"It's not a bug, it's a feature"

Today the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against the secretary of the state of Texas, Roger Williams, claiming voter disenfranchisement. The electronic voting machines used in many Texas counties, called e-Slates, have routinely counted undervotes on straight-ticket ballots -- in effect subtracting a vote -- when a voter would additionally pick a Democratic candidate on their ballot. You can read the announcement here.

I want to separate this paragraph from the press release for some greater examination:

On the eSlate machines, when a voter chooses a straight-ticket vote and then continues to select candidates of the same political party to “emphasize” their vote, the machine actually records the vote for that race as a no vote. This is inconsistent with the tabulation of absentee paper ballots in those counties, as well as electronic voting machines used in other counties across the state. The irregularities relating to the eSlate voting system have affected the outcome at least one race, located in Madison County. However, there are 101 other Texas counties that employed these machines in the 2006 election.

Additionally, the Secretary of State’s office is required to test all voting machines used in Texas elections and knew of the irregularities related to the eSlate machines, which are manufactured by Hart Intercivic. Yet Secretary Williams allowed the machines to be used anyway.

Hart InterCivic was an old-fashioned printer for the state government before they got into the e-voting business. They got into that business shortly after Tom Hicks -- Bush Pioneer and owner of the Texas Rangers, aka the man who made Dubya rich -- invested heavily in the company in 1999.

Here's where things get interesting:

Hart representatives have always claimed that emphasis voting is not a programming error but a standard function of e-Slates. That explanation still puts their machines in violation of Texas election law, which states that votes must be tabulated and recorded "uniformly" throughout the Great State. Hart, though, is not named as a defendant in the litigation; Secretary Williams, as supervisor of elections, must certify the voting mechanisms in Texas. All of them, whether paper ballot or DRE. Thus the heart of the matter, and the basis for the voter disenfranchisement complaint.

The Office of Attorney General will defend Williams in this filing. There'll be more to say here as the case goes forward.

And some days it lifts you up

-- Dixie Chicks CD sales were up 1641% in the 24-hour period following Sunday night's Grammys, which they swept. On tap: Al Gore's Oscar for Inconvenient Truth.

-- The Washington state legislature wants to be the first (among many) to compel the US House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings. Against both the president and vice-president.

-- I had the luxury of watching some college baseball in Houston this weekend; specifically the tops-in-the-nation-ranked Rice Owls and the #5- ranked Vanderbilt Commodores. Suffice it to say that the Owls won't be ranked #1 again for some time. The Houston Press has a great story on everybody's All-American, Joe Savery.

-- "Why is Texas red???" I don't think it will continue to be much longer.

-- A special linky-dink for my regular commenter Bev. The de-geeked version (and yes, Bev and I are mad geeky about this) is: a vendor shill who gets to write voting system standards for the whole damn country -- with the EAC's blessing, of course -- is being investigated by the IEEE because some of the good guys, who are also IEEE members, wrote to them and complained. If the bad guys are sacked, there will likely be less opposition to e-voting standards that require simplified and standardized audit ability, reliability and that sort of thing.

More later today on what Texas Democrats are doing about their DREs.

-- apologies to James Blunt, but I agree with Weird Al that he's pitiful:

Never had a date
That ya couldn't inflate
And ya smell repulsive too
What a bummer bein' you

Well ya just can't dance
And forget romance
Everybody you know still calls ya
Farty Pants

But you always have a job well I mean

As long as you still can work that Slurpie machine

You're pitiful
You're pitiful
You're pitiful
It's true

-- muse's excellent Science Behind Driving to Florida in a Diaper is a Valentine's Day don't-miss.

Some days the news will bring you down

-- Amanda Marcotte has resigned from the John Edwards campaign. There's going to be some major payback for this. Update (today, p.m.): And now Melissa McEwan as well. We're going to the mattresses, you right-wing freaks.

-- North Korea appears to have rolled over on its nuclear program. It wasn't all a bluff, was it? Did they reach critical mass and then decide to cash in on some Western concessions, figuring they can restart quickly anytime they need to?

-- Ari Fleischer just might be the source of the CIA/Plame leak, at least according to the WaPo's Walter Pincus. Of course, he's been granted immunity, so ... so what? Novacula claims it was Karl Rove and Richard Armitage. Moneyshot quote from Patrick Fitzgerald, to NYT reporter David Sanger: "I believe you're the third Pulitzer prize winner to testify this morning."

-- A scathing indictment of the media by Sheila Samples. Leading off from Hunter S. :

Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."

-- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Oh yesss, there's more:

If the Bush administration and the US mainstream media are united on any one issue, it's an absolute refusal to rock the political boat as they sail mercilessly through the seas of corporate profit on the good ship Terrorbush. For the most part, each group is an incurious lot -- undead creatures who neither care, nor dare, to glance over the side of the ship at the bloated, swirling bodies in the blood-red water below. From the beginning, their mission has been to perform so fantastically against a backdrop of such violent, explosive madness on so many fronts that we watch hypnotically but do not see -- listen intently but do not hear.

I can't add a thing. Read it all. Greg also has some less coarse but still worthy linkage on this subject, but per usual you have to rapidly scroll past his Hillary cheerleading.

-- an article in the Toronto Star ponders the "management" of environmental collapse.

-- the FBI is still losing laptops and weapons:

"Most troubling, we found that the FBI could not determine for 51 additional lost or stolen laptops whether they contained sensitive or classified information," the report said. "Seven of these 51 laptops were assigned to the counterintelligence or counterterrorism divisions."

