Voter ID: solving a non-existent problem *update*

Floor Pass:

The main argument put forth will be that the only problem Republicans are solving by requiring photo identification in order to vote is the problem of citizens casting legitimate votes for Democrats. The people least likely to have photo identification—such as the elderly, the disabled and the poor—all belong to groups that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

“The burden should be on the state to prove that there’s a real problem, that there’s no other way to deal with this problem, and that the state will not be precluding people from voting before it enacts this sort of legislation,” said Sen. Kirk Watson.

The only type of voter fraud that Voter ID prevents is voter impersonation. The Democrats will point out, as they did today, that one is more likely to be struck by lightning or see a UFO than they are to come across an act of voter impersonation.

Campaign Legal Center executive director Gerald Hebert said, “There is no widespread, organized, or even significant voter impersonation in Texas. Not a single case has been prosecuted in over 20 years. And I know, because I brought a lawsuit against [Texas Attorney General] Greg Abbott to prove that fact and he acknowledged that it was so.”

Greg Abbott sent agents from the OAG to peek in a little old lady's bathroom window, and he STILL couldn't find any evidence of voter fraud.

Many, many more Texans will be denied their vote because a volunteer poll worker would have the unquestioned authority to decide whether or not someone looks "correct". Think this an exaggeration? Well, it used to be the case during both the Jm Crow period, as well as the time prior to the suffrage movement in the US:

In Texas this week, debate opens on a proposal that places extraordinary identification requirements on citizens who wish to vote. The proposed law's ambiguous language appears to grant part-time, amateur polling place officials the absolute power to accept or reject a would-be voter based solely on that citizen's appearance or other subjective judgments. For the first time since women and blacks were granted the vote, appearance alone may disqualify a would-be voter.

But since this is the greatest single issue facing Texas today, the Republicans are going to make certain it passes.

Update:

"This hearing is a sham, just like your redistricting hearings were a sham," (civil rights attorney Gerald) Hebert said.

Hebert said the voter identification legislation is the "latest in a long series of attacks on minority voters in this state" and is part of a "long dark history of keeping people on the reservation through voting."

Hebert, who works out of the nation's capital, said there is no widespread "or even occasional" cases of voter impersonation in Texas.

He called the bill "raw partisan politics" by Republicans "to harm voters in their own state." Hebert said the bill will cost taxpayers millions of dollars to implement.

Follow the live action here and here. And more summary assembled at Off the Kuff. Still more play-by-play from Patricia Kilday Hart at Burkablog.

The Weekly Wrangle

In the wake of Texas Independence Day (March 2) and the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo (March 6), with the pending fight over voter identification legislation set to open tomorrow in the Texas Senate, take a moment to click on the links below that feature past discussions of the skirmish.

Following is the round-up of some of those posts, along with the rest of the best from the Texas left last week.

jobsanger knows that more money needs to be raised to pay for needed improvements and repairs to America's infrastructure, but he remains convinced that the Mileage Tax Is A Terrible Idea.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson gets readers ready for the upcoming Voter ID debate, or as the the Texas GOP calls it The single most important issue facing Texas today.

The new video at Texas Liberal is called Reading About The Panic Of 1873 In Front Of The Enron Building.

Over at McBlogger, Captain Kroc posts an interesting piece about seemingly unrelated issues, Rush Limbaugh and Child Molestation.

The Texas Cloverleaf gives a brief on Equality Texas Lobby Day this past Monday.

Off the Kuff looks at the case against voter ID, also known as the single most important issue facing Texas today, as advanced by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Dos Centavos posts about the latest on the Voter ID. Can national Latino political and economic muscle be flexed effectively, as it was for Obama?

Obama sent the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see what our military can do to stop drug cartel activities. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks John Cornyn is shopping border violence as a theme for his 2012 presidential run.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is frustrated at the regression, into childhood, of those who claim to be Republicans. They are NOT Republicans. They are the Neo-Republicans who have hi-jacked the party name to deceive ordinary conservative Americans. They have stolen the GOP cloak to hide their real agenda. Read more in Neo-Republicans Are Not The Grand Old Party, scatological analogies.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men rounds up opinion on the newly released OLC memos. We knew they'd be bad... but still.

John at Bay Area Houston says the Harris County GOP's "Give a Mexican a Bike" program is probably against federal law and smothered with hypocrisy.

As the head of FreeRepublic.com gets visited by the Secret Service, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs finds several pre-post-mortems on the GOP.

TXsharon joined other blogs in areas effected by unconventional natural gas drilling in asking readers to TAKE ACTION and let The View know they were irresponsible to give T. Boone Pickens free advertising for his plan without investigating the full implications. The same drilling practices Pickens promotes recently contaminated water wells in the Marcellus Shale causing one to explode: Manhattan borough president called for drilling moratorium.

Lord of the Freepers gets visit from Secret Service

Let's allow Mr. Robinson to explain:

Unfortunately, we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. Now I remember when America used to fight against communism. It wasn't that long ago. Many of us on FR are veterans of wars against communism and some of us believe that American citizens who are communists are the enemy within, ie, the domestic enemy we've sworn to defend against. American citizen? hmmmm... that may be a loophole for Obama.

At any rate, the oath is to defend our constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I can imagine that this places an enormous strain on our Secret Service agents. It's obvious to anyone with a brain that Obama is an enemy of the constitution. So should the SS defend the constitution or defend the anti-constitution commie?

So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service. And even though your visiting agent may agree politically, and may take his oath to the constitution seriously, he's still sworn to protect the officeholder and it's his duty to take all threats seriously. And that may include serving me with a subpoena to turn over your IP address. Now I'm duty bound to protect your privacy to the best of my ability, but I cannot defend against stupidity.

Best advice I can give is to keep it to yourself. Don't post anything that may embarrass you later, or end you up in the slammer.

Without an ability to understand the distinction between an Iraq war protest and a Tea Party; unable to discern the difference between "Bush is a moron" and "Obama ain't gettin' my guns without a fight"; without the common sense to comprehend why one cannot threaten the life of the President of the United States as casually as one flicks a booger, the rightest of the Right are in for a long and difficult eight years.

What we are seeing is the spasms and convulsions of a political party's sudden yet inevitable demise. The end could have been avoided to no greater success than the dinosaurs or the newspapers. But don't take my word for it; ask David Frum:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of "responsibility," and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence -- exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word -- we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

It's not just about Limbaugh though, as everyone except most people still voting Republican already know:

Even before the November 2008 defeat—even before the financial crisis and the congressional elections of November 2006—it was already apparent that the Republican Party and the conservative movement were in deep trouble. And not just because of Iraq, either (although Iraq obviously did not help).

At the peak of the Bush boom in 2007, the typical American worker was earning barely more after inflation than the typical American worker had earned in 2000. Out of those flat earnings, that worker was paying more for food, energy and out-of-pocket costs of health care. Political parties that do not deliver economic improvement for the typical person do not get reelected. We Republicans and conservatives were not delivering. The reasons for our failure are complex and controversial, but the consequences are not.

We lost the presidency in 2008. In 2006 and 2008, together, we lost 51 seats in the House and 14 in the Senate. Even in 2004, President Bush won reelection by the narrowest margin of any reelected president in American history.

The trends below those vote totals were even more alarming. Republicans have never done well among the poor and the nonwhite—and as the country's Hispanic population grows, so, too, do those groups. More ominously, Republicans are losing their appeal to voters with whom they've historically done well.

In 1988 George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis among college graduates by 25 points. Nothing unusual there: Republicans have owned the college-graduate vote. But in 1992 Ross Perot led an exodus of the college-educated out of the GOP, and they never fully returned. In 2008 Obama beat John McCain among college graduates by 8 points, the first Democratic win among B.A. holders since exit polling began.

And did you remember that Republicans won California in every presidential election from 1952 through 1988 -- except for LBJ in 1964? Thirty-six years, or two consecutive political generations. Democrats have owned California in the five consecutive ones since 1988. Florida was lost in 2008 (and in 2000, but who's counting any longer?) and Texas is slowly slipping away. Too slowly, but the trend is irreversible, especially as the GOP continues to demonize Latinos. A voter ID bill to be considered next week in the Texas Legislature only slows the trend a few more years. More from Frum on the current problem for conservatives:

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than … not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him.

But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us. Two months into 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have already enacted into law the most ambitious liberal program since the mid-1960s. More, much more is to come. Through this burst of activism, the Republican Party has been flat on its back.

He's got some ideas about how his party can make a comeback at the link. I just don't think anyone over there is capable of making the necessary changes in time to save themselves.

And that's not a bad thing. If the GOP splinters into opposing factions of social conservatives, economic conservatives and Libertarians, then that would perhaps open the Democratic Party up to a little more balancing of the intra-party lefts and rights. Hopefully.

Have to hope that happens no matter what the Republicks manage.

The Rock Obama defenestrates Kay Bailey

Suffer through the 30-second ad for last night's SNL parody (hat tip to Poli-Tex):

Sunday Funnies (Not-Getting-It Edition)

Failure is not an option *update*

For the Republicans, it has become a requirement.

And the absurdity just gets more comical by the day. David Sirota:

On the same day a new Wall Street Journal poll reveals that Americans trust in President Obama and congressional Democrats on economic issues is skyrocketing (and in the same month Fox’s own polls show the same), I debated Bill Kristol in a Fox News debate that the network’s moderator prefaced by asking why Obama’s economic actions were “forcing Americans to lose trust in the administration?” Watch it here - I kid you not (notice the graphic underneath asserting unequivocally that “Confidence In Obama’s Economic Team [Is] Lost” and that “Disappointment Grows Over Obama’s Economic Team”).

As you’ll see, Kristol has exactly one talking point: He says that the Dow Jones has lost 15 percent, or 1,355 points, since Obama took office, and he then effectively claims that Wall Street speculators’ day-to-day gyrations mean the vast majority of Americans do not trust Obama, irrespective of polls showing exactly the opposite.

Of course, Obama has been in office for 44 days - so just for a comparison, let’s remember that in the 44-day period between 8/28/08 and 10/11/08, the Dow Jones lost 27 percent, or 3,264 points. But Kristol doesn’t mention that little detail, because Republicans were controlling economic policy then (and you’ll notice Fox promptly ends the segment when I start bringing this up).

The point, of course, is to say that judging economic policy by 44-day periods in the market is absurd, and it is especially absurd to blame a 44-day-old presidency on market forces that three decades of conservative policies (that Kristol aggressively advocated) created. But that’s the extent of the GOP’s talking points today.

Earlier this week Jon Stewart tore into CNBC's Rick Santelli and Jiim Cramer, the elite's latest Goliaths of the class war, for the rants they have been spouting and the Tea Parties they have spawned. Watch it:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

None of this revisionist, delusional, own-facts-entitlement BS is going to fly any more. Progressives have their own infrastructure to push it back, and besides, the voters understand who's spinning the lies.

-- Update:

Despite the tumbling economy, Barack Obama continues to enjoy a honeymoon with the American public in the face of the most trying crisis any newly inaugurated president has encountered since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The GOP, meanwhile, is viewed by a majority of Americans as the party of "no," without a plan of its own to fix the economy, and even rank-and-file Republicans are concerned about the party's direction, according to the first NEWSWEEK Poll taken since Obama assumed office.

"People give Obama credit for reaching out to Republicans, but they don't see Republicans reciprocating," says pollster Larry Hugick, whose firm conducted the survey. "A surprising number said bipartisanship is more important than getting things done."

GOP's TP for the Limbaugh mess

I watched the Lizard Fleischer and his faux scorn -- mentioned in the following -- for myself yesterday. To imagine that a guy sat with Karl Rove for years and plotted strategy ("Americans should be careful what they say") strikes me as a new pinnacle in disingenuousness:

It took them awhile, but the GOP has come up with their official talking point on Rush Limbaugh. Here's John Boehner, from an article that went up on Politico at 4:46 (EST):

"It's a huge distraction created by the White House" to avoid talking about components of the budget, Boehner complained. "You would think the White House would have more important things to do."

And about 20 minutes later, Pat Buchanan was on Hardball, sighing over the White House creating this controversy when they should be worried about saving the economy.

And then on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, former Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer complained that he was very disappointed in the President for starting a childish fight when the economy is in such terrible shape.

So there you have it.

Never mind the Chairman of the Republican National Committee crawling to beg forgiveness for daring to criticize Limbaugh. Ignore the fact that no Republican has been willing to say that Limbaugh was wrong for not only hoping that President Obama fails, but for claiming that every Republican feels the same way but is too afraid to say so. It's all the White House's fault.

Watch for this in the coming days.

Wonkette: 'GOP just comically walking into every trap'

How do you get what’s left of the Republican Party to destroy itself? It sure helps to have some self-obsessed drug-addicted sociopath like Rush Limbaugh as “leader” of the doomed wingnuts! At some point in January, the same Obama strategists who outmaneuvered the Clinton Machine and American Racism noticed that an AM radio jackass beloved by angry white guys in service trucks — who else listens to AM radio, during the workday? — was publicly wishing failure upon both the new Obama Administration and the U.S. Economy. Maybe this bloated oil bag could bring down the entire GOP!

Two months later, the plan seems to be working flawlessly. The Obama team says something like, “Hey, Republicans, do you agree with your party leader, Rush Limbaugh, this smarmy sex creep, that America should fail?” And then whatever hapless GOP factotum, such as party chairman Michael Steele, says something reasonable like, “Uh, hell no, and Limbaugh’s an ugly sack of rat shit,” and then Limbaugh bellows on the AM, and then the hapless GOP factotum immediately kisses Rush’s tacky pinky ring ...

*stopping to catch my breath from laughing too hard*

Finally, the very image of Limbaugh — a monstrous, sweating, greedy, fat-fingered Viagra-gobbling sex-tourist Jabba the Hutt figure of vulgarity and revulsion — is, officially, the image of the Republican party. The late-night network comedy talk shows are just loving it:



And now the Democrats have this hilarious “apologize to Rush” form letter. Democrats doing something hilarious? Change really has come to America ...

Comedy Gold.

Operation Pigbaugh

Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.

Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.

"The administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”

The bigger, the better, agreed Carville. “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said of Limbaugh. “The only people he’s not good for are the actual Republicans in Congress.”

Independent voters hate the guy as much as we do. Independents, of course, are the reason Obama is working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and why Republicans in Congress have been hosed in the past two election cycles.

They still aren't getting it, though. As Obama's popularity numbers go up, the GOP's go further into the toilet. But because their worst instincts are completely out of control -- like an OxyContin habit -- what is at risk is the very relevance of the Republican party nationally, in the strictest electoral sense of the word.

Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh’s overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.

Then came what Begala called “the tripwire.”

“I hope he fails,” Limbaugh said of Obama on his show four days before the president was sworn in. It was a time when Obama’s approval ratings were soaring, but more than that, polls showed even people who didn’t vote for him badly wanted him to succeed, coming to office at a time of economic meltdown.

No amount of Tea Parties, CNBC rants, or even the incoherent mutterings of the Vulgar Pigboy himself can stop this slide. They can either re-acquire some semblance of decency, conciliation, and bi-partisanship, or they can't.

Got popcorn?

Update: Chuck Todd...

To paraphrase Dickens, the last six weeks have been the best of times for Obama and the Democrats, and the worst of times for the Republicans. Just consider the latest findings from our NBC/WSJ poll: Obama’s favorability rating is at 68% (an all-time high in our survey), 67% say they feel more hopeful about his leadership, 60% approve of his job in the White House, and 49% have a positive view of the Democratic Party (which is also near a high). On the other hand, just 26% view the GOP positively (an all-time low in the poll), respondents blame Bush and congressional Republicans for most of the partisanship in DC, 56% think the GOP’s opposition to Obama is based on politics, and Republicans lose by nearly 30 percentage points on the question about which party would do a better job of leading the country out of recession.

While we have covered all the new administration’s ups and downs, it is absolutely clear which party has suffered the most in public opinion these first six weeks: the GOP. NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart (D) says Republicans “have been tone deaf to the results of the 2008 election… They never heard the message. They continue to preach the old-time religion.” Adds co-pollster Bill McInturff (R), “These are difficult and problematic numbers.”

More of Yoo

... and less of our constitutional rights (though that's getting rolled back a little now). Scott Horton at Harper's:

John Yoo’s Constitution is unlike any other I have ever seen. It seems to consist of one clause: appointing the President as commander-in-chief. The rest of the Constitution was apparently printed in disappearing ink. ...

We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.

Glenn Greenwald (bold emphasis his):

Let's just look at one of those documents (.pdf) -- entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the U.S." It was sent to (and requested by) Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes and authored by Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and DOJ Special Counsel Robert Delahunty. But it's not a "Yoo memo." Rather, it was the official and formal position of the U.S. Government -- at least of the omnipotent Executive Branch -- from the time it was issued until just several months George Bush before left office (October, 2008), when OLC Chief Stephen Bradbury abruptly issued a memo withdrawing, denouncing and repudiating both its reasoning and conclusions.

The essence of this document was to declare that George Bush had the authority (a) to deploy the U.S. military inside the U.S., (b) directed at foreign nationals and U.S. citizens alike; (c) unconstrained by any Constitutional limits, including those of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. It was nothing less than an explicit decree that, when it comes to Presidential power, the Bill of Rights was suspended, even on U.S. soil and as applied to U.S. citizens. And it wasn't only a decree that existed in theory; this secret proclamation that the Fourth Amendment was inapplicable to what the document calls "domestic military operations" was, among other things, the basis on which Bush ordered the NSA, an arm of the U.S. military, to turn inwards and begin spying -- in secret and with no oversight -- on the electronic communications (telephone calls and emails) of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Law professor Jack Balkin, from Balkinization (bold below is mine):

These (now-) disowned claims lie at the heart of the Cheney/Addington/Yoo theory of presidential power-- namely, that when the president acts as commander in chief Congress may not restrict in any way his military decisionmaking, including decisions about detention, interrogation, and surveillance. The President, because he is President, may do whatever he thinks is necessary, even in the domestic context, if he acts for military and national security reasons in his capacity as Commander in Chief. This theory of presidential power argues, in essence, that when the President acts in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, he may make his own rules and cannot be bound by Congressional laws to the contrary. This is a theory of presidential dictatorship.

These views are outrageous and inconsistent with basic principles of the Constitution as well as with two centuries of legal precedents. Yet they were the basic assumptions of key players in the Bush Administration in the days following 9/11.

Zachary Roth at TPM Muckraker with a summary of legal opinions, all of which happen to conflict with Yoo's:

Walter Dellinger, who ran OLC during the Clinton administration tells the New York Times that the Bradbury memo "disclaiming the opinions of earlier Bush lawyers sets out in blunt detail how irresponsible those earlier opinions were."

Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch speaking to the Washington Post, singles out the memo that allowed the administration to send detainees to countries that commit human rights abuses. "That is [the Office of Legal Counsel] telling people how to get away with sending someone to a nation to be tortured," Daskal said. "The idea that the legal counsel's office would be essentially telling the president how to violate the law is completely contrary to the purpose and the role of what a legal adviser is supposed to do."

Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington, focuses on the memo that gave the administration the power to conduct warrantless wiretapping. Writing on the blog The Volokh Conspiracy, Kerr calls the argument that FISA doesn't apply to national security issues -- which appears to be the memo's argument -- "an extremely lame analysis." He continues: "Much of the point of FISA was to regulate that."

And lastly, Yoo himself:

I think the job of a lawyer is to give a straight answer to a client. One thing I sometimes worry about is that lawyers in the future in the government are going to start worrying about, "What are people going to think of me?" Your client the president, or your client the justice on the Supreme Court, or your client this senator, needs to know what's legal and not legal. And sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do.

Twelve years of stock market gains evaporate

Down 50% since October, 2007:

The credit crisis and recession have slashed more than half the (Dow Jones Industrial) average’s value since it hit a record high over 14,000 in October 2007. And now many investors fear the market could take a long time to regain the lost 7,000.

“As bad as things are, they can still get worse, and get a lot worse,” said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading. Strazzullo said he believes there’s a significant chance the S&P 500 and the Dow will fall back to their 1995 levels of 500 and 5,000, respectively.

The “game-changer,” he said, will be the housing market and whether it can stabilize. A recovery will also require signs of health among financial companies, but so far in 2009, it is clear that banks and insurance companies’ losses are multiplying despite hundreds of billions of dollars in government help.

Since posting this, our little family has secured new corporate jobs and stabilized our incomes, health insurance, and the rebirth of a retirement account. Considering all that we lost, it's nice at least to be back on track. The rest of the country? Not so much.

Arrest John Yoo

If nothing else, he's going to have be the fall guy for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al.:

The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants. ...

The opinions reflected a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants. ...

Yoo is currently a law professor at UC-Berkeley (a real bastion of conservatism, that institution). He provided the legal cover for Alberto Gonzales to tell the president he could torture, wiretap, and otherwise disregard the US Constitution (of course, even with the tortured justification in these memos, they are all also guilty of crimes against the state and should be arrested, charged, and put on trial. But they won't be, of course). Emphasis following mine:

The opinion authorizing the military to operate domestically was dated Oct. 23, 2001, and written by John C. Yoo, at the time a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, and Robert J. Delahunty, a special counsel in the office. It was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked whether Mr. Bush could use the military to combat terrorist activities inside the United States.

The use of the military envisioned in the Yoo-Delahunty reply appears to transcend by far the stationing of troops to keep watch at streets and airports, a familiar sight in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The memorandum discussed the use of military forces to carry out “raids on terrorist cells” and even seize property.

“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force.

The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty said that in addition, the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the military from domestic law enforcement operations, would pose no obstacle to the use of troops in a domestic fight against terrorism suspects. They reasoned that the troops would be acting in a national security function, not as law enforcers.

In another of the opinions, Mr. Yoo argued in a memorandum dated Sept. 25, 2001, that judicial precedents approving deadly force in self-defense could be extended to allow for eavesdropping without warrants.

Still another memo, issued in March 2002, suggested that Congress lacked any power to limit a president’s authority to transfer detainees to other countries, a practice known as rendition that was widely used by Mr. Bush.

Other memorandums said Congress had no right to intervene in the president’s determination of the treatment of detainees, a proposition that has since been invalidated by the Supreme Court.

And since Yoo hasn't purchased a large ranch in Paraguay (one of the countries in South America where the Nazi war ciminals fled, because it has a no-extradition policy), then he should be taken into custody before he flees the country.

The Weekly Wrangle

Celebrating the new spring month of March with Texas Independence Day and some blustery cool weather, the Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers round up last week's postings for your Monday morning reading.

McBlogger takes a look at possibilities for 2010.

