Let's keep talking about voter "fraud"

Until some people finally get it. This report was filed back on July 12 by the CBS affiliate in D-FW, though it is Jeremy Desel, a Houston reporter for KHOU, that filed it.


Here also is PolitiFact.

We also asked how many election fraud cases had been referred to the attorney general’s office since 2002. Abbott’s list shows 311 accusations of election fraud spanning 2002-12. The 57 investigations we’re checking represent only those cases that were both prosecuted and resolved.

Six of the prosecutions ended in dismissal or acquittal, Strickland told us by telephone, leaving 51 prosecutions that resulted in convictions.

By our analysis, three-quarters of the cases involved election code violations classified as "illegal voting" -- which includes acts such as voting more than once, impersonating a voter or voting despite ineligibility -- and "method of returning marked ballot," often meaning the defendant was accused of having someone else’s ballot.

Only two cases are described as "voter impersonation" on the list. Whether voter impersonation is a standing problem has been a hot button in the state’s legislative debates over proposed voter ID laws in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011; Austin American-Statesman news stories say legislators mostly split along party lines, with Democrats claiming impersonation is rare and Republicans claiming the problem is significant. Abbott drew criticism in 2006 for creating a special unit to target voter fraud that by mid-2008 had yielded, according to a May 19, 2008, Associated Press news story, only 26 prosecutions.

Looking at all 57 election fraud prosecutions from 2002 to 2012, we tallied up the resolutions (some had multiple outcomes, when charges were pursued as separate cases):

• Specified as convictions: 26

• Guilty plea resulting in conviction: 2

• Deferred adjudication: 19

• Pre-trial diversion: 10

• Acquitted: 2

Out of more than 39 million votes cast in Texas over the past decade across the state in all elections, the number of convictions for voter impersonation fraud -- between 20 and 60, give or take 2 or 3 according to both links I embedded above and depending on how the term is defined -- represents, according to Desel and the most generous rounding (62/39,000,000), all of .0001%. That's one ten-thousandth of one percent. My calculator drives out .0000015, however.

Chances of winning the MegaMillions lottery: about one in slightly under 176 million. That's much poorer, by the way.
Chances of being struck by lightning: much better; 1 in 576,000
Chances of being killed by lightning (this happened in Houston to two men just last week): one in 2,320,000
Chances of being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear at the same time: I don't know, ask the e-Trade Baby.

There are many more sightings of Bigfoot in the Lone Star State, and almost exactly as many reported captures of a live one... or a dead one, for that matter. There is a much greater likelihood of your becoming an astronaut, and significanty better odds that you can draw a royal flush on the first hand dealt than find a voter fraud conviction in the state of Texas.

When you say there is no voter fraud -- so small an amount that it is infinitesimal; essentially and statistically 'none' -- taking place in Texas, and your friendly conservative moron says "one is too many", or "we jes' ain't catchin' all the damn Ill Eagles", or "Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys are registered in Harris County", or "ACORN", be prepared. Keep a few facts to slap their dumb shit down with.

And don't forget to make fun of them for being so stupid.

Sunday Unfunnies

The Chron makes it 100% for the 1%er

From that perspective, there is something to be said for Lissa Squires' approach of taking the strongest position possible and unapologetically charging forward. But while her anti-corporate rhetoric may help rally the most liberal members of the Democratic base, it is neither a winning strategy nor the way to best represent Houston. But Squires' moderate Democrat opponent, James Cargas, seems excellently suited to reflect the district's energy industry. 

"Moderate" is the new word Cargas learned to describe himself the last couple of weeks, and the newspaper swallowed it whole.

Oh, they did pick one liberal female upstart candidate against the established "moderate" candidate... but then, Ms. Squiers' mother's name isn't Sheila Jackson Lee.

The paper's e-board is just doing the conservative thing here, though;  lining up behind pretty much every other establishment "moderate" in this race.The Chronicle has had some hilarious outcomes trying to pick winners in this cycle, so this endorsement might wind up as more a curse on the Cargas folks than the blessing they will be trumpeting.

Squiers led Cargas 40-34 at the end of the day in May, an upset all by itself. Runoffs, as we know, are all about getting out your vote, and with the other Blue Dog coming in third with 24% and promptly endorsing his canine brother, it remains to be seen if Cargas can get Phillip Andrews' supporters back to the polls.

To that end, Cargas has spent heavily on robocalling from Ohio and Florida outfits. Odd he couldn't hire a Houston or even Texas firm to do that, isn't it? In this respect he'll make a typical Congressman: spending other people's money out of state. But on the flip side of that, he's run over $5000 in ads in community newspapers. I should also mention that he's collected many donations from the elite class, including $500 from former city councilman and mayoral candidate Peter Schlumberger Brown. In my previous posting on his SEC filing I noted that most of his contributors have the letters CEO and M.D. and so forth behind their names.

This race is a classic 1% versus 99% showdown. The Corporate Democrat against the Community Democrat. One from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, one from the Republican wing. Progressive and Blue Dog.



But it's also about the Oil and Gas Man versus the Single Mom.

This self-proclaimed energy lawyer for the energy corridor refuses to get bogged down in partisan wedge issues, but instead emphasizes Houston's position as a national leader in the medical and energy industries.

In the midst of our natural gas boom, this founding member of the Oil Patch Democrats could be a strong voice for the Houston economy, showing that the oil and gas industry isn't merely a Republican institution, but a broad and important economic driver that deserves attention from the entire political spectrum.

And even if he doesn't win in the general election, putting forth a candidate like Cargas can remind voters in the district that there are plenty of Texas Democrats who support fracking, will bring federal grants to the Texas Medical Center, and put Houston before party.

Update: You see that part in the last paragraph about Texas Medical Center grants? The 7th CD does not contain the TMC. The interim maps, drawn by the court for this election, place it mostly in the 9th, with a sliver in the 2nd. That's just lame fact-checking. Saying Cargas is going to "bring federal grants" there has all the weight and significance of saying I'm going to be bringing federal grants there.

The Chronicle has humiliated themselves -- and completely devalued their endorsement process -- by transcribing the words Cargas said in the e-board meeting and publishing it as their endorsement.

I wonder how much he paid for that. I'll post a little more about the two Chronicle men who conducted this sham -- managing editor John Wilburn and writer/blogger/Tweeter Evan Mintz -- next week.

So let's summarize: if you support fracking, if you think Keystone XL is a good idea, if you think the oil and gas companies need to stay on the government teat -- maybe even suck a little harder -- hey, then CarGas is your boy.

Do you really think there will be any difference in a James Cargas policy on Metro and mass transit in Houston as opposed to the John Culberson policy?

I probably shouldn't remind you -- some people might consider it 'sniping' -- of the Watergate-style bumbling espionage, the foul dirty tricks, the battery-acid blog posts from the Cargas campaign's morbidly obese communications director -- as in paid, a measly $800 for the privilege -- and the sneering, contemptuous sense of entitlement James Cargas has repeatedly demonstrated toward the woman who dares challenge him for the primary nomination.

And Hector Carreno gets all offended when I call him a Republican. It's just laughable, isn't it?

The funniest thing was his "Formal Complaint" last week to HCDP chair Lane Lewis about the county party's facilities being used by Squiers for a planning meeting on how to beat Culberson. The Cargas campaign's godfather hilariously thought it was a strategy session against his client. If we needed another reminder that Carreno's reading comprehension was a little suspect, we got it.

(Aside to Hector: it's not bigotry to call you a poor practitioner of the English language. It is not lying to point out your associations with the wealthy, the powerful, the conservative, and the corrupt. Go cry into your $10,000-a-month Rolodex.)

Yes, I have made my position pretty clear in the race from the outset. Next week, and on through Tuesday evening the 31st, we'll find out what the people think. Whether the voters of CD07 want John Culberson Light, or a real, actual Democrat is still to be determined.

Yep, my mind was made up a long time ago. What about yours?

Mid-week Funnies

Because there will be too many by the time we get to Sunday.

Starring Bain as Bane. (What's the difference?)

Rush Limbaugh naturally observed the batty coincidence/conspiracy, and Rachel Maddow promptly mocked him right the fuck out about it. 

...Maddow contended that, sure, the villains in Batman were “pre-named decades in advance in anticipation of a 2012 presidential election in which one of the candidates would have a contested affiliation with a company named Bain.” The conspiracy is “deep” and has “a lot foresight,” she ridiculed, adding that, in that case, Gone With the Wind was an “early salvo of the clean energy movement.” [...] “The modern American Right is hermetically sealed in a media universe that lets in no natural light and no air,” she said. “They breathe in only their own exhalations.” And in that bubble, she asserted, they especially have an affinity for conspiracy theories.

Grand jurors speak out against David Medina

Modern political conservatism is and must have its foundation the absolute commitment to truth, integrity, and character exemplified in faithful adherence to Judeo-Christian principles as espoused in our U.S. Constitution regarding civil government. Any breakdown in the first set of qualities inevitably leads to corruption of the practice. In other words, character and morals will dictate performance and when the sword of justice is at stake, the character and morals must be unimpeachable.

That is the primary issue at hand in regards to Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina. The issue is whether he is ethically and morally fit to sit on the highest court in Texas rendering judgments that impact millions of people after significant evidence of corrupt behavior that includes indictments by a grand jury, of which some members I know personally and trust implicitly.

I challenge any who would like to dismiss this documentary out of hand to set aside political allegiances and agendas for a few moments for the sake of watching and listening with an open mind. Being well familiar with this drama since the story of the fire at the Medina home first broke in the media setting off this chain of events, I believe there is ample reason to accept the credibility of the initial indictments. I was also one of the first to publicly call for Chuck Rosenthal’s resignation as Harris County District Attorney due to – ironically enough – clear moral and ethical failure that cast significant doubt on whether he had been or could be serving the public with integrity. The evident cronyism involved in the quashing of the indictments of the Medinas was glaring and troubling to say the least.

Go watch the video at the link above. Update: Via Voices Empower (which advocates for Medina's almost-equally-odious runoff opponent John Devine, FWIW), the YouTube...



As Charles also noted yesterday, Devine is no walk in the park himself, and the Texas Democratic Party failed to field a candidate for the race. That makes it all the more important for Texans of all political persuasions to consider voting for the Green, Charles Waterbury, in November.

To disclaim: the producer of the video, Truth in Politics, is a 501(c)(3) and does not support any candidate or receive funding from any party or candidate.

Justice David Medina is a man in need of transformation and redemption, but must first come face to face with the fact that he has violated the trust of the people and been proven unfit to sit on the highest bench of justice in this great state. We the people will be judged with him if we show contempt for bankruptcy of moral and ethics by those we place in positions of public trust.

Dave Welch
Houston, TX

(Dave Welch is founder and Executive Director of Houston Area Pastor Council and Texas Pastor Council, former National Field Director of Christian Coalition, former Executive Director of Vision America and his GOP credentials include being a delegate to three Republican National Conventions (from Washington State), eleven state conventions (WA and TX), fourteen county/district conventions (WA and TX) and was elected chairman of the Washington State delegation to the 1996 RNC in San Diego as well as having served as precinct chairman in WA and TX and the state Republican Executive Committee in WA.)

Ron Paul cast out of GOP convention. What's next?

Alas, it is finished.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the longtime Texas congressman who marshaled an American tea party movement, won't get to have a last word -- at least not at the GOP national convention next month.

His futile effort over the weekend to get enough delegate votes to secure a speaking spot at the convention marks the end of the road for the 76-year-old candidate who tried and failed three times to win the presidency, relying upon the unflappable courtesy of a career physician and the iron-clad commitment to a libertarian ideology that endeared him to young and old followers alike. 

So long, Dr. No. We hardly knew ye.

As for the nascent Paulista movement, though they will probably take their bongs and go home, there remain plenty of good Plan B options.

There's a fine Libertarian candidate, former NM Gov. Gary Johnson and his running mate, CA district judge Jim Gray. I wrote about them here. Particularly for the Weed Caucus, this ticket is very encouraging. Johnson makes Romney's path to Electoral College victory much more difficult throughout the Mountain West states, not just in New Mexico. Update: this poll, showing Johnson drawing 13% of the New Mexico vote, suggests the Libertarian is earning the support of Dem-leaning independents.

The Green Party has fielded two excellent progressive populists, Dr. Jill Stein and homeless advocate/activist Cheri Honkala. I have written a lot lately about them, and so has the Traditional Media over the past week. Their strongest platform is economic: the Green New Deal -- rebuilding the country's infrastructure, providing well-paying jobs and healthcare for Americans while dismantling the creeping corporatism in our government -- is a worthy goal for the benefit of the 99%.

And for the truly freak right, there's a nutjob Constitution Party candidate that makes the Teabags appear closer to the statistical mean in terms of sanity. Read this article to see why Virgil Goode will likely keep Romney out of the White House -- by tipping Virginia to the Ds, upsetting Karl Rove's strategy -- no matter what else may happen between now and November.

All those and potentially others will be on your ballot in the fall for people who seriously consider themselves not-Romneys and not-Obamas. Voting against some one or the other is no way to elect leaders to run this great nation. Voting for the "lesser of two evils" is still voting for 'evil'.

Texas won't be in play, electorally speaking, for the usual reason: low-information conservative lemmings who like to spend less than 5 minutes on their citizenship responsibility every four years by voting a straight R ticket.

Don't be that guy (or girl).

This advice is meant for a wider audience than just the Ron Paul folks: Democracy -- and our Republic -- is best served when people vote for candidates who come the closest to representing their views, be those views right or left, far right or far left. Voting for a Libertarian or a Green, or even a Constitutioner, sends the message to the Democrats and the Republicans that they cannot take your vote for granted.

Casting a mindless vote for the two-party duopoly instead of the best man or woman running -- and that includes races down your ballot -- is the only thing worse than not voting at all.

Update: The Libertarian Party, via e-mail to its supporters, emphasizes the 'golden opportunity NOW to bring Ron Paul supporters into the LP'.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wants you to know that it has never, ever worked for Bain Capital in any capacity -- and certainly not as president, CEO, chairman, or managing member from 1999 to 2002 -- as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

There will be no Medicaid expansion in Texas. Off the Kuff discusses why this is such a bad thing.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger knows that hate groups abound in Texas, but is very concerned about the recent developments demonstrating American undercurrents of hate threatening the First Lady.

Is the leading GOP US Senate candidate so far to the right that so-called moderate Republicans would cross over and vote for the Democratic candidate in November? That's what WCNews at Eye on Williamson tries to get to the bottom of, in "Would a Cruz win end the crossover myth?

At McBlogger, we discover Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson cribbing from Hank Gilbert, ca. 2006.

The NAACP's 2012 national convention, held in in Houston last week, was covered by PDiddie of Brains and Eggs, and reports from the the scene included Eric Holder's "poll taxes", Mitt Romney's boos, and Joe Biden's "character of (PBO's) convictions".

Neil at Texas Liberal read a recent Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography of Malcolm X as he enjoyed a milkshake.  There might be some things more All-American than Malcolm X and a milkshake -- but it is hard to imagine what those things might be.

Sunday Funnies

(click for bigger)

 

Green nominating convention today; Democracy Now interviews Stein

As the corporate media covers every move made by Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, (Democracy Now! goes) to Baltimore to cover the Green Party 2012 National Convention.

"We need big solutions, you know, not solutions around the margins. We really need to end unemployment. We need to put 25 million people back to work with good-paying jobs," says presumptive presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein, who is running on a platform called "the Green New Deal" that emphasizes economic justice, tough financial regulation, the repeal of Citizens United and a transition to a "green economy."

The Green Party expects to be on the 2012 ballot in at least 45 states and plans to spend approximately $1 million on its campaign. Stein is the party’s first candidate to independently qualify for federal matching funds, a milestone for this 11-year-old third party. 

More here of Amy Goodman's interview with Stein and vice-presidential nominee Cheri Honkala. The Green Party's national convention will nominate its candidates in plenary session today. Update: Those proceedings can be viewed via livestream at this link.

Texas Photo ID law is on the chopping block

The state's argument for a voter ID law met with skepticism Friday from federal judges who questioned Texas attorneys about the lack of witnesses and the need to prove the law is fair to minority voters.

Attorneys for the state contend that the law, which would require government-issued photo identification for voters, would not disenfranchise minorities and is instead designed to address fraud. The Justice Department blocked the law from being implemented, ruling that its implications would disproportionately affect blacks and Hispanics.

District Judge Rosemary Collyer told Texas attorney John Highes on Friday that the state must prove the voting ID law adheres to the Voting Rights Act - a federal standard for Texas called pre-clearance. The statute is applied to 16 states with a history of discriminating against minority voters.

"Texas bears the burden here," Collyer said.

Collyer, the presiding judge of the three-member panel, is the lone Republican appointee. All of these signals suggest Photo ID is headed for the graveyard, and it will be next summer before the SCOTUS will be able to issue a ruling on appeal.

Of course, stranger decisions have been made by the Supreme Court...

But this law, at this point, isn't about suppressing votes for President. There is no chance Obama carries Texas no matter what some polls are saying right now. That's a mirage meant for disenchanted Democrats living on hope. (It can still be an effective enticement for GOTV efforts, however.)

If all those dead and Ill Eagle people had actually voted Democratic in years past like the conservative fever dream attests, you'd think Texas would have seen a single, solitary Democrat elected to statewide office in Texas the past 20 years. But noooo...

The long-term goal of this law is about suppressing votes down the ballot; state representatives, state senators, judgeships, the various county offices, etc. But wait; don't we already know that Republicans control the Texas legislature by nearly a super-majority in both chambers? Yes, we do.

So how many more electeds do they need to pass whatever they want? The answer is none, of course.

They already have complete control of the state government, and have for decades. This is about generational control. It's what Tom DeLay sacrificed himself for in 2004, what Karl Rove has spent his life working toward, and what Republicans have successfully exported from Texas all over the country -- Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc. It's what those pasty gangsters over at King Street/True (sic) the Vote live and breathe for.

See, the Republicans aren't satisfied with 75% control of Texas. They want it ALL. One hundred percent. They know -- hell, even Rove knows -- that eventually the Latino population will grow up and get out to the polls, and they have to get their agenda in place in a short time frame, relatively speaking, in order to cling to power for as long as they can.

Even as their base voters dwindle -- a few are transported to the cemetery every day -- they know they have no replacements. The GOP is not in growth mode; it's in survival mode. That's why they're so desperate, so frantic, so angry.

So the more people they can prevent from voting, the longer they stay in control.

They'll have to swallow this defeat and make hay out of it as they have the ACA and the Arizona immigration bill. They can put it to nefarious use; keep the rage ginned up, continue fomenting the fear and hate, and keep hoping for the best in November.

And they will keep doing everything they can to prevent people who don't look them and think like them from casting a ballot. By any means necessary.

Texas Medicaid expansion numbers mind-boggling

Emphasis is mine.

On the heels of Gov. Rick Perry's declaration that Texas will not expand Medicaid because it is too costly, his health and human services commissioner said Thursday that fully implementing health care reform would cost the state about $11 billion less over 10 years than previously estimated.

Executive Commissioner Thomas Suehs told a Texas House subcommittee that the new estimate is between $15 billion and $16 billion in state costs over a decade, compared to the previous estimate of $26 billion to $27 billion.

The state would get an additional $100.1 billion in federal money over that time, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission -- money that Suehs acknowledged would be attractive to local entities grappling with the cost of caring for the quarter of the state's population that currently is uninsured.

 "If I was a county hospital district, I would be knocking on your door saying we need to re-debate" Medicaid expansion, perhaps with a push for a local option, Suehs said. That idea, in which a local agency would deal directly with the federal government to expand Medicaid in its area, has been cited by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. 

This is of course why Rick Perry WILL accept expansion of Medicaid, no matter what he says today. He and the Lege need that money to balance the next biennium's budget... and other future budgets.

They can whine all they want about "getting it crammed down their throats", but this is a good deal for the state and a better one for Texans, and even this worthless batch of Republicans isn't stupid enough to turn it down.

Biden at NAACP: "the character of his convictions"

He wasn't talking about Mitt Romney's, either.

Biden was relaxed and confident, completely at ease before the audience, a stark contrast to the Republican. He made a few of the by-now-expected Biden-esque malaprops; "it's good to be home", "You go home from the dance with the ones that brought you to the dance", and the like. Once he got on script he was fine, touching on alternative fuels, equal rights for women -- from pay to reproductive choice -- and advances in HIV treatment as compared to a disregard for science and education on the part of conservatives.

"A social policy that is a throwback to the '50's".

The topic of senior health care gave the vice-president the opportunity to rail against the attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and employee pensions from the GOP. And of course the Affordable Care Act.

"We see a future..." ...where everyone has affordable health care, where everyone pays their fair share of taxes, where the wars come to an end and the troops come home. "Mitt Romney sees a very different future."

Biden pivoted nicely to the purpose of the venerable civil-rights organization: civil rights, particularly voting rights. He reminded the listeners that the House of Representatives had voted to block the Justice Department from even investigating allegations of voter suppression. He even rolled out a little Scripture at the end: "we are our brother's keeper".

It was convention-standard boilerplate for a home field crowd.

Biden's half-hour-long remarks were prefaced by a short video from the president, in which he declared that he stood "on the shoulders" of the NAACP and their long history of winning civil rights struggles.

No harsh words for the opposition, the requisite applause lines, some funny mash-ups but no actual miscues. SOP Joe Biden.

Update:

The Vice President’s speech was a veritable truckload of raw ribeye steaks for liberals, grilled to perfection by Biden’s easy, confident connection with the crowd, who responded with vigorous applause and frequent cries of agreement. Biden, himself, noted near the end, “This is preaching to the choir.”

And preach, he did, drawing disappointed boos when he foreshadowed the end of his speech, saying “Let me close, my friends,” then raising the specter of a Romney-appointed Supreme Court. “Folks, this election, in my view, is a fight for the heart and soul of America,” he said.

“These guys aren’t bad guys,” he continued, “they just have a fundamentally different view. The best way to sum up the President’s view, my view, and I think your view, is we see America where, in the words of the scripture, what you do unto the least of my brethren you do unto me.”

The crowd goes wild.

Stein picks Green running mate

On the day before the Green Party's presidential nominating convention, presidential candidate Jill Stein revealed her running mate to CBS News exclusively: homeless activist Cheri Honkala.

"She leads one of the country's largest multiracial, intergenerational movements led by people in poverty, fighting poverty, homelessness and foreclosures," Stein told CBS news. Honkala, a mother of two, and the national coordinator for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, spent some of her days homeless. She ran for sheriff of Philadelphia on the Green Party line in 2011 and based her campaign on a platform of halting evictions.

Stein, who defeated comedian Roseanne Barr for the Green Party's nod, will be officially nominated at the party's national convention in Baltimore, which begins Thursday. Stein, a physician, is from Massachusetts and has launched two unsuccessful bids for governor there, including against Mitt Romney in 2002.

Stein spoke to CBS News this week in advance of her nomination...

Read the interview here.

Update: The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have more. Here also is video of the announcement.

Romney at NAACP: milquetoast

"I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president," he said. "I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color -- and families of any color -- more than the policies and leadership of President Obama, I would not be running for president."

His audience greeted him with respectful, if not enthusiastic applause, and applauded occasionally at points throughout the speech –- until he said he would eliminate ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago. The audience responded with thundering boos. His listeners also booed a few minutes later when he said he would be a more responsive president to the African-American community than the current occupant of the White House.

Additional excerpts here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This was a fair yet slightly pleading appeal. Romney displayed a little more than his usual angst before an audience that demonstrated both polite respect and strong opposition when they disagreed.

I don't think he scored any points with anyone who hasn't already bought what he's selling. And scant few of those people were in the GRB this morning.

Mission not quite accomplished, but he gets an E for effort.

Update: From Mediaite...

“I have no hidden agenda. I submit to you that if you want a president who will make things better in the African American community, you are looking at him,” which was met with a mixture of polite applause and jeering. Romney soaked it in awkwardly for a few seconds, then said, with a game nod, “You take a look!”

All things considered, the speech could have gone a lot worse. Aside from this moment and his promise to end Obamacare, the speech was at least politely received, and the crowd didn’t even seem to mind when Romney took a backhanded shot at President Obama for sending Vice President Joe Biden (who speaks to the convention Thursday) instead of attending himself, saying that “if I am elected president, and you invite me to next year’s convention, I would count it as a privilege, and my answer will be yes.”

The speech was never likely to earn him many, if any, black votes, but the sections where he was booed were somewhat to be expected, and reinforce Romney’s position with voters who agree with him on health care reform, and who are leaning away from the President. The rest of the speech was vague enough to avoid drawing any more negative reactions.

Helena Brown only violates city law this week

Terrance McCoy at the Houston Press -- who had the lengthy expose' last week -- remains hot on the trail of Council Member Helena Brown's troubles adhering to the law. It might not be as bad as violating federal laws regarding the altering of employee timecards, but fundraising during the blackout period is still a legal no-no.

In an attempted violation of city law, and in yet another puzzling move by embattled City Council member Helena Brown, the District A representative solicited money from local Korean businessmen late last month for a trip she took this week to Seoul -- though she had already paid for it with public money.

According to chapter 18 of the City Charter, Brown cannot receive direct contributions unless it's during city-sanctioned campaigning months -- February before an election until March afterward. During "blackout" periods, if a candidate or council member gets direct money, said City Press Secretary Jessica Michan, it's a violation of city law. Whether Brown actually got money is unclear -- but she sure did ask for it.

In a recent e-mail, which the Houston Press obtained, Brown said: "The trip to Korea is a costly trip. ... Please make checks out to Helena Brown who will personally be offsetting the costs."

But that wasn't true. Brown paid for airline tickets to South Korea with public money -- $11,000 -- according to her expense report. Enrique Reyes, her director of communication, said last week hotel costs hadn't been charged yet, but declined all questions. Brown's office said the council member returned to Houston (yesterday).

Asking for direct contributions under such circumstances appears to break both city law and Harris county policy. Brown not only solicited money during a period when it wasn't allowed, but in her e-mail she also asked all contributors to pay her at a June 28 gathering held at a Harris County building in Spring Branch, a violation of County policy. Meeting organizers are informed before forums that fundraising isn't allowed. "If solicitation for money was happening, that's not right," said Ricardo Guinea, director of the Sosa Community Center, which housed the gathering.

Hard to tell where the stupidity ends and the corruption begins with this woman. The Chron reports that "misstatement" is the order of the day.

A statement released by Brown's office Tuesday states that her adviser William Park - who is not a paid member of her staff - sent an email to Korean community leaders saying that if they wanted to sponsor a businessman on the trip they could do so via Brown's office.

"That statement was sent in error. While CM (council member) Brown could be the vehicle by which private financial assistance of non-city employees could be handled, CM Brown understood full well that this type of situation might be misconstrued as a campaign contribution during the "black-out" period and therefore instructed all potential contributors who communicated to her to deal privately with potential delegation participants instead," the statement reads.

Helena Brown is simply a poor representative for her district, to say nothing of overseas with Asian officials.

As Charles notes, there has to be a lot of cringing going on among the District A lords and ladies who got behind Brown's campaign to unseat incumbent Brenda "I've been in every bar everywhere I need to be" Stardig last year. There are likely handfuls of differing factions of conservatives holding competing meetings already, discussing 2013 campaigns for the Oak Forest/Spring Branch seat on council.

But another year and a half of Helena Brown is 18 months too much. She should resign now and negotiate a plea for the crimes she has (allegedly) committed and save herself and the city further embarrassment.

Update (7/14): Brown's Asian vacation has gone national.

Holder: Texas photo ID requirements are "poll taxes"

"After close review, the department found that this law would be harmful to minority voters, and we rejected its implementation," (US Attorney General Eric Holder) told a wildly supportive crowd of hundreds gathered at the George R. Brown Convention Center. "Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not. Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes."

Go here for the video. Meanwhile, back at the capital...

As the trial got under way in a packed courtroom, DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall went even further, arguing that the federal government will show racial motivation in Texas’s passage of the (Photo ID) law.

“The facts will convincingly demonstrate the discriminatory purpose and effect of Senate Bill 14,” Westfall told the three-judge panel in her brief opening argument in a trial expected to last through Friday.

[...]

In January, (federal district judge Rosemary) Collyer was one of three judges who sat for two weeks on a similar panel considering Texas’s request for clearance of its redistricting maps. That panel has yet to issue a final ruling.

The Community Democrat for CD-07

And not the Corporate Democrat.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks America doesn't look a day over 235 as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that we are now up to six school finance lawsuits.

 BossKitty at TruthHugger sings back to the choir; you know, that small loud minority willing to sacrifice everybody else to satisfy their selfish rhetoric. Is crazy weather really a liberal conspiracy?

Now that the Affordable Care Act has cleared the Supreme Court hurdle, when will uninsured Texans begin to get health insurance? WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that it's up to the Texas GOP. What health care choices will the Texas GOP make?

The NAACP opened their national convention in Houston this week, and with Joe Biden and Mitt Romney on the speaker's list, it promises to be newsworthy. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has a media credential and will be filing reports from the scene.

Neil at Texas Liberal blogged about Danny Glover coming to town on behalf of Houston janitors looking for a modest raise.

Holder to speak in Houston today at NAACP *update*

The subject of Texas' Photo ID law will probably come up.

The NAACP vows to register 1 million new voters in time for the November elections to overturn what leaders called an "onslaught of state restrictions on voting."

Alluding to the long struggle of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, Board Chair Roslyn Brock insisted in the opening address of the association's 103rd annual convention on Sunday night that voting rights were again in jeopardy.

"Our right to vote is under attack more than at any other time in history since we passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965," she said. "We overcame then and we shall overcome now -- but only if we are willing to dedicate ourselves to fighting a battle that many of us thought we had won many years ago."

Attorney General Holder, while in Houston to speak to convention attendees today, will likely be paying attention to matters back in Washington.

Texas will launch a challenge to a central piece of civil rights legislation in a Washington court on Monday in a case the Obama administration has characterised as a fight to protect the right to vote.

The five-day hearing will rule on whether the US justice department has the power to block Texas from implementing a state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls – a move critics say will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people, principally Latinos and other minorities.

Yes, now that the RP of Tx has put abolishment of the VRA into its party platform, we know that this is just another ingredient mashed into the stew of Daily/Weekly/Perpetual Outrages O'Day that conservatives have to keep stirring in order to stoke the anger and hatred that, in turn, motivates their base to turn out and vote.

Here's a few relevant excerpts from elsewhere.

Supporters of the (photo ID) laws cite anecdotal cases of fraud as a reason that states need to do more to secure elections, but fraud appears to be rare. As part of its effort to build support for voter ID laws, the Republican National Lawyers Association last year published a report that identified some 400 election fraud prosecutions over a decade across the entire country. That's not even one per state per year. (emphasis is mine)

You can expect some of those "supporters" to be seen outside the GRB "protesting" today.

Two of the three judges on the panel were appointed by Democratic presidents so it might seem unlikely the court would overturn the Obama administration.

[...] 

The Texas lawsuit for approval of the voter identification law is: State of Texas v. Holder in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 12-cv-128. The judicial panel is composed of Appeals Judge David Tatel, District Judge Robert Wilkins and District Judge Rosemary Collyer.

Mitt Romney is slated to speak on Wednesday morning to the convention; Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled for Thursday. There's probably time reserved for the president if he decides to make an appearance, but at this point that would be a surprise.

More as it develops.

Update: Holder will not speak today because he was delayed at the airport, and has rescheduled for tomorrow, according to this Tweet.

Ernest Borgnine 1917 - 2012

Ernest Borgnine, the larger-than-life actor with the affable gap-toothed grin and known for often villainous roles, has died. He was 95.

He had so many memorable castings, both dramatic and comedic, that it's hard to know where to start. He was Fatso Judson, the sergeant who beat up Frank Sinatra's Maggio in From Here to Eternity. He was Marty the bachelor, still living at home; the role for which he won the Academy.

Borgnine played a 34-year-old butcher who fears he is so unattractive he will never find romance. Then, at a dance, he meets a girl with the same fear.

"Sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts," Marty movingly tells his mother at one point in the film. "And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased after enough girls in my life. I-I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough. I don't wanna get hurt no more."

It doesn't get much more self-effacing than that.

There was The Dirty Dozen, Mister Roberts, Bad Day at Black Rock, Willard, Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Wild Bunch. There was also McHale's Navy, and -- later -- Spongebob Squarepants and The Single Guy. There were dozens of cameos in television shows over the decades, from The Love Boat to Walker,Texas Ranger to Touched by an Angel.

For me his most memorable role was that of the sadistic Depression-era freight train conductor in Emperor of the North.



At the time I saw it -- 1973 -- I was 14 years old and had no concept that a person could be so cruel. My mom took pains to explain that train conductors did not act like that then; that they in fact were kind toward the disadvantaged.

Borgnine, to my own delight, identified the film as one of his favorites in this tribute.

Borgnine's biggest kick, however, was going out and meeting people - even making a documentary about himself driving around the country in a big bus: "See, this is what it's all about - living!"

Ernest Borgnine knew what it was all about.

Indeed.

Sunday Funnies

The past ten days have been a target-rich environment for the cartoonists. And the comedians...

"In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled President Obama's healthcare mandate is constitutional. This is a major victory for President Obama, who spent three years promoting it, and a major setback for Mitt Romney, who spent three years creating it."

-- Jay Leno

"For several minutes after the ruling, CNN was mistakenly reporting that the Supreme Court struck down President Obama’s healthcare law. In response CNN was like, 'Thank God no one watches us.'"

-- Jimmy Fallon

"This activist ruling opens the floodgates, folks! If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, then there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom in a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy! And you know his buddy Roberts will make it all good by calling it a 'homomexual marijuana love-glove sun tax!'"

-- Stephen Colbert

"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said he's just gonna refuse to implement Obamacare. So if you need an operation in Louisiana you'll have to pay for it the old-fashioned way: stand on a balcony, flash your tits and hope someone throws you money."

-- Bill Maher

Keep in mind that you will have at least two other choices on your November ballot.

NAACP national convention in Houston this weekend

Vice President Joe Biden and Mitt Romney are both scheduled to speak.

As more than 8,000 members of the nation's most venerable civil rights organization gather in Houston this weekend for a convention featuring appearances by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the unofficial topic outside the hall may be whether time has passed the NAACP by.

During the long years when black children were forced to attend separate, vastly inferior schools and Southern states were relying on poll taxes, voters' tests and raw intimidation to keep black citizens from the ballot box, the focus for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was both urgent and crystal clear. The association was at the forefront in the arduous battle to end racial segregation in schools and other public places as well as secure the right to vote for black Americans.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were the tangible results of a monumental decades-long struggle.

Today, 103 years after the association's founding, the issues are more nuanced, even though racial inequity and its consequences remain a stubborn fact of American life.

All you have to do is read the comments at that story to understand what the NAACP still has to combat. The biggest internal struggle is the Obama administration's declaration of support for gay marriage, and the corresponding endorsement by the NAACP of gay rights as as civil rights under the 14th Amendment. NPR has the best reporting of that.

The biggest external issue uniting the delegates is the renewed fight for voting rights.

"In the past legislative session, more states have passed more laws pushing more voters out of the ballot box than in any legislative session since the rise of Jim Crow," (NAACP president Ben Jealous) said. "A wave like that is intentional. It's created by hundreds of state legislators across the country acting in unison to suppress the vote."

Yeah, there's that, and then there's the Texas Republican party platform.

The NAACP national convention follows by less than a month the Texas Democratic Party's state convention here in H-Town. If I was a Republican I might think it was a grand conspiracy to motivate Harris County Democrats to turn out the vote in November.

You have to wonder if these quivering, scared conservatives around town have stocked up on ammunition and will be sitting in their barricaded homes clinging to their guns and Bibles.

Meh. They'll all be as mad as a wet hen for the next three months -- and the four years after that -- no matter what.

Helena Wheels Brown

She might prefer "Heavena", but it's Hell for certain.

Houston City Councilwoman Helena Brown subtracted hours from employees' timecards in apparent violation of federal law, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The first-term councilwoman shorted an employee by more than three hours in a day in several cases. At least six times, Brown deleted enough hours from employees' reported workweeks that it cost them overtime by bringing their weekly total under 40 hours.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay and accurate record keeping. City policy prohibits supervisors from changing employees' timecards except to correct errors. A spokeswoman for the Harris County district attorney said the office does not confirm the existence of investigations but said the Public Integrity Unit would handle a complaint if one were filed. Charges that could result from the circumstances described by the Chronicle could include tampering with a government document, a felony, she said.

Brown's staff at one time included five 39-hour-per-week employees classified as part-timers. Many of Brown's changes to the times reported by her employees appear to shorten or lengthen their workweeks to exactly 39 hours.

Hell for her, and hell for the rest of us.

...Brown has commingled maxims found in the Tea Party, the libertarian movement and Catholic zealotry and introduced them to Houston City Council, preaching parsimony and the elimination of almost all taxation. Brown's iconoclasm has galvanized the rest of the council against her and made even its most conservative participants seem moderate by comparison.

Oh, and starring William Park as Dale Gribble -- thanks for that, Stace -- in the supporting role of Satan's angel Hell's unpaid counsel.

Following a month-long investigation into Helena Brown involving dozens of interviews and a review of public records and Brown's e-mails, it's become apparent that the councilwoman isn't quite the harmless radical she at first appears to be. She isn't acting alone.

Rather, an outside volunteer "senior adviser" named William Park — a man who popped into her life a few years back — appears to dictate her office, and some say her life. Brown's speeches, laced with demagoguery, aren't extemporaneous. By nearly all accounts, Park plans, if not writes, them.

Former and current staffers say Park has planted a friend on staff to spy on other staffers, sometimes floats racially charged ideas and — most distressing — directs a significant percentage of Brown's votes on City Council, according to interviews with numerous sources familiar with the situation.

What's more, Park has a past. Once the CEO of a local brokerage firm called United Equity Securities, which had offices all over the country, Park was banned from the investments industry on April 25, 2011, by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority which said he failed to comply with the arbitration award — namely that he didn't pay a woman who successfully sued him.

[...]

In an e-mail to the Houston Press, Park denied any financial malfeasance: "United Equity Securities never bilked any investors, never had any fines, nor owes anyone any money. I was not banned from the securities industry, much less for any fraudulent activity as there NEVER was any fraudulent activity." He then wrote: "You might want to consider giving your life to Jesus Christ as life is short and find the peace and forgiveness that only He can give you."