You don't suppose someone could be selling them to someone else, do you? It's almost as nauseating as this:

But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so.

-- and as the evidence accumulates that the White House is cooking up a similarly bad batch of intelligence on Iran, the media outside the United States report that we are almost ready to begin the air strikes.

Tex-centric scattershooting

... while wondering whatever happened to all those morons who hated on the Dixie Chicks ...

-- I disagree with Greg more often than not on matters of political candidates we favor, but we agree on Barack Obama (just for different reasons initially). Obama will speak in Austin on February 23rd.

-- Charles Kuffner's new baby, Audrey, is born. Pictures.

-- the lawsuit by the Texas Democratic Party and against the Attorney General of Texas, the Secretary of State, and others for e-voting irregularities and illegalities may finally be filed this week. A press conference is slated for tomorrow to publicly discuss the case.

-- one of my favorite people (not to mention bloggers) is managing the campaign of Melissa Noriega for Houston city council. Noriega's husband Rick serves in the Texas Lege, was the commander for the city's Katrina-related evacuee efforts, and while serving in Afghanistan as a reservist asked his wife to mind his House seat. She did so well she earned "Freshman of the Year" honors from her colleagues. She's running to replace the odious Shelley Sekula-Gibbs on council; there's a fundraiser this Friday in Fort Bend county.

-- a report with pictures on the "Stop the Coal Rush!" rally yesterday at the Capitol.

-- my man David is still fightin' 'em -- on the ice, in the rain, out back in the alley, and everywhere else he can find 'em. Read the latest installments here or at Texas Kaos.

-- via Texas Moratorium Network, I learned about and attended the opening of the Death Penalty Art Show at M-2, an art gallery in the Heights on Saturday. The exhibits are thought-provoking and emotional. If you can go see it this week, then by all means do so. Update (2/13): People are talking about it.

Vindication

Sunday Funnies

(click on the toon for a larger view)

Feith-based intelligence

Marty Kaplan will never work on a presidential campaign after this: "If only Doug Feith had big tits."

More moneyshot quotes this week ...

"I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

-- Karl Rove, who apparently didn't get the memo about the robust US economy

"Why are you making these statements?" (vice presidential counsel David) Addington asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett.

"Your boss is the one who wanted" them, Bartlett replied, referring to Cheney.

...

"We're a day late in getting responses to the story," Rove told a staff meeting, according to Libby's notes.

"Get the full story out," Cheney told aides, according to Libby's grand jury testimony.

-- Testimony this week from the trial of Scooter Libby. Addington is the fellow who replaced Libby, and who also has provided the legal opinion that Dick Cheney is above the law.

"I'd like them to stop. They should do a show where torture backfires."

-- Army Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan, dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, about the hit television show "24", which routinely depicts the use of torture to extract information to prevent terrorist attacks. Update (2/13): More from ThinkProgress.

"I thought about calling in sick, but my bosses would figure it out pretty quickly. 'Oh, you were sick, were you? I saw your picture. Nice try.'" Besides, "I've been to enough fashion shows to know how fun they are," she said, rolling her eyes ever so slightly. "My first show ever was Heatherette when I was a freshman and Amanda Lepore came out naked, wearing just lipstick. I'm completely spoiled. Every time I see a show now, it's like, 'Really? That's all you're going to do? You just want me to look at the clothes?'"

--eldest Bush twin Barbara, on skipping New York fashion shows because she had to work

Burn vouchers, not coal

The education elites in Texas are preparing another frontal assault on public schools. They had a rally, they've got support from Governor 39% and Lite Governor Dewfus, and the Republicans in the Lege are going to try again to get something done on vouchers. My blog hermanos push back. Capitol Annex:

I double dog dare Leininger to approach some African Americans or Latinos who lived through the Civil Rights Movement in Texas and tell them how vouchers are a civil right. If he comes out alive, I’d love to hear what he has to say.

Burnt Orange (Sam Jones):

Yes indeed; those poor, poor children. I know it must be terrifying for some to think of sending their kids through the public school system. With the failing test scores, prevailing presence of drugs and gangs, and the underpaid teacher force, it's a wonder that any of us went to public school at all...

Texas Kaos (lightseeker):

Texas yearly per pupil spending is $1,239. The schools are supposed to get 60% of that from the state and the rest from local property taxes. The state has consistently underfunded their part. This is one of the reasons for the endless increases in local property taxes. In addition, the state has continually tacked on more and more unfunded mandates on the local districts, further complicating their funding woes.

Charles Kuffner:

It's just a shame that no one ran against State Sen. Kyle Janek, who will be filing a pro-voucher bill, last year. Maybe he'd have met the same fate as some of Leininger's other minions. Some people need the message delivered to them personally, I guess.

South Texas Chisme:

The Texas Public Policy Foundation responds using Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, data. These people don't believe in pre-K education.

Hal at Half Empty:

I think it’s time for James Leininger to take stock of his grand plan. He has fewer supporters in the legislature in this session than last, and the vote just isn’t there. Besides that, he has just illustrated for us one of the less obvious reasons why school voucher programs are a bad idea. What if someone pulls the plug on the voucher system, like Leininger plans to do with his program? Private schools will turn out their voucher students by the thousands, leaving them no choice but to go back to the public schools, which will have no choice but to admit them. These will be schools that will have been underfunded for years because the voucher system redirected funds from public schools to private schools.

And another reason to rethink school vouchers? No one wants them.

So my solution is that we gather up all the vouchers and use them to generate the electricity that TXU wants to build coal-burning plants for. Speaking of rallies, "Stop the Coal Rush!" will be the fun one this weekend.

And when we finally run out of those, we can burn James Leininger and his sycophants in Austin, because that natural gas will last for centuries.

Diaper-free, Anna-free edition

The media is simply so fixated on human foible this week that I am forced to turn it off. Here is some news that really matters:

-- A young woman died and you won't hear about her on your teevee. But you ought to. Update: Make that two young women.

-- An interrogator of Iraqis gets paid back with his nightmares:

The lead interrogator at the (division interrogation facility) had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

This fellow's war wounds are about the best a veteran could hope for.

-- Dick Cheney was expected to testify for the defense in the trial of Scooter Libby, but now it is believed that he won't, because a cross-examination by Patrick Fitzgerald would likely damage their case beyond repair. Following Tim Russert's testimony an old report surfaced with this quote: "Integrity is for paupers."

This case has revealed the worst about the lies of this administration and the corporate media that protects them.

-- Both the House Sergeant-at-Arms and the White House press secretary have refuted Republican whining about the airplane Speaker Pelosi is to use. Yet they still whine.

-- Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to fight in Bush's War, got a mistrial this week. Apparently the judge panicked. And the case will be argued as double jeopardy if a re-trial proceeds as planned.

-- New Orleans residents (the middle class Caucasian ones this time) are bailing out.

-- Ellen Goodman reminds us that global warming may not be able to change the Washington political climate:

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. ...

The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration. ...

This great divide comes from the science-be-damned-and-debunked attitude of the Bush administration and its favorite media outlets. The day of the report, Big Oil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma actually described it as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report. ...

Whatever we do today, we face long-range global problems with a short-term local attention span. We're no happier looking at this global thermostat than we are looking at the nuclear doomsday clock.

Can we change from debating global warming to preparing? Can we define the issue in ways that turn denial into action? In America what matters now isn't environmental science, but political science.

We are still waiting for the time when an election hinges on a candidate's plans for a changing climate.

--and something to laugh at: Cheney and Rumsfeld combined means two heads, but still one giant asshole.

Weather forecast: heavy shitstorms over Edwards

-- John Edwards has put himself in a world of pain regarding his campaign's mishandling of le affaire' bloggereuite. I read Sean-Paul and Kuffner, then went to Amanda's Pandagon and Melissa's Shakespeare's Sister, and back and forth between MyDD and Kos and then over to the Edwards blog (this diary by Uncle Jimbo was particularly confusing at first) and for the life of me, I still cannot determine if the women were fired or not, or whether they may have been rehired if they were fired.

That meets my definition of a clusterfuck.

Ian summarizes the choice for Edwards (and for me) well. This won't be over until the candidate himself clears it up. And it may be over for him even then.

Update (12:55 p.m.): The weather's clearing up. Like Chris, I thought this went too long and still isn't quite hitting the right note, but is certainly the right move. McBlogger has his usual flattering response, with which I also concur. And the Times has an adequate summary also.

Edwards, Obama, Clark, Other/No Freakin' Clue

With nearly twenty-five thousand unique respondents in the monthly straw poll at Daily Kos, that's the order of finish. In a head-to-head face off, John Edwards bests Barack Obama 51-42% with 5% picking neither (15.5 thousand votes).

Dennis Kucinich is favored slightly over Hillary Clinton, both with about 4% of the tally. General Clark will probably get a bump in this poll next month when he finally announces.

In traditional polling in Iowa, Clinton leads Edwards and Obama 35/18/14 with Gov. Vilsack running fifth in his home state, behind "undecided" at 13%. ARG has the GOP race Giuliani, McCain, Gingrich 27/22/16 with 15% undecided, Romney in fifth at 11%. And in the Granite State, it's currently Hillary 35, Obama 21, Edwards 16, Undecided 14. Al Gore is fifth with 8%.

This is the only time of the election cycle I find polling really interesting, because its one-use-only effect (similar to that of toilet paper or a certain Supreme Court decision) is even more pronounced. It's really like handicapping a horse race within the first fifteen seconds or so, about enough time for them to reach the first turn. Which is to say it's kind of ridiculous (but still fun).

And while the Republican candidates have begun using Houston and Texas as their ATM early, the Democratic candidates are staying away in droves. Except for Kucinich, who will be in San Antonio next month as the guest of the Progressive Populist Caucus, the Progressive Democrats of America, and the Progressive Action Alliance.

Who do you favor at this early stage of the game?

Update (2/9) The candidates tracked back since July '05.

Explosive bloggerrhea

-- Republican presidential hopefuls invade Houston, carry off giants wads of money.

-- Space News: This is what happens when astronauts flip out. Apparently their training is just like high school; whooda thunk? I've had some recent experience with adult diapers ( with my poor in-laws) and I find it a little unsettling that anyone would voluntarily don one for a long road trip.

Also, we've littered our upper atmosphere with thousands of pieces of junk. One of the thirty-six ways to know when your empire is crumbling is when the guys that are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space.

-- Twenty questions answered about impeaching a vice-president. I have three words for this: Git 'er done.

-- The US attorneys across the country who were recently pink-slipped by Abu Gonzales shed some light on the reasons behind their firings.

-- "It is a cross between rotten cheese, dog poo and something dead." No, not Cheney's undisclosed location, not even that crazy astronaut's diaper, but the Corpse Flower. And it's blooming early.

-- I have written about my wife's family previously, but have not written about their Jewish ancestry. My father-in-law's name is Israel; his mother is buried there. His brothers in New York and New Jersey are mostly Orthodox. One of them even goes so far as to keep pareve toothpaste in the house. This article tells about the fate of Jews in Cuba since the rise of Castro.