Bay Area Houston is following a bill to abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is sad to see that some things have not changed in the minds of the losers: CPAC Fans Fuse of Hatred - Seeks Civil War.

jobsanger discussed a couple of Supreme Court cases. The first, A Good Supreme Court Decision, denied anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse the right to own a gun, and the second case, TheRight To Know The Penalties, to be heard this fall, will settle the matter of whether an immigrant defendant has a right to be informed of all penalties that could be imposed in his case -- including deportation.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the push for expanded gambling in the Lege this session.

Can you read this resolution, posted on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS and find any good reason why Big Oil should get to keep the hydraulic fracturing exemption from our Safe Drinking Water Act? Yeah, TXsharon didn't find one either.

nytexan at BlueBloggin comments on the Hypocritical GOP Fiscally Responsible and with no surprise, the world of the GOP is definitely a parallax view.

The Texas Cloverleaf reviews the TX Stonewall biennial conference in Austin and notes who was or wasn't there among elected officials and hopefuls.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the economic changes that are starting to show up locally in The state of the economy in Williamson County.

Neil at Texas Liberal states his intent to make videos for the blog in Big Texas Liberal Blogging Announcement and Innovation. Also, Neil discusses Ice Age beasts in Massive Fossil Find--Should Ice Age Creatures Be Brought Back From The Dead?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is hopeful that the adults will address the drug cartel violence and figure out how to end the war -- the drug war, that is.

Rhetoric & Rhythm laments the fact that George W. Bush has become a scapegoat for the conservative movement. Bush did everything they wanted. It's not HIS fault that their ideas don't work.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men posted on the mixed bag that is the Obama administration's decision to try captured terrorist suspect al-Marri in the criminal justice system and what this might mean for the future of the "war on terror."

Do you know the real reason John Sharp and Bill White aren't running for governor? Because they're afraid they will get whipped by a girl, just like Rick Perry. So says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Over at Texas Kaos the 2.7 trillion that Duyba forgot to mention as part of his deficit. As Libby tells it, the people who should have been on top of this little detail weren't. "...The bubble dwellers don't know what is going on outside of their self-fixated bubble. Now I understand why President Obama leaves that nutty and toxic place when he wants to speak to real people..."

WhosPlayin has video and commentary on Lewisville's first Barnett Shale gas well.

Sunday Funnies

Click on the toon for an unobstructed view ...

This week's installment of "Republicans Unhinged"

Can't add anything to this:

When Republicans suffered a disastrous beating in November's election, it would have been fair to assume that things could not get worse for them: the-most-liberal-Senator was to be president, Nancy-Pelosi-from-San-Francisco was going to lead a massive Democratic majority in the House, and assorted socialists were going to run things. That was bad, yes, but this week, just like the stock market (funny how that goes), Republicans hit yet a new low. In recent days, Republican leaders were called cheesy, off-putting, disastrous, untrustworthy, and inconsequential, not by Democrats, but by their party's own members, from high-profile commentators to Governors.

The highlight of the GOP week was, of course, Governor Bobby Jindal's response to Barack Obama's Congressional address. The best that can be said for Jindal's performance is that it channeled Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock, presumably not the objective, even for someone who willingly changed his name to "Bobby." But the past seven days have offered so many moments of breathtaking inanity by the GOP that our head spins at trying to organize them cohesively. With the country on the verge of being swallowed up in its entirety by the spiraling economy, Republicans obsessed over Obama's citizenship, gay people, pregnant women with HIV, helicopters, primary challenges to their own Senators from porn stars and Christian fundamentalists, registration forms, hopeless recounts, and assorted variations on the 1981 theme of "Government Is The Problem."

Of course the author doesn't live in Texas, so he doesn't know that our Deep-In-The-Hearta conservatives out-goof their national counterparts every single time:

Rep. Ron Paul vehemently denounced the $410 billion catch-all spending bill approved last week by the House of Representatives.

But although the libertarian-leaning Republican from Lake Jackson cast a vote against the massive spending measure, his fingerprints were on some of the earmarks that helped inflate its cost.

Paul played a role in obtaining 22 earmarks worth $96.1 million, which led the Houston congressional delegation, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of more than 8,500 congressionally mandated projects inserted into the bill. His earmarks included repair projects to the Galveston Seawall damaged by Hurricane Ike and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

Following Paul was Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, who got earmarks worth $63.6 million. But it was a bipartisan spending spree. Just behind the GOP duo were Houston Democrats Al Green with $50.1 million in pet projects and Sheila Jackson Lee with $37.6 million.

Earmarks, said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, “allow lawmakers to have a say in how taxpayer dollars (are) spent.” His nine earmarks included $712,500 to mitigate airport noise at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

They all voted against the stimulus bill, then rushed to the front of the trough to gobble up the largest portions of it. You canNOT make up hypocrisy this rank.

And we haven't even mentioned Kay Bailout vs. Governor Goodhair or the Texas Lege yet, have we?

Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers

In the '60's, that meant something much different:

MERTZON, Texas - Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.

A state lawmaker is proposing to allow ordinary Texans with rifles and shotguns to shoot the voracious, tusked animals from helicopters.

For years, ranchers in the Lone Star State have hired professional hunters in choppers to thin the hogs' fast-multiplying ranks. Now state Rep. Sid Miller of the Fort Worth area wants to bring more firepower to the task by issuing permits to sportsmen.

This wouldn't be quite as inhumane as Alaska's aerial wolf-gunning program. Still ...

"If they're going to open up to where you can do this and anybody who's got a helicopter can go off to an old boy's place and hunt, that's going to be bad," said Jay Smith, owner of Smith Helicopters in Cotulla. Some people "may get confused and shoot the rancher's dog or a calf."

Go on and read some more about the guy in the Panhandle flying the "pork chopper".

Hearst now threatening to shutter SF Chron *update*

Fresh on the heels of a threat to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last month comes Frank Bennack and Steven Swartz with another ominous warning:

The San Francisco Chronicle will be sold or closed unless major cost-cutting measures -- including an unspecified "significant reduction in the number of unionized and non-union employees" -- can be realized within weeks, parent company Hearst Corp. said Tuesday evening.

"If these savings cannot be accomplished within weeks ... the company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper," Hearst said in a statement. The company claims the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year, "and that this year's losses to date are worse." The paper has had "major losses" each year since 2001, the company added.

"Because of the sea change newspapers everywhere are undergoing and these dire economic times, it is essential that our management and the local union leadership work together to implement the changes necessary to bring the cost of producing the Chronicle into line with available revenue," said a joint prepared statement by Frank A. Bennack Jr., vice chairman and chief executive officer of Hearst Corp. and Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers.

Fifty. Million. Bucks. In losses.

When I worked for Hearst in the 80's they owned the San Francisco Examiner, and the publisher was W. R. Hearst III, grandson of you-know-who. It was still considered the flagship, the one from which The Chief had built an empire. The company sold off that paper (in a hilarious comedy of very public errors) and bought the crosstown rival Chronicle, the more successful in circulation and ad revenue of the two. They had previously been married in a JOA (just like the P-I, just like the San Antonio Light -- RIP -- and the Express-News).

And now, apparently, they have run that one into the ground.

I suppose Hearst just isn't interested in being in the newspaper business any longer.

Update: And today, the Rocky Mountain News -- two weeks shy of its 150th birthday -- publishes its final edition. No online version will continue to be offered.

(Yesterday's) announcement comes as metropolitan newspapers and major newspaper companies find themselves reeling, with plummeting advertising revenues and dramatically diminished share prices. Just this week, Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, announced that unless it was able to make immediate and steep expense cuts it would put the paper up for sale and possibly close it. Two other papers in JOAs, one in Seattle and the other in Tucson, are facing closure in coming weeks.

The Rocky was founded in 1859 by William Byers, one of the most influential figures in Colorado history. Scripps bought the paper in 1926 and immediately began a newspaper war with The Post. That fight ebbed and flowed over the course of the rest of the 20th century, culminating in penny-a-day subscriptions in the late '90s.

Perhaps the most critical step for the Rocky occurred in 1942, when then-Editor Jack Foster saved it by adopting the tabloid style it has been known for ever since. Readers loved the change, and circulation took off.

In the past decade, the Rocky has won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than all but a handful of American papers. Its sports section was named one of the 10 best in the nation this week. Its business section was cited by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers as one of the best in the country last year. And its photo staff is regularly listed among the best in the nation when the top 10 photo newspapers are judged.

Staffers were told to come in Friday to collect personal effects.

Piyush Jindal flops

Even most conservatives considered the Louisiana governor's star turn Tuesday night a miserable failure.

This seems to be the least harsh and sums up the man's shortcomings, all of which appear to be style-related:

He looked young and amateurish. His delivery was unprofessional: He spoke entirely too rapidly, something a speech coach would work on in the first lesson. His tone and mannerisms were less presidential than they were something you'd see in an infomercial, and he seemed to be talking down to the viewing public.

So if you could meld Jindal's mind into Sarah Palin's body, you think maybe the GOP would have something?

Nah, me neither.

And that's why Bill White and John Sharp are running for Senate

Because Kay Bailey Perjury Technicality spanks "the longest serving governor in Texas history" like an unruly child. Let's give Harvey Kronberg the chance to shout a little:

NEW POLL PUTS KBH AHEAD OF PERRY 56-31

Company uses controversial robo-dialing methodology but notes it was the most accurate in 2008 Texas GOP presidential primary

A North Carolina polling company called Public Policy Polling reports that a recent poll of 797 likely Republican primary voters puts Kay Bailey Hutchison decisively ahead of Rick Perry by a margin of 56-31.

PPP uses a controversial method of automated telephone polling that has both supporters and detractors. To pre-empt arguments about methodology, the company forwarded an analysis indicating that they had the most accurate Texas numbers in the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

KBH has 76% favorables to RP’s 60%. But the 27% Perry unfavorables lean to Hutchison by a factor of 85-8.

PPP President Dean Debman said, “Rick Perry is in grave danger of losing in the primary. It’s partly because he’s worn out his welcome with a certain segment of the Republican electorate, but he even bigger reason is that Kay Bailey Hutchison is just a lot more popular than him. It would be hard for anyone to beat her in an election.”

Most observers believe that a contested primary would draw well over a million voters rather than the six to seven hundred thousand that normally vote in a gubernatorial year.

The poll results can be found here.

Does an all-out assault on DC, abortion, and running so hard right he's knee-deep in the bar ditch get Rick Perry back in good graces with all the freaks who will vote in the Texas GOP primary next March?

I predict that my year's supply of Orville Redenbacher is going to run out before the summer.

Meanwhile ... what's Boyd Richie telling Kinky Friedman and Tom Schieffer?

Leo Berman, Klucker

I grew up around good ol' boys like him, so I have a pretty good idea just what sort he is.

He's making a public ass of himself again.

Somebody needs to take him to the wood shed, and until either the leadership of the Texas House, or the voters in his district do, it's left to us little old bloggers.

Post-Oscar Wrangle

Vince Leibowitz (who wrangles the best of the Texas left-o-sphere each week) notes: "The round-up got drunk at an Oscar party, and I had to chase it up and down the street before one of the dogs finally caught it. Evidently it was upset that the lady from My Cousin Vinny did not win another Academy Award. "

"You commie, homo-loving sons of guns."

-- Sean Penn, accepting the Academy award for best actor

It was a theme Oscar voters embraced through the evening with other key awards honoring films fostering broader understanding and compassion.

Sean Penn won his second best-actor Oscar, this one for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk in "Milk," while Kate Winslet took best actress for "The Reader," in which she plays a former concentration camp guard coming to terms with the ignorance that let her heedlessly participate in Nazi atrocities. ...

(Eight-Oscars-winner "Slumdog Millionaire") was a merger of India's brisk Bollywood movie industry, which provided most of the cast and crew, and the global marketing reach of Hollywood, which turned the film into a commercial smash, said British director Boyle.

"We're Brits, really, trapped in the middle, but it's a lovely trapped thing," Boyle said backstage. "You can see it's going to happen more and more. There's all sorts of people going to work there. The world's shrinking a little bit."

Meh; there were those conservative protestors outside. Penn again, with the smackdown:

"I'd tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self," Penn said. "I think that these are largely taught limitations and ignorances, this kind of thing. It's really sad in a way, because it's a demonstration of such cowardice, emotional cowardice, to be so afraid of extending the same rights to your fellow man as you'd want for yourself."

There's just something about the complete repudiation of the hatred and fear and greed of the past several years that I relish lately.

Sunday Funnies (ideology recall edition)

(Click for a larger view. Last panel dedicated to my friend Kris.)

Ben and Jerry's flavor suggestions for 43

You may recall that Vermont ice cream czars Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield) introduced a brand following the election of Barack Obama called "Yes Pecan!". With another confectionary hit on their hands, they decided to solicit suggestions for an ice cream flavor that would commemorate the Bush administration. Herewith, a listing of the finalists:

- Grape Depression
- Abu Grape
- Cluster Fudge
- Nut'n Accomplished
- Iraqi Road
- Chock 'n Awe
- WireTapioca
- Impeach Mint
- Heck of a Job, Brownie!
- Chunky Monkey in Chief
- George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate
- WMDelicious

That loathsome toon from the NY Post, and more postpourri

-- Sean Delonas, the cartoonist from the New York Post who drew the cartoon that sparked so much outrage, has a long pattern of over-the-top offensiveness more suitable to Hustler Magazine ... or maybe the Washington Moonie Times.

-- TIME has a 25 Best Blogs Index, along with some overrated ones. This blog didn't make either list, so I'm not pimping anything here.

-- Cornyn: No investigations of the Bush administration crimes can be undertaken at this time because of the economic crisis.

-- Now it makes sense: the GOP hates unions because they improve the economy.

-- Sharon "Killer" Keller: a Texas judge who had better start asking for mercy:

This is a woman who voted to deny freedom to a man imprisoned for rape even after DNA evidence showed the sperm belonged to someone else. Her argument: He might have worn a condom.

Later evidence provided proof of his innocence even she couldn’t explain away.

This is a woman who, with her colleagues, appointed grossly incompetent lawyers to handle appeals for indigent death row inmates and then said, “Sorry, your client had his chance,” when skilled lawyers later came in to try to clean up the messes.

This is a woman who, a week before Christmas in 2002, voted to deny freedom to a man who under pressure had accepted a plea bargain for a crime that new evidence showed — “unquestionably,” according to the trial judge who heard the evidence — he did not commit.

Sadly, those aren't even the worst of this woman's crimes against justice.

Chief Judge Keller went home early and was called shortly before 5 p.m. by Marty. Richard’s lawyers were having computer problems and wanted the clerk’s office to stay open until 5:20 or so to receive their filing. Rather than forward the message to Johnson as policy required, Keller instructed Marty to tell the lawyers no. The lawyers made attempts up until 6 p.m. to deliver the filing but were told nobody was there. Richard was executed at about 8:20 p.m.

Two days later, the Supreme Court stopped all executions by injection based on the same arguments Richard’s lawyers made. Richard was the only convict executed until six months later, when the Supreme Court OK’d lethal injection as constitutional.

Here’s the stunner: The morning after Richard’s execution, the nine judges had their weekly conference. At the end of it some of the judges expressed surprise that Richard’s lawyers hadn’t submitted a filing.

Cochran even raised the question — hypothetically, she thought — of what would happen if the lawyers showed up after the clerk’s office closed. She said the court should accept the filing anyway. According to witnesses, Keller said, “The clerk’s office closes at 5 p.m. It’s not a policy, it’s a fact.”

Keller lacked the decency or the courage to tell her colleagues about the call she had received.

This "judge" needs to be immediately removed from the bench.

-- Is it possible that Citi and Bank of America still won't make it? Sheesh.

Sir Allen turns up outside DC

Has John Cornyn returned the campaign contributions from Stanford yet?

U.S. law enforcement officials found Texas billionaire Allen Stanford in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, area on Thursday, and served him with a complaint accusing him of an $8 billion fraud.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the FBI acted at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and that Stanford had not been arrested. The FBI gave few other details.

The whereabouts of the jet-setting 58-year-old tycoon who has luxury U.S. and Caribbean homes, had been the subject of intense speculation since he failed to respond to civil charges filed in Texas on Tuesday.

Stanford, two colleagues and three Stanford companies are accused of a "massive fraud" by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

U.S. federal agents raided Stanford Group offices in Miami, Houston and other U.S. cities earlier this week.

The fallout from the SEC charges against the flamboyant, mustachioed financier and sports entrepreneur has rippled far beyond U.S. borders, prompting investigations from Houston to Antigua and Caracas.

Five Latin American countries have now acted against Stanford businesses, while Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is monitoring a possible U.K. link after media reports that Stanford's books were audited in Britain.

The Houston Chronicle has a blog devoted solely to the Stanford developments -- Stanford Watch.

What Change Looks Like 2

Run on Antigua banks as Stanford goes on the lam

Anybody called John Cornyn's office yet to see if he knows where Sir Allen is?

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (Reuters) – Hundreds of people lined up to withdraw money from banks in Antigua and Caracas affiliated with Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, a day after the tycoon was charged with an $8 billion fraud.

The whereabouts of the brash, 58-year-old financier were unknown. CNBC television said he tried to hire a private jet to fly from Houston, the site of his U.S. headquarters, to Antigua, but the jet lessor refused to accept his credit card.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Stanford of operating a fraud centered on the sale of certificates of deposit from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB).