That last part is important. It provides a clue as to how Park could become such a dominant force in Brown's life and politics. Helena Brown, 34, was home-schooled and inculcated with Roman Catholic dogmas, which play an omnipresent role in her life, according to several interviews. Her social positions derive from strict, literal interpretations of the Bible, said Bernadette McLeroy, who's known Brown for more than a decade and looks on her like a daughter.

But even McLeroy had never seen Park before Brown got into office.

There's a good hour's worth of reading there if you follow all the links, and it's both wildly entertaining and frightening as all hell. John Birch's acolytes have nothing on these people.

See what happens when you don't vote, people?

Charles and John have more.

Independence Day Funnies

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance -- those of us along the Gulf Coast, anyway -- are not praying for rain as we bring you this week's round-up of the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff disputed the notion that Rick Perry would be doing better than Mitt Romney if he were the GOP Presidential nominee.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders where all the constitutional scholars are, and why they are so silent, in Preamble to the US Constitution Violated.

While the Supreme Court delivered landmark case decisions earlier and later in the week, the two Texas Democrats battling for the nomination to the US Senate held a debate. They were overshadowed, as it turned out, for good reason. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs paid attention but really wishes he hadn't.

The Democrats have to, in the minds of voters, turn themselves back into the party of the people and the GOP back into the party of the rich and powerful. The winning won't start again until that's done, and that new governing coalition is built in Texas. WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that "Beer and Democracy" is as good a place to start.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme isn't surprised that the republican Supreme Court wants American Hispanics to carry citizenship papers. Yeah. Right.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker shines a light on the continuing assault of public education in Texas. Coupled with the nationwide exposure of the anti-criticial thinking plank in the state Republican platform, it's scary stuff indeed. Take a look: Killing Public Education in Texas with STARR.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted a list of Fourth of July events in Houston, Galveston, Fort Bend County and College Station. This list of information comes with a nifty Fourth of July reading list included for no extra charge.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog cheers the incredible rise of Asian Americans in the Texas Democratic Party while lamenting the failures of the Texas Democratic Party Convention's Nominations Committee.

Sunday Super Supreme Funnies

On the Affordable Health Care Act

John Robert Behrman is an economist, retired, and was formerly State Democratic Executive Committeeman for SD-13, including the Texas Medical Center.

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

The Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, has stepped back from the brink by not gutting the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). I guess I should be happy.

But the still conservative majority on this court may have simply recognized that they risked more public support for the President and a move closer to a single-payer system with another radical, split decision. The court majority still have the complexity and unpopularity of the new law working for them. They know that Washington concession-tenders cannot make a relatively simple disability insurance program work for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Democrats at every echelon of government (other than the Supreme Court) have to make this aw work despite (a) its constitutional near-death experience, (b) the very nature of health insurance policy sales racketeers they partnered with, and (c) the actual complexity, from state to state, of our motley institutions of public health and medical care. That is what we have: public health and medical care. “Healthcare” is oxymoronic lobby-jargon. The fact that our party’s national policy elite -- bundlers and consultants -- believe in “healthcare”, the “Latino vote”, the Easter Bunny, and so on portends how hard this will be and how perilous the present situation still is.

Here’s a suggestion:

Oregon and Washington State should opt out of Obamacare, as the president has invited them to do. They can create a system of public health and medical care that is fiscally and actuarially sound. Moreover, this would support them in worldwide competition for jobs and capital for the region: Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma. These two states would even have four senators in Washington, D.C., one of whom, Ron Wyden, actually knows what he is talking about in these matters.

So Oregon and Washington should be proud and can lead the nation.

As a legacy of WWII shipbuilding, aircraft factories, and nuclear ordnance, these two states have comparatively strong institutions of public health and medical care, including Kaiser-Permanente and Group Health of Puget Sound health maintenance organizations, as well as very reputable medical schools. These are embedded in other healthy industrial and commercial institutions. Moreover, public health authorities in these states have to deal with two of the most hazardous occupations in America: fishing and logging. In sum, Oregon and Washington are comparatively proficient in public health and medical care. Their patriotic, liberal, and scientific institutions are not unduly burdened by legacies of “scientific racism”, although they may have been somewhat tainted before and during WWII by anti-immigration bias and eugenics.

In short, these two states have the economic and technical scope and scale –- also every political and economic incentive –- to do a fine job of national health insurance built on other wholesome civic and professional institutions they have. This is something our federal, not our national, system of politics and government can accomplish in a highly regionalized global economy.

Moreover, the success of Oregon and Washington should be a signal to Texas Democrats. We could be the national leader in combining energy, industrial, and environmental policy as soon as 2014. We were once before, “back in the day”. We could swap some tips: Oregon and Washington are not leaders in combining energy, industrial, and environmental policy, quite the contrary.

In the midst or aftermath of huge wars, progressive policy has been dumped by a prestigious, victorious government in Washington on small or backwards states. Lyndon B. Johnson could even play Otto von Bismarck, and did so, by creating Medicare, barely and just before losing the war in Vietnam. However, even though “Obama got Osama”, the old flood-down paradigms of “Military Keynesianism” and post-war progressivism will not work for our beleaguered President or utterly marginalized state party today.

We have to try something new, even if it is actually old.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my childhood friend, the late Cicele Bostrom. Raised in Houston and Gonzales, Texas, she became President of Group Health of Puget Sound and a distinguished member of the Washington State Board of Medical Licensure. The flow of labor, capital, and culture between US states and our overseas trade partners that she epitomized is more progressive than the trickle-down of pork and patronage from state or national capitals.

Our so-called conservatives don’t know that and the so-called liberals have forgotten it.