issues within the legislature as well.

Now, if we and the National Democrats aren't willing to fight this issue after grand juries and judges have spoken, we simply have no right representing the people at all.

Bill Burkett
Baird

I'm with you, Col. Burkett. Let's get this party started.

There is no executive office imbued with more constitutional authority than the OAG. The Attorney General of Texas can do more to reverse the course of this creeping meatball of fascism than any ten Congressmen.

Help make it happen.

Texas-flavored postpourri

Catching up around here...

David Van Os and Hank Gilbert spoke at the Trans-Texas Corridor hearings in Fort Worth earlier this week. Click all the way through to the CanoFun links and watch the videos.

The toll road is going to be a wedge issue for Democrats in November. (Even Grandma gets it; you can watch her comments at the link as well.) A large majority of people attending these hearings are Republican rural and surban voters, and they are mad as hell about the land grab. They're ready to flip, red to blue, and this is the reason.

Greg Abbott is acting in his capacity as Attorney General as if he's still taking orders from Tom DeLay. Someone please tell him that the Bugman has quit, that his machine has gone kaput, and that's it's almost over for the GOP around here. On second thought, don't bother telling him anything. We'll send him a telegram on November 7.

Like the idea of paying $100 for your driver's license renewal? Looks like it's coming whether you like it or not.

And finally, the President of the United States remains in a touchy-feely mode: he "playfully slapped" my Congressman, Al Green, today. Go look at the picture.

Somebody is going to slug that idiot if he keeps this up.

Update: I forgot to mention that Judge Susan Criss is going to be guest-blogging over at Grits for Breakfast. Can't wait to read her posts.

Edgar is the one on the right in this photo

Via Brad DeLong and the Washington Post, we learn from Ron Suskind's excellent new book The One Percent Doctrine that the CIA's nickname for Dick Cheney is 'Edgar.'

As in Edgar Bergen. The guy on the right:

How Bush acts doesn't matter any more.

Really.


First of all, the man has acted like a drunken frat president / cheerleader all of his life.


He's not changing. If his mother couldn't teach him any manners, if turning 60 hasn't given him any temperance, then really nothing will.


And focusing on his boorish behavior at this stage of the game simply distracts us from the mission.


And the mission is to eject as many of his enablers in Washington and Austin as possible.


In three- and- one-half months.



Because once we do that, then we can focus not on his shenanigans but on his crimes.


Eyes on the prize, people.

Smackdown of the Week: Vladimir Putin

For the following two pointed barbs leveled at Cheney and Bush, each of which could have been written for him by Jon Stewart.

Regarding recent criticism by Dick Cheney of Russia's democratic reforms:

"I think the statements of this sort by your vice president are the same as an unsuccessful hunting shot."

In a joint presser at the G-8 summit with the Moron-in-Chief, who had barely finished a remark about Iraq and democracy:

"We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

I never in my life thought that I would see a former head of the KGB mocking our president in public, and I would be laughing.

Congressional redistricting updates

Just go read Vince. He's got the maps, and he's got the analysis all assembled.

The one comment that I will add is that if Greg Abbott thinks he can make Lloyd Doggett disappear with his map, he's got another think coming.

Stephen Colbert hearts Joementum

This one's for you, Greg: