Sunday Funnies (best of the rest of the news edition)

TDP lawsuit over e-voting machines dismissed

DeeceX, at Burnt Orange:

Earlier this year, the Texas Democratic Party sued then-Secretary of State Roger Williams in his capacity as the state's chief election officer, alleging that the eSlate touch-screen voting machines manufactured by Hart InterCivic and certified by the Secretary of State were defective and inaccurately tallied voters' intentions, depriving them of their voting rights as protected by the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the suit alleged that the machines mis-counted so-called "emphasis votes."

Yesterday, federal district judge Sam Sparks granted summary judgment and dismissed the lawsuit. Chad Dunn, the TDP's General Counsel and the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, had this to say:

“We’re disappointed in the judge’s opinion. We’re taking the time to analyze it thoroughly and we’re considering our options on how to proceed. The Texas Democratic Party continues to believe that the eSlate machine fails to record the intent of voters in a significant number of instances.”

The bottom line is this: the eSlate STILL inaccurately counts certain straight-ticket votes, but neither the courts nor the Secretary of State will, for now, do anything about it.

In this posting I mentioned a meeting local e-voting activists were having with Houston and Harris County officials over concerns about e-Slates. That meeting was similarly a total washout.

It turns out that Bill White no more gives a damn about the myriad of security issues surrounding electronic voting than any of the county's Republicans. He came off not just disinterested but passive/aggressively hostile to the idea of asking a local expert in the field -- Rice University professor Dan Wallach -- to head a nonpartisan committee to oversee testing and make any security recommendations. He considered this request an attempt to "sell him a vendor".

Disappointing, but not unexpected by this first-hand observer. Perhaps the mayor was fatigued at the end of a long day which included Hurricane Dean preparedness meetings, but I'm not capable of giving him the benefit of the doubt based on things I heard about his lack of interest in advance of our conference.

Since neither the courts nor elected Democrats care to address these concerns, the emphasis on voting integrity by necessity now shifts to other areas of GOP voter suppression tactics.

Much more to write about this topic in the months to come.

Aldine teachers' union leader arrested in front of school

She made the mistake of talking to teachers:

The trouble began Monday (Aug. 13) when school district officials informed Aldine American Federation of Teachers staff that they could not hand out membership information on school property at Aldine High School, where the district held its new teacher orientation.

The next day, the Aldine superintendent circled the high school with police officers. Aldine AFT staff and member volunteers patiently waited for teachers to finish the event, and when they emerged, one teacher directly asked for some literature. When an Aldine AFT staff member stepped onto school property to hand her a brochure, district officers swarmed around her and threatened her with a citation. Mayorga drove up to the scene on public property and asked an officer what was happening. The officer asked for her identification, and when she questioned why he needed it, he manhandled her, cuffed her and arrested her.

Carmen Mayorga, president of AFT Local 6345, was arrested, handcuffed, and charged with "failure to identify." Her car was impounded and she was held in jail 14 hours before being released, the union said. All of the 800+ members of Local 6345 work for the Aldine ISD, near Houston. The union is considering legal action against the school district over the incident. Texas AFT President Linda Bridges:

Surely the Aldine school district’s police force has better things to do. The superintendent is using [the local police department] to intimidate and coerce employees and their representatives and impede their exercise of constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of association. What is [Aldine School] Superintendent Wanda Bamberg so afraid of that she feels the need to handcuff and rough up a 115-pound mother of three just for coming near a school?

This sounds like something out of the old union-busting days in the 1920s, or even worse, past attempts to stifle free speech on public school campuses.

What is the purpose of this thuggish action by school officials and local police? They're not protecting or serving anything with this brute display of intimidation.

Now the taxpayers of the Aldine ISD will see their tax dollars spent to defend an unnecessary lawsuit instead of educating their children.

Even the Chinese-made diabetes test strips I use are bogus

I don't suppose it ever occurred to any of our corporate millionaires that outsourcing our manufacturing to the cheapest labor source might mean we'd get crappy, dangerous, poisonous products back.

Or maybe they just didn't care.

Sunday Funnies (All Rove all the time edition)

I'm not worried about Dean. Yet. (and more assorted bloggerhea)

It's too early. Maybe by this time next week.