Super Bowl Bests

Best Commercial



Best Halftime Show (Purple Rain)



Update: Stace found the YouTube.

Sunday Funnies (Super Sunday edition)

(click the toon for the readable view)

Super Bowl postpourri

-- There is a case to be made for the impeachment of Dick Cheney.

-- Global warming news: The world's leading scientists, evangelical Christian groups, and even the CEOs of BP, DuPont, GE, Duke Energy and others all asked Bush to require limits on greenhouse gases this year, but he has refused. The intergovernmental report on climate change that was panned as too cheery even before it was released was also undermined by a conservative think tank: scientists were offered bribes by the American Enterprise Institute.

-- Joe Biden is going to establish a new land speed record for shortest presidential campaign. He is the Apollo I of White House wannabes (all apologies to Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee). Then again, however he thought it possible to out-DLC Hillary -- and Tom Nutsack, for that matter -- should have been a red flag on his political acumen. At least he won't be plagiarizing anyone's speeches.

Al Sharpton told him he bathed every day. Priceless.

-- The 2008 federal budget strips $1.3 billion out of Louisiana's levees, prompting outrage even from Republican senator and Cajun right-wing freak David Vitter:

"I am deathly afraid that this vital emergency post-Katrina work is now being treated like typical (Army Corps of Engineers) projects that take decades to complete. We will not recover if this happens."

-- Watching some of the old Super Bowl highlights on ESPN this time of year is a real treat. Regarding this year's game, I like the Bears to shut down Peyton Manning and cover the 6 1/2 point spread, if not win outright. If the Texans can do it, the Bears sure can. As it has been all season, it comes down to how well Rex Grossman plays.

In the vein of football-on-the-brain, here's a few of the people we are all bound to encounter at our Super Bowl parties this Sunday. "Fantasy Football Guy" manages to show up at mine every single year. At the other end of the emotional spectrum, a sad article from Dan Wetzel on the steep price NFL vets have paid, both in terms of disability and for playing the game when the money was lousy.

Commissioners Court Shuffle

The third largest county in the United States may soon have a vacancy at the top of the food chain:

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said Wednesday he is mulling offers from the private sector and can't rule out walking away from the four-year term he just won in November.

An early resignation would create a political whirlwind in county government, where officials serve without term limits and open seats are rare.

Eckels, a Republican, has political ambitions extending beyond these on-the-table offers to make a big pile of money; his name was mentioned frequently in the DeLay-apalooza last summer. But his current job gives him oversight which spans all or part of seven congressional districts, so his interest is likely as a statewide candidate. Houtopia (much better connected than me) handicaps the potential replacements:

Some names that have surfaced on the GOP side as possible replacements are Jerry Eversole, Ned Holmes, or Paul Bettencourt. Eversole would seem more of a placeholder. If he left his Commissioner's seat to take the job, there would likely be a wide-open Republican primary for County Judge in 2008, whether Eversole wanted to keep the position or not.

Holmes, a longtime party donor, hugely successful businessman and former Port Authority Chairman, if appointed, would be a daunting opponent for 2008 challengers. First of all, he could self-fund, he would be a smooth, telegenic candidate, and he has a ton of favors to cash in -- the guy's raised money for or given to every candidate and elected official in town. Nobody wants to take him on in a GOP primary.

Then there's Bettencourt. The darling of the anti-tax conservative crowd (ironic when you think of to whom you write your enormous property tax check each year), the current Tax Assessor-Collector has one rather large obstacle -- (Commissioner Steve) Radack. That's right folks, they too are mortal enemies. So, the interim appointment is probably out for Bettencourt, though he may well look at 2008.

Keir also slips in a mention of the Democrats' chances:

After all, the average downballot countywide Dem candidate got about 48.5% of the vote in 2006, with terrible base voter turnout and absolutely no coordinated effort. All signs point to Harris County tipping back to the Democrats in the near future, so they would be crazy not to mount a serious challenge for this seat in 2008, particularly considering the dramatically higher base Democratic voter turnout in a presidential year. ...

The two names most often mentioned are former City Council Member Gordon Quan and former Party Chair and real estate investor David Mincberg. Both would be strong candidates.

Local politics could get a lot more interesting if Judge Eckels decides to bail.

"How the hell has Condoleeza Rice got away with it for so long?"

Cragg Hines, DC bureau chief for the Chronic (I love him mostly because he drives these people batshit) serves:

A cheeky Brit pol is ragging on the bearer of the Vestalian aura within the Bush crowd, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

What's more, the guy is a leading light in the Conservative Party, once such great chums with Bush's Republicans. ...

And the incipient backbiting I'd hope this guy's screed generates could make the dust-up between Rice, incensed professional woman, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California flamer-mother, look like the sitcom episode it was.

Actually, Johnson's extended paragraph could have been dictated by any number of Rice's erstwhile allies in the American conservative movement. Johnson knows some of the same folks I do who have been dishing Condi's intellectual capacity and judgment from the get-go.

Here's the extended paragraph he refers to, from the blog of MP Boris Johnson (bold emphasis added to make it easier to read):

It is one of the great mysteries of modern geopolitics. How the hell has Condoleezza Rice got away with it for so long? There she is, Secretary of State of the United States and one of the most powerful people on the planet. It is Condi Rice who leads on behalf of you, me, the entire Western world, in waging this deepening Cold War with Iran. She is the girl who threatens Ahmedinejad with Armageddon, or whatever our policy is. And yet if you read State of Denial by Bob Woodward (as you must) it is clear that she was the most stupefyingly incompetent National Security Adviser in the history of that office. She was warned, in some detail, about 9/11. The CIA made a special trip to see her on 10 July 2001 to say that al-Qa'eda was planning something huge and imminent, and that a 'strategic' response was necessary. Uh-huh, said Condi, and did zip; and at every stage in the catastrophic 'War on Terror' her behaviour is characterised by this same weird zen-like passivity. Soon after the invasion the question emerges: should the US send many more troops? Condi somehow fails to offer an opinion. The Americans' first hapless proconsul, Jay Garner, asks her before setting out what the game plan is. Where is power to reside? he asks. Who do we want to run the country? You might have thought this was a fairly crucial question, but 'Rice said nothing.' When Garner's successor, Jerry Bremer, makes the appalling mistake of de-Baathifying Iraq, she doesn't seem to grasp the significance of what is going on. And yet she was so important in the decision-making process that she was one of only two people consulted by Bush before he made his decision to go to war. The whole thing is terrifying. I absolutely refuse to take seriously any American urgings to get tough on Iran as long as she is still part of the show. Rumsfeld was demonised until Bush finally whacked him. Colin Powell was whacked. How come Condi is still flying around telling us what to do? One of the many reasons for regretting the death of Robin Cook, Labour's conscience over Iraq, is that he never had the chance to interrogate her. I was all set to write the headline, 'Cook Turns Up Heat On Rice.' It's about time someone did.

At every critical point in her administration tenure Rice has been out to lunch, literally or figuratively; shopping for shoes and attending Broadway plays while New Orleans drowned being the most obvious and appalling example.

She initially forgot about a briefing from George Tenet on July 10, 2001 regarding the al-Qaeda threats in advance of 9/11, but later on when her recall improved she also remembered that she had asked that former AG John Ashcroft receive the same briefing one week later. (He also currently disavows recollection of his briefing, yet something happened during mid- to late July -- six weeks before the World Trade Center towers were hit -- that scared Ashcroft so badly he ceased flying commercial aircraft.)

She confused Bush as being her "husb..." even though she's never been married.

Finally, when Bush asked Rice to focus on Iraq when she was still at NSA he said her job was "to help unstick things that may get stuck, is the best way to put it. She's an unsticker."

Now there's an unsettling visual.

"And for me, it's leaving time"

I have a grandly dramatic vision of myself stalking through the canyons of the Big Apple in the rain and cold, dreaming about driving with the soft night air of East Texas rushing on my face while Willie Nelson sings softly on the radio, or about blasting through the Panhandle under a fierce sun and pale blue sky….I’ll remember, I’ll remember…sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter. And people. Mostly I’ll remember people.

There is one thing, an important thing, I have to tell you before I go. What I’m going to tell you is more than a fact. It is a Truth. I have spent six years checking it out, and I know it to be true. The people who subscribe to The Texas Observer are good people. In fact, you’re the best people in this state. I don’t care if you think that’s pretentious or sentimental—it’s just true.

If I got to naming you, I would never stop, so I won’t. But please believe me that all of you whom I know and many of you whom I know only by letter are in my mind as I write this—even if I do forget your names half the time. Always excepting, of course, the turkey who sends me hate mail after my annual gun-control editorial. Turkey, turkey, turkey.

I wanted to call this “The Long Goodbye” but Kaye won’t let me. She wanted to call it “Ivins Indulges in Horrible Fit of Sentimentality.”

I love you. Good-bye my friends.

The closing paragraphs of Molly’s goodbye column to Texas Observer readers published June 18, 1976, as she left to join The New York Times.

Barack's poster, Hillary's arms, and Abe's conservative agenda

Another drive-by

Too busy still to put my own thoughts up so here's some of the reading I'm liking:

-- Vince (and other of my Texblog brethren and sisteren) say that giving Tom Craddick any more power this session is a bad idea. But a comment to Vince's post suggests it would be the better of two evils. Update (5 p.m.): The resolution is defeated, handing Speaker Craddick a loss.

-- Here's your Libby trial update from Marcy Wheeler and Jeralyn Merritt, courtesy Steve Gilliard and Easter Lemming (the Warren Zevon link is icing).

-- Vista's here. This crap by Bill Gates -- planned obsolescence promoted on the Daily Show -- really makes me want to go buy a Mac. Dwight has, as he always does, the best tips on how to make the switch. I'll wait until the last possible moment, i.e., if one of my computers needs replacing or MS stops updating XP. Hopefully that moment will be a few years from now.

-- Some local news: a good article on the state's programs to support families is here, with a cool quiz. I scored a 70. The Auto Show is in town and it's much greener than in the past; this is still one of the best diversions that comes to Houston. I particularly want to go examine the new crossovers -- I drive an Equinox but am lustily eyeing the new Nissan Rogue. The Chronic also has the news that electricity deregulation has failed Texans. This article is about ten days old but provides an update on Jim Turner, who may yet have some political ambitions. And j-a-x has some of the best skyline photos I have seen.

Out of Iraq: photos from yesterday

Washington:

San Francisco:



Seattle:



Sarasota:



Austin:



Houston:

Sunday Funnies

Cold, wet bloggerhea

-- Shelia Jackson Lee is hosting "Iraq War Summit: What Next?" today in downtown Houston. The conference will be followed by a silent march.

