... I apologize for Joe Barton. He is as venal and corrupt as a Texas Republican comes. And since he is so "ashamed" and "doesn't want to live in a country" where we hold corporations responsible for their mistakes, then I invite his sorry ass to GTF OUT of MY country.
A staunch conservative who has a long record of backing oil industry interests, Barton apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the "shakedown" the Obama White House pulled on the company. (Barton has received more than $1.5 million in campaign donations from the oil industry, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan watchdog group.) You can watch the video here:
"I'm not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself," Barton explained, "but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown. In this case a $20 billion shakedown."
Wrapping up, Barton said: "I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words — amounts to a shakedown, so I apologize."
A top Republican lawyer has been hired to represent the Green Party in a lawsuit in which Democrats want to know who bankrolled a petition drive to put the party on the ballot. ...
Andy Taylor, a Republican redistricting lawyer with ties to Tom DeLay, John Cornyn and Rick Perry, will represent the liberal Green Party. It's unknown who's paying him. Neither Taylor nor Green Party state coordinator Kat Swift returned telephone calls. The hiring of Taylor is the latest in a series of GOP connections to the Green Party effort.
Taylor represented GOP efforts to beat Democrats in legislative races in 2002 to clear the way for a DeLay-backed redistricting plan. He has represented DeLay's political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and the Texas Association of Business, which spent corporate money that is banned in Texas races to elect legislative candidates. He was a top aide to then-Attorney General John Cornyn. And he has defended Republican candidates in political cases. As a lobbyist, his clients have included top GOP money givers such as Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, the governor's biggest campaign contributor (no relation).
Taylor also led the losing effort to unseat Hubert Vo and re-seat Talmadge Heflin in 2004. This scumbag is a Republican-exclusive hired gun. Every billable hour is spent advocating the legal causes of the GOP. And he doesn't do pro bono, either.
Any doubt that the Green Party of Texas is willingly being used by high profile Republicans with connections to Rick Perry can now be set aside. With an ethical cloud hanging over the Republican-Green Party petition collaboration, notorious GOP attorney Andy Taylor has signed on to represent a Green Party of Texas Co-Chair. ...
Perhaps most interesting is his relationship with Rick Perry. Andy Taylor has such a close relationship with the governor that when Perry was looking to fill vacancies on the Texas Supreme Court, he asked Taylor to interview “potential candidates and [assess] their strengths and weaknesses.” (Source: Texas Monthly, February, 2005)
Rick Perry's chief political strategist now acknowledges that the consultant who spearheaded the petition drive for the Green Party in Texas is somebody he's worked with in the past. But Dave Carney says he didn't work with him to put the Greens on the state ballot this year. ...
But Ross Ramsey at the Texas Tribune got a different reaction when he caught up with Carney at the state GOP convention this weekend in Dallas. Carney said he and (GOP consultant Tim) Mooney had worked together in the past after all, but are no longer in contact: "I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, and I haven't seen him, emailed him or talked to him on the phone in years."
Horseshit and corruption all around. Par for the course for the GOP, and the Green Party is coming due for a name change to the Watermelon Party; green on the outside, red on the inside.
Mark Miner, Rick Perry's douchesacklickspittle campaign spokesperson, tried to pull another little Republican dirty trick yesterday, scheduling a press conference outside the Bill White campaign's Austin office with a generator marked "BTEC". But he was greeted by about fifty White supporters, including one in a chicken suit, calling once again for the governor to debate, and yes, the media got it all (thanks, Elise Hu-Stiles at the TexTrib):
MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.
The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelicalSolid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.
The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.
The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way his arms were raised, as though reaching out to catch a football. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.
Doesn't the Bible say something about "all things being consumed by fire"? Heed the word, Christians.
He's trying to avoid it by being coy, but the teabaggers and associated wingnuts he depends on to get re-elected aren't going to let him. From his statement of April 29, in the wake of Arizona's SB 1070, which essentially outlawed everyone who "appears" to be undocumented:
I fully recognize and support a state's right and obligation to protect its citizens, but I have concerns with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.
That's diametrically opposed to the majority of delegates at the just-concluded RPT convention, and with most of those who will vote Republican in the fall.
Texas Republicans adopted another get-tough policy on immigration and bilingual education Saturday that some say will make it hard for the party to attract Hispanic voters at a time when the Texas population is turning increasingly Latino.
The platform encourages state lawmakers to create a Class A misdemeanor criminal offense “for an illegal alien to intentionally or knowingly be within the State of Texas,” and to “oppose amnesty in any form leading to citizenship for illegal immigrants.”
Texas Republicans also want to limit citizenship by birth to those born to a U.S. citizen “with no exceptions.” The platform calls for the end of day-labor work centers and emphasizes border security, encouraging “all means … (to) immediately prevent illegal aliens.”
The party's education platform calls for the end of federally sponsored pre-kindergarten, and opposes any mandatory pre-kindergarten or kindergarten.
“We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development,” it says.
Bilingual education should end after the third year, according to the platform, and non-U.S. citizens should not be eligible for state or federal college financial assistance.
More from Christy Hoppe at the DMN, who pointed out the problem for Republicans ahead of their convention last weekend.
The question is not whether Latinos will vote for him -- none in their right mind will buy this head fake from the governor -- but whether Latinos will turn out in sufficient numbers to vote against Perry and his party, and whether any of the conservatives wailing about not voting for him over this issue will indeed follow through on that threat.
Meanwhile, the cost to real people and their families continues to rise.
The conclusions I will draw are that Perry is certainly capable of getting a third or better of the vote in heavily Latino areas (throughout the state), and that if his efforts aren’t matched by something at least as strong, he will do well enough to make a Democratic victory all but unattainable.
OUT OF MORE THAN 20 MILLION GENERAL ELECTION VOTES, LESS THAN 300 VOTER FRAUD REFERRALS HOUSE COMMITTEE TOLD
Actual instances of voter impersonation prosecuted with state involvement can be counted on two hands
House Elections (ed. note: this would be the Texas House committee on Elections) held another hearing today on voter fraud and as in previous hearings on the topic, state officials told lawmakers that reported instances of voter impersonation (the kind that a photo ID bill is designed to catch) constitute a tiny fraction of the number of voter fraud cases that are investigated at the state level.
A witness from the Attorney General’s office told the panel that since August 2002 nine cases involving illegal voting have gone through the complete indictment process and were fully resolved either through a guilty verdict, plea deal or a dismissal of the case.
Nine closed cases. Out of more than twenty million votes cast. Over the past eight years.
And how many legitimate votes do you think were NOT cast, because overzealous Republican precinct election judges violated the law by demanding ID at their polls?
This is the only purpose of a voter ID bill; to suppress turnout. To keep people that they don't like voting FROM voting. Because Republicans LOSE when more people vote. And they know it.