But the SciGuy defintely has the best information in order for me to decide whether to worry about him, or not.

Looking around elsewhere:

-- Lots in the blogosphere over the pending execution of Kenneth Foster, an essentially innocent man. I have wanted to write more about this, but the futility of being able to influence this miscarriage of justice is just too depressing. The Texas Moratorium Network has everything you need to know about this case. Here's an excerpt from Reuters on the phenomenon of the death penalty in Texas:

Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.

"In Texas you have all the elements lined up. Public support, a governor that supports it and supportive courts," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

"If any of those things are hesitant then the process slows down," said Dieter. "With all cylinders working as in Texas it produces a lot of executions."

-- John Cornyn loves box turtles but hates poor children, and in a reality-based Texas that alone ought to be enough to cost him re-election.

-- More and louder chatter about Hillary being a drag on the Democratic down-ballot. To be clear: I think, like nearly everybody else at this point, that absent some uncharacteristic meltdown Hillary Clinton will be both the Democratic nominee and the next President of the United States. To the sneering chagrin of every Republican from sea to shining sea, and to my own not-insignificant queasiness.

But I still also believe she kills us down the ballot in Texas and across the South, threatening our legislative majorities in Washington, and snuffing out a fledgling uprising in the Texas Lege.

I want to be wrong about this.

-- The goddamned Blue Dogs are Bush's best friends in Congress. We knew what we had with Chet Edwards and Henry Cuellar, and mostly with Nick Lampson, but I have to say that the biggest letdown is Ciro Rodriguez. He was a progressive when he was first elected, then he was defeated by the odious Cuellar, and now has turned to the Dark Side, apparently for political expediency.

I can't believe I fought so hard to get him re-elected. Besides blogging, I attended his fundraisers and gave him too much money myself. No more.

-- Lastly, this rather fascinating story in the Atlantic entitled The Rove Presidency contains an anecdote that speaks for itself:

Dick Armey, the House Republican majority leader when Bush took office (and no more a shrinking violet than DeLay), told me a story that captures the exquisite pettiness of most members of Congress and the arrogance that made Bush and Rove so inept at handling them. “For all the years he was president,” Armey told me, “Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we’d do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn’t like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president’s autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it.” Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. “Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, ‘It would probably wind up on eBay,’” Armey continued. “Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It’s stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it’s stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office.”

Go away, Kay Bailey. Just go away.

I'm with Greg here: this fawning over the Texas Harridan is puke-worthy...

Vice president? Doesn't want it. A run for governor? Quite possibly. Leaving public service for a new career in the private sector? That's appealing, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said Thursday, in the midst of a three-day West Texas bus tour.

"Before I retire, I need to have financial stability," said Hutchison, 64, raising the option of leaving public service after being asked about the always-swirling speculation about her political plans. "I could certainly see another career in the private sector. ... I certainly would like to make money. I think I've given up a lot of earning potential being in public service."

Christ, as if we didn't already know that it's all about her all the time. So what's a politician who -- allegedly -- isn't running for anything except a huge payday after government work doing a on a bus tour of West Texas?

Is she actually out there selling wind turbines?

"Say it's Hillary and (Sen. Barack) Obama," said political scientist Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. "I doubt the Republicans would want to put forward two white males."

He said Hutchison is the only Republican woman in a high office who is well-positioned for the vice presidential spot.

GOP consultant Royal Masset said, "She's probably the most credible female we have in the nation."

It doesn't do for officeholders to look like they're campaigning to be vice president. But Hutchison sounds sincere about not wanting it.

"No. Nooooo," she said. "I do not want to be on the ticket for vice president ... I'm not interested in it. I don't want to be asked.

Since Kay also told us she would never run for a third Senate term, I'm having trouble believing this "nooooo".

Candidly, her best political option is to leave office, even though the appointment by Governor 39% MoFo to fill the unexpired five-and-a-half-year term would likely be a reactionary, fundamentalist conservative such as Lamar Smith. Or, God forbid, Henry Bonilla, who wanted the job in the first place way back when Kay was dithering over a run for the Austin mansion in 2005. My prediction is that she probably will "retire from public life" and go make a mountain of money, only to return in a few years to "accept the call from Texans for new leadership".

And we will all collectively vomit at that moment.