-- the Discovery Channel scoops CNN relative to an old story: that TWA 800 was brought down by a missle and not a spark in the gas tank. I've always thought that the biggest argument against any conspiracy theory is preventing someone from talking to Mike Wallace (or writing an expose') years later. Keeping hundreds of military personnel quiet -- after retirement -- ten years after seems far-fetched to me. Yet Kristina Borjesson wrote that book almost five years ago.

See, this isn't about a plane crash; it's about a coverup by the corporate media.

Ted Kennedy asks his Republican colleagues: "What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?" Watch it:



This would be an excellent question to ask our two miserable excuses for Senators from Texas, who have been filibustering the minimum wage bill.

-- Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her continuing struggle against breast cancer. My family, as some may recall, is going through the same thing at the moment. My advice to Molly fans: say a little prayer (or whatever you say in this circumstance).

-- the Scooter Libby/CIA leak trail has been diligently live-blogged and summarized by Jane and Christy at firedoglake. Here's the two most recent entries. The end of the week's two revelations were: a) Scooter being thrown under the bus by Cathie Martin, former Cheney spokeswoman (and current deputy communications director for the president) ; and b) Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett have been subpoened to testify.

-- The Iraq escalation will 'work' this time, according to the president, because he "told them it had to."

Really.

It's not even clear who he is referring to when he says "them". Is it the generals? the Iraqis? I no longer believe it's alcoholism affecting his thinking. The president is just plain delusional.

Help Lara Logan

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this istakingplace verysingle (sic) day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

If anyone has time to send a comment to CBS – about the story – not about my request, then that would help highlight that people are interested and this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.

Many, many thanks.

(Work-safe but not child-safe)

Hat tip to Matt Stoller.

Belatedly linking for choice

Since I'm tardy here are few of my favorite postings from others:



Agonist (Ian Welsh):

... (C)hoice is non-negotiable issue for me. I've been pro-choice ever since I first thought about the issue as a teenager.

The reason is elemental, as it is on both sides. If I were a woman, I would want to have the choice available to me. I would want to control my body. Without that ability to control her own body, a woman loses a certain amount of freedom.

MyDD (Matt Stoller):

The right to an abortion is about the right for women to control their own lives, and I won't accept any arguments that suggest that women shouldn't have the right to make very personal decisions or should have to make them in some sort of legal jeopardy. That's just immoral. I'm all for legislation reducing the number of abortions through legal assistance, economic help, and sex education, though I would point out that these tend to decrease all social ills and so I would support them for other reasons as well. But anything that makes the state sanction abortion as anything but an intensely private choice by women (and men to a lesser extent) in a vulnerable and difficult position in their lives is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Digby:

I come at it first from a fundamental belief in civil liberties. It's clear what the "right to life" agenda is and it has nothing to do with the fetus these people pretend to care so much for (until its born.) It has to do with sexual behavior. ... I'm a big believer in the fundamental argument which is that if women don't own their own bodies they are not free. It's just that simple.

My Left Wing (Lilian M. Friedberg):

When my mother was "forced"--not once, not twice, but three times at least--to bring a child into the world which she could not feed, there were no aspirations to be abandoned, no childhood dreams to be shattered, no adolescence or naiveté to be lost: that had already gone down the tubes when she became the primary breadwinner in the family as a teenager--waitressing and cleaning houses to feed and clothe her younger siblings.

I was also the product of rape. Marital rape. It must have been a very difficult decision for my mother: this child, to keep or not to keep. She kept. Even though she could not afford it. Even though she must have known what she was keeping was a lifetime reminder of rape--and of her own inability to "provide"--for yet another "unwanted child".

We both bore the scars of that decision-and to this day, I cannot tell you whether her decision was right. I've written about it ; many a time.

Mahablog:

Not one pro-life organization in the United States that supports the use of contraception? If you cruise around their web sites, you see that even those groups that don’t explicitly oppose the use of birth control don’t support it, either. For example, you can search the National Right to Life web site for a kind word on the responsible use of birth control until you turn purple; it isn’t there. But as Cristina Page documents, many state chapters have taken firms stands in opposition to any form of birth control.

Is there a corresponding degree of fanaticism on the pro-legality side? Not that I have found. No pro-legality association suggests that abortions should be forced on women who don’t want them. No pro-legality group I know of advocates abandoning the gestational limits on elective abortion set by Roe v. Wade. Not NARAL, not Planned Parenthood, not any of their affiliates. Instead, “legals” work to preserve the legal rights outlined in Roe v. Wade. And Roe v. Wade allows states to ban late-term elective abortions and place some restrictions on mid-term abortions. The notion that Roe v. Wade allows a woman to waltz into an abortion clinic and terminate a third-trimester pregnancy just because she feels like it is not, and never has been, true. Yet pro-legality organizations often are accused of being just as absolutist and extremist ...

Norbizness (from two years ago):

As a uterus-free person, this may be my first and last post on Roe v. Wade, but the disingenuous, historically fallacious, and insulting column by David Brooks (other comments here) required a little clean-up and attention. ...

When Blackmun wrote the Roe decision, it took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts. If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate.

First of all, I live in Texas. In this, the year of our Lord 2005, we are trying to rip foster children from the loving homes that gay and bisexual couples are providing for them. I'm pretty sure that the 14 million women in this state would be enjoying no such right, nor would they be getting bus vouchers for the nearest state that would (California? Iowa?). The idea that the religious right would have never developed as a political force in the absence of Roe v. Wade is absolutely nuts; they were there all along and would have fought state-by-state to assert their political power.

Planned Parenthood's Lobby Day at the Texas Capitol is February 28.

