Texas judge brags in campaign mailers about stopping EPA

Bloomberg:

With aspects of the case still pending in his courtroom, Judge Trey Loftin sent fliers to voters saying he forced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to back down.

Loftin, who is campaigning to keep his state judgeship in a county west of Dallas, also sent out materials with the image of talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who credited the judge’s ruling in favor of driller Range Resources Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas, for getting the EPA to reverse course.

(Image from Parker County Blog, an avid supporter of the judge)

What Loftin might be suggesting here -- besides a separate case that EPA settled with Range in March -- is the resignation of Dr. Al Armendariz from his post as director of EPA's South Central region just last month. While the mail piece doesn't quite go that far, reported eyewitness accounts have the judge commenting in campaign appearances that his court decisions resulted in Armendariz's firing.

Except of course that Armendariz wasn't fired. Continuing from the Bloomberg article, which quotes the following text right off the back of Loftin's mailer:

“The EPA, using falsified evidence provided by a liberal activist environmental consultant, accused and fined a local gas driller of contaminating wells,” according to a campaign flier for Loftin’s campaign. President Barack “Obama’s EPA backed down only after Judge Trey Loftin ruled that the evidence was ‘deceptive.’”

At least the law is fairly clear.

The Texas code of judicial conduct prohibits judges from commenting on pending or impending cases "in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge’s probable decision."

That would be Canon 3 B .10 of the Code.

"A judge shall abstain from public comment about a pending or impending proceeding which may come before the judge's court in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge's probable decision on any particular case."

Let's read more reactions to this (apparent) ethical breach.

“The problem of having judges run for office is that sometimes they cross a line in trying to get elected,” James Alfini, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston and co-author of a book on judicial ethics, said in an interview. “In this case, I think he crossed a line.”

[...]

Even without specific references, the mailer may cause a reasonable person to think Loftin was biased in the case, said Keith Swisher, a professor of law at the Phoenix School of Law and expert on judicial ethics. “The fact that a specific name wasn’t used doesn’t provide” an out, Swisher said in an interview. ...

Judge Loftin's primary challenger delicately weighed in as well.

“I don’t think a judge should ever comment about a case pending in his court,” Craig Towson, Loftin’s opponent in the Republican primary on May 29, said in an interview. “One could feel slighted if you have a judge commenting on the case.”

A complaint will have to be filed with the state commission on judicial conduct for any action to proceed further. So we'll wait and see what happens.

Update: WFAA in the Metroplex reports that Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler, who was quoted in a separate mailing as endorsing Loftin, called the county's residents with a recording that stated he in fact did not endorse the judge, and furthermore did not authorize the use of his name or photo in the mistaken mailout.

(Whatever one may think of Judge Loftin's actions in this regard, it appears that Sheriff Fowler is pretty mad about the endorsement that wasn't. Robo-calling all the landlines in the county -- even an exurban one like Parker -- isn't cheap.)

No chance Ron Paul endorses Gary Johnson

The Independent Political Report, via Reason:

Ron Paul campaign manager/spokesman/family member Jesse Benton told reporters during a phone conference May 15 that there would be no chance of any endorsement of Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson by Ron Paul. Benton said that Ron Paul endorsing Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney was not out of the question. 

Here's the rationale.

Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian for President in 1988, but has served separate stints as a Republican in Congress before and since, and has run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012. His son Rand Paul is a freshman US Senator from Kentucky and is considered by many to be a future presidential aspirant as early as 2016; other Paul family members are also rumored to have a possible future in politics. 

And here's some of the recent history. I'm emphasizing the names of the players in bold.

Subsequent to his return to Congress as a Republican, Ron Paul has continued his involvement with alternative political parties to some extent, speaking at a number of their events and endorsing a number of their candidates. [...]

In 2008, former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, a Libertarian National Committeeman in 2006-8 who had also supported (2004 Libertarian presidential nominee Michael) Badnarik, ran as the Libertarian presidential candidate and famously earned the Paul campaign’s ire by first agreeing to, then at the last minute refusing to participate in a joint press conference with Dr. Paul, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader (who was running as an independent, as he had in 2004, and ran as a Green in 2000 and 1996), and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. The press conference was planned as a way to announce agreement between these candidates and Dr. Paul on several key issues, and in turn Paul was to suggest that voters consider these four candidates as better alternatives than Obama and McCain without making a specific endorsement. After Barr, who was on the premises, refused to appear with the group on stage and instead offered Ron Paul to become a substitute VP candidate for the Libertarians, Paul responded by endorsing Baldwin. 

Barr backed Gingrich earlier this year but has recently endorsed Romney.