The scheme has drawn comparisons with the alleged $50 billion fraud by Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff.

In the twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda, where Stanford is the biggest private employer, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said the charges against him could have "catastrophic" consequences but urged the public not to panic.

Two police officers stood watch at the Bank of Antigua as at least 600 people stood in a line stretching around a street corner, despite assurances from regional monetary authorities that the bank had sufficient reserves.

John Cornyn manages to get involved in every significant Texas-based financial swindle/scandal, yet the brain-dead Texas conservatives continue sending him back to Congress to defraud us over and over again.

All was quiet on Wednesday outside Stanford's Houston office, a day after a raid by federal agents. A man who answered the phone at Stanford's Boston offices but declined to give his name said, "The office is open but we are not doing anything."

Certainly nothing like identifying yourself or closing investors' accounts and returning all their money, eh buddy?

Stanford, who holds dual U.S.-Antiguan citizenship, has donated millions of dollars to U.S. politicians and secured endorsements from sports stars, including golfer Vijay Singh and soccer player Michael Owen.

...

Stanford lived for more than 20 years in the reef-girded island of Antigua, only 9 miles wide and 12 miles long with a population of just 70,000.

He owns the country's largest newspaper, heads a local commercial bank, and is the first American to receive a knighthood from its government. He has homes sprinkled across the region, from Antigua to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Miami.

I would like for John Cornyn to join Roland Burris on the unemployment line ASAP.

Update: From Trail Blazers ...

Sen. John McCain of Arizona was the first major recipient to step forward (and disgorge Stanford's political contributions). An aide said this morning that he will donate his receipts -- $28,150, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics - to a yet-to-be named charity.

McCain was the 3d biggest recipient from Stanford, his employees and his company's political action committee.

No word yet on disgorgement from the others in the top five, including two Texans: Bill Nelson, D-Fla. ($45,900); runner-up, Dallas GOP Rep. Pete Sessions ($41,375); fourth place Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. ($27,500), and Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn ($19,700).

Gov. MoFo says 'no thanks' to your money

That makes him a minority even among Republican governors, including Sarah Palin, Charlie Crist, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

How much more stupid can one man get?

Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday he’s not sure the state should accept all of its projected share of federal stimulus money — $16.9 billion and counting by preliminary estimates — because of the “mile-long” strings that might be attached.

“In Texas, we actually know it is a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth. If we don’t, we may end up with an old nag,” said Perry, who has been critical of such federal spending and voiced concern over whether the state could afford federal strings.

“One thing that concerns me is that dollars are going to come into Texas that require us to match those dollars, and then two years from now, those federal dollars won’t be there, but we will be on the hook to pay for those programs going forward,” Perry said.

According to a preliminary legislative analysis, economic stimulus provisions that affect the Texas budget could total about $16.9 billion.

Perry didn’t say which programs he was referring to, and spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said his staff still is looking over potential allocations to Texas.

But even in Houston, people are finally starting to understand what a miserable failure the man is. One of the top comments from Chron.com readers at the story link is from "RepublicanForChange":

Texas ranks 49 out of 50 states in the number of children who do not have health insurance. Why? Governor Perry rejected billions of dollars in federal health care dollars because of a fear Texas would have to spend more money on children's health care. If Texas had committed those extra dollars, Texas would rank about 40th of 50 states in its health care spending for children, and Governor Perry thinks that is too much.

Governor Perry does not object to the University of Texas and Texas A & M spending a combined 200 million dollars per year for seven Saturday's of football entertainment, but he does object to spending even one more dollar on sick children. Rick Perry has made clear his belief that a child's "Right to Life" ends at birth.

See? Evolution isn't just a theory.

Update: Jason Embry via Phillip Martin reports that Governor 39% is already backtracking:

Gov. Rick Perry said today he will gladly accept federal stimulus dollars for one-time expenses, but he’s not anxious to embrace dollars for recurring state expenses.

“We need the freedom to pick and choose,” Perry told a group of small-business leaders in Austin. “We need the freedom to say, ‘no thanks’ if they’re trying to stick a bill on the people of the State of Texas just to expand government.”

Cornyn, Stanford, and Antigua

Zachary Roth at Josh Marshall's TPMMuckraker has it:

So we already knew that Allen Stanford -- the Texas banker charged by the SEC today with running an $8 billion "fraud of shocking magnitude" -- had some pretty impressive political contacts with both parties.

But it looks like his relationship with one of his home-state senators, Republican John Cornyn, may have been especially cozy.

According to Cornyn's Senate disclosure reports -- posted on the site Legistorm.com, which tracks privately financed trips by members of Congress -- the Stanford Financial Group paid for the Texas senator and an unnamed companion to take a November 2004 trip down to Antigua and Barbuda, the tiny Carribean nation where the company has its headquarters.

The three day trip is described by Legistorm as a "financial services industry fact-finding mission hosted by constituent company with substantial operations on site."

The site adds:

Sen. Cornyn discloses expenses for himself and a companion, but does not disclose the identity of the companion.

The total cost of the trip: $7,441.00

Stanford Financial was selling CDs with an 8.25% rate of return (not FDIC-insured, of course). Allen Stanford was a big donor to Texas Republicans, particularly John Cornyn and Pete Sessions, but as Roth notes, his contributions were bipartisan.

As for Cornyn's traveling companion, I frankly don't give a shit if he took a box turtle with him down to the Caribbean.

Cornyn is as god-damned corrupt as Tom DeLay, and to think we could have been rid of him four months ago is just too big a missed opportunity to be reminded of.

Update: Rick Dunham at Texas on the Potomac has more, including a smattering of the usual "Democrats did it too/the Chronicle has a liberal bias" reaction from the locals.

A public service reminder

... not to elect religious fundamentalists to the Texas SBOE:


And please remember this the next time Pete Sessions says that the tactics of the Taliban should be replicated in the United States Congress.