Please don't scare me like that again

The candidate left out in the cold

There have already been several lively conversations regarding the focus of the Texas Democratic Party’s 2006 election strategy, its perceived success or failure, who’s responsible and how to fix it and so on. If you need the backstory, begin there and return here.

David Van Os has made his feelings well-known about the missing support of statewide Democratic candidates from the state party’s apparatus. As anyone who read here occasionally over the past year was aware, I served briefly as the Van Os for Attorney General campaign director for a couple of months in the spring of 2005, and after that in a reduced capacity as statewide coordinator due to my illness (diabetes mellitus with neuropathy in both feet) and my going business concern (annuities brokerage). Here’s a few more places you can go to catch up on DVO's POV if you need to.

But this posting isn’t about that campaign or even that candidate; this is the story of Janette Padilla-Sexton, the woman who ran as the Democratic nominee for HD-144 in southeast Harris County against longtime Republican incumbent Robert Talton.

Here’s the briefest of biographical data: strong progressive (early Dean presidential campaign supporter, among many activist roles), technical writer for the United Space Alliance, single-income homeowner. A citizen-activist for Democrats and progressive causes, she had no prior elective experience and no visible means of campaign support, but her early announcement for the primary might have scared off attorney Rick Molina, who instead challenged -- and lost to -- Ana Hernandez in neighboring HD-143.

Padilla-Sexton also suffered during the campaign season from a variety of physical ailments which ultimately precluded her from active campaigning: meniscus tears in both knees, a misdiagnosis of osteoarthritis resulting in additional and unnecessary doctor’s visits, hospital stays, incorrectly prescribed medication and so on. She did suffer from arthritis as it turned out but not in that particular knee; she also developed high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and some pre-diabetic conditions.

But that wasn’t all she suffered from: several Houston-area Democratic legislators made promises of help of all kinds, but when she called to take up those offers, her calls went unanswered and unreturned. There were some people who leveled with Padilla-Sexton: state representative Garnet Coleman told her that he and his colleagues had discussed her race and come to the conclusion that they could not assist her because “they had to work with Bob Talton on regional issues”. (I contacted Phillip Martin, Coleman’s chief of staff, for a response but my queries went unanswered.) Mostly she got the cold shoulder: Rep. Jessica Farrar was effusive in her initial offers of assistance, but declined to return phone messages when the time came to help. Padilla-Sexton also reached out to Harris County commissioner Sylvia Garcia (mentoring), Sen. Rodney Ellis (about an air quality question), Rep. Scott Hochberg (regarding state education funding), Sen. Mario Gallegos (for adding credibility to her campaign) and Rep. Rick Noriega (for general help and direction), but none of those people returned her calls, either.

So she soldiered on, spending a total of just $8,000 $13,000* -- virtually all of it her own money $8,000 of her own money* -- on her race, and finished with 40.5 per cent of the vote on November 7^th. Talton spent about ten times that. Here’s how she performed in comparison to other statehouse Democratic political novices:

Ellen Cohen: 54.70%

Sherrie Matula: 42.29%

Kristi Thibaut: 41.76%

Janette Sexton: 40.55%

Diane Trautman: 39.87%

Mark McDavid: 38.73%

Chad Khan: 32.61%

Dot Nelson-Turnier: 29.93%

Scott Brann: 29.1%

Pat Poland: 25.00%

Sammie Miller: 22.8%

It’s worth noting that Cohen raised $500,000 for her campaign, with the assistance of many of the previously named legislators, an army of volunteers and the wherewithal to take a ten-month leave of absence from her position as the director of the Houston Area Women’s Center. Thibaut, an adroit fundraiser, collected $150,000 and also a core of vigorous volunteer support. Matula, who ran in neighboring HD-129, benefited from the teachers PAC and strong efforts from the Bay Area New Democrats, Area 5 Democrats and Battleground Democrats -- all clubs that could have chipped in volunteer assistance to Padilla-Sexton as well -- enabling her (Matula, that is) to have extensive blockwalking and phonebanking. BAND, to their credit, provided robocalls to Janette’s campaign. John Cobarruvias, the president of the club, admitted that BAND’s efforts were stretched too thin over the Bell, Lampson and Matula campaigns to provide much in the way of anything extra. So with virtually no help and no resources – no money, no volunteers, consequently no direct mail, blockwalking or phonebanking, not even any campaign literature – Padilla-Sexton performed fourth of eleven political novices. Trautman, McDavid, and Khan all had greater resources and performed less well in their districts.

I believe the overall conclusion is that HD-144 was ripe to flip, but none of the power brokers believed it, and consequently none of them decided to try to make it happen. Privately, I was told disparaging things about Padilla-Sexton that I won't bother rehashing here. So could it also have been her fault, as a candidate with initial shortcomings made worse by her health issues? Possibly. Her experience nevertheless adds evidence to the opinion that there are many Texas Democrats who are just too timid to challenge a variety of status quo beliefs: taking on an entrenched Republican no matter how extreme (perhaps in order to avoid the same sort of challenge in their own districts); a state party structure managed by a couple of inside players controlling the selection and momentum of their perceived “winners”; a governing body (SDEC) which has abdicated its responsibility to hold accountable the unelected decision-makers; and finally the perception that Texas Democrats simply aren’t committed to make a winning effort across the board, no matter the odds.

That’s a defeatist state of mind. It’s a loser’s mentality, or in the words of Chris Bell, a strain of battered-wife syndrome. It flies in the face of Howard Dean’s rather successful 50-state strategy, and ultimately provided very limited Texas results in a year of watershed electoral change across the rest of the United States.

So maybe it was a 49-state strategy, come to think of it (without blaming Dean for leaving Texas out).

I’m sure it’s just coincidence: Matt Angle, the political consultant taking the most credit for the narrowly targeted 2006 legislative strategy, served as chief of staff to former US Rep. Martin Frost -- ejected from Congress in Tom DeLay’s 2004 redistricting gambit -- who was also defeated by Howard Dean in the race for DNC chair.

Bob Schrum would be so proud.

Update (1/24): Easter Lemming provides the verification and the financial corrections, noted by asterisk above. (He worked on Janette's campaign, so it's not quite accurate to say she had "no" volunteers, either). And Stace throws in his dos centavos as well.

A blog is born (and less weighty matters)

Put your hands together for Feet to the Fire, a collaborative effort by some of my favorite people -- including me, of course. Muck will be raked.

-- Another of the Astros journeyman hurlers who sent the team into their glorious 1980 playoff run, Vern Ruhle, passed away at MD Anderson over the weekend. I thought that Ruhle was a tremendous pitching coach and felt bad when the Astros canned him in 2000, coincidentally the same year they began play in Enron Field Minute Maid Park. Crawfish Boxes has a nice compendium of stats (like always) and an old baseball card. Vayo con Dios, Vern.

-- As more global warming news warns, the fair-and-balanced pushback manages to get itself into the Chronic. Shame on you, Eric Berger. All the conservative freaks in town will continue to think the newspaper is too liberal, so you may as well quit trying to appease them.

I'll have more than these bite-size pieces later on as I'm sitting around doing nothing but scratching where it itches all day. (Pajamas media, indeed. I'm wearing sweats.)

Sunday Funnies

(click to view larger)

I smell postpourri

-- excellent point-counterpoint by Markos regarding the 2008 Democratic declareds.

-- there are several conversations going on about the past and future direction and management of the Texas Democratic Party.

-- another Houston police shooting of an unarmed African-American man has a neighborhood on edge. On a lighter note, this is the HPD news I count on HouStoned for.

-- the Texas corporations who benefited the most from Republican administration paid most of the$2 million tab for Rick Perry's inaugural. They include TXU, which is rushing to build several coal-fired plants in Texas. We're also getting gouged by the cellular phone companies. Surprised?

-- Iran got military parts and equipment from the Pentagon. Bush caved on his wiretapping efforts. Cheney thinks it's OK to look at your credit report. The White House visitors logs are now classified 'top secret'.

-- The Sunday Funnies and more tomorrow.

Scaling Mt. Mutombo

I was all set to post about the Rockets and then Norbizness said everything I was thinking (and more, and better):

The most interesting senior citizen player in the NBA reached a milestone (on January 10), as a rejuvenated Dikembe Mutombo collected 19 rebounds and 5 blocks to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as second on the league's all-time blocks list. More importantly, I think he's some sort of prince, he speaks 12 languages, he probably never used "Who wants to sex up Mutombo?" as a pick-up line at college bars in DC (although he should have), and, most importantly:

A well-known humanitarian, Mutombo started the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to improve living conditions in his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. His efforts earned him the NBA's humanitarian award in 2001. In the same year, ground was broken for a hospital in his hometown, the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, with Mutombo personally donating $3.5 million toward the hospital's construction. On August 14, 2006, Dikembe donated $15 million to the completion of the now named Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named for his mother. When it opens in February 2007, the $29 million facility will become the first modern medical facility to be built in that area in nearly 40 years.

The Rockets, despite injuries to their two main players at different points in the season, are inexplicably 23-13 after blowing out the paper-tiger Lakers (January 10). Unfortunately, they are jockeying for midseason position in the Western Conference, which has approximately 100% of the top teams in the league. Put another way, teams like the Clippers that miss the playoffs in the West would probably be 3 or 4 seed in the pathetic, interest-less Eastern Conference.

Boy, that's cold

Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Clark, Richardson

As Barack Obama prepares to enter the race for the Democratic nomination (the official announcement comes on February 10), the denizens of Daily Kos are conducting their monthly straw poll.

My personal ranking appears in the headline (first to fifth, descending), as would be measured by today's momentum. FWIW, the 15,000 22,000-plus Kossacks have it Edwards, Obama, Clark, Richardson, Kucinich, then Clinton. Which could be one of the reasons Greg is posting so pissy.

"Fight on the Ice", Abbott vs. Van Os, scheduled today

In lieu of the canceled inaugural parade (Eileen gets kudos for best headline, again) the much anticipated "Fight on the Ice" between the 2006 attorney general candidates is on for today, at high noon, in front of the Texas Capitol.

Picture this:

David Van Os, twirling on ice skates like Eric Heiden, swinging a grapple hook like a lasso over his head, slams it into the back of Abbott's wheelchair and yanks his seat from under him. Abbott, his arms waving wildly but his useless legs splayed ridiculously, sails down the Capitol promenade on his backside, gathering speed on the downhill run. He skids all the way down Congress Avenue, bounces off the bridge railing and launches like an Iraqi mortar shot into the air and out into the middle of a not-quite-frozen Town Lake. As Abbott splashes spectaculary into the water, a tremendous cheer erupts from the assembled fight fans back on the south steps.

I can see it as plain as day.

(Hat tip to Phillip for the original inspiration.)

Dr. King speaks out against the Iraq war

Excuse me, I should have said Vietnam (though there is nearly no difference any longer).

Sunday Funnies (re-lo edition)

(The Sunday Funnies, a regular feature formerly appearing here, are moving permanently to this location. Mouse over and click to view larger.)