This gives every indication that the Kook Caucus is slowly coming together behind Mitt -- though I believe Tom Tancredo is still a holdout --  even as the relatively sane conservatives offer a legitimate third option in Gary Johnson and Jim Gray, whose nominations as Libertarian Party standard-bearers for 2012 were chronicled here.

Charles Kuffner doesn't agree -- and maybe it's just me who is more aware of third-party efforts while most everybody else remains not -- but I believe the minor parties in Texas are collectively going to exceed much more than their traditional 1-2% of the statewide vote. I think it could be as much as 5% for all of them combined, perhaps a bit more. We'll see.

The traditional media discovers Sean Hubbard

This is a good thing.

The young Democrat likes to remind audiences that Joe Biden was 29 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware, and like the current vice president, Hubbard is articulate, engaging and well-versed on the issues. During a Houston debate a couple of weeks ago, he did not hesitate to engage the presumptive GOP front-runner, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is more than three decades older and who has nearly 15 years more experience in office. Hubbard won the KUHF News live blog poll immediately following the debate.

In a state where a Democrat has not won statewide office since 1994, Hubbard's chance of taking the oath of office in Washington next January is even less likely than the Astos sweeping this fall's World Series. And, yet, his quixotic candidacy may offer a boost to his beleaguered party. Along with Julian Castro, the vastly more experienced mayor of San Antonio, Hubbard could be the party's face of the future.

Influential Democratic consultant Harold Cook surprised - and irritated - some of the party faithful recently by making just that point. On his "Letters from Texas" blog, Cook noted that Hubbard "would be the kind of Democratic nominee more capable of attracting new folks to the Democratic column."

Here is about ten minutes' worth of Hubbard doing some Q&A in Sherman recently.



This is it, Texas Democrats. A moment of truth, clarity, peace love and understanding.

Sean Hubbard is your man. THE man. If you fall back on a tired old Blue Dog to run against whatever POS the Republicans nominate, you won't crack 40%.

The party has fallen and it can't get up... for nearly twenty years now. And Paul Sadler can't lift a thing, bless his heart. Good man, poor timing.

Get Hubbard on the ballot and you will begin to see the peeping dawn of a renaissance, or keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting better results.

Your choice.

Update: As usual, Neil and I agree right across the board.

For Judge Steven Kirkland and Lane Lewis

Despite not being eligible to vote in the Democratic Party's primary this year -- I was elected an alternate delegate in the spring to the Texas Green Party's state convention -- there are, as I have said before, proud progressive Democrats whom I do heartily support and advance for election in November. Two of these are Judge Steven Kirkland to the Harris County bench, and Lane Lewis as chair of the HCDP. Michelle Risher at OutSmart magazine assembles all the moving pieces of the puzzle to reveal the picture. Emphasis is mine.

(Bethel) Nathan, who has worked for the Republican National Committee, and (Justin) Jordan, who is Republican Precinct 76 Chair, are both African-American, as is Kirkland’s ostensibly Democratic challenger, Elaine Palmer. Palmer has been heavily funded by (attorney George) Fleming and three out-of-state personal injury lawyers who also litigate Fen Phen claims. These out-of-state attorneys have no readily discernible ties to Fleming, Palmer, or the Houston legal community, but have nevertheless contributed $30,000 to Palmer’s campaign out of the goodness of their hearts.

Fleming and his firm contributed a total of $35,000, and his self-funded PAC, Texans for Good Leaders, added another $23,000. Throw in the $2,000 from “Texas Hammer” Jim Adler, $5,000 from Cliff Roberts, and the Holman Law Firm’s attempted initial contribution of $35,000—$30,000 of which had to be returned along with another $2,000 from Fleming—and a cynic might infer they were trying to buy themselves a judge. The most mysterious contribution of all, though, was $5,000 from Republican Tea Party operative Paul Kubosh, who also funded Tea Party councilwoman Helena Brown.

Kubosh is also a major source of funds for Keryl Douglas, who is running against openly gay Lane Lewis for the Harris County Democratic Party (HCDP) Chair. Kubosh has of late been meddling in the affairs of the Harris County Democratic Party even though he is a lifelong Republican whose brothers, Michael and Randy, are the former Harris County Republican Party Finance Committee Chairman and the Precinct 2 Chair and Republican Hispanic Citizens in Action treasurer, respectively.

Miya Shay has more on the latest smear of Kirkland appearing on your radio.

Any questions before the exam, class? The test is open-book and it's pass/fail, and it's going on right now at early voting locations across Harris County until Friday. It will then resume at your precinct's poll for one day only, Tuesday May 29, and be graded shortly after 7 pm.

Good luck.

Previous posts:

That old black magic (4/29/12)

Still on the case of the mysterious rift (4/19/12)

Harris County Democrats' rift between blacks, gays boils over (4/15/12)

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that early voting for the 2012 primaries continues through Friday as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff sincerely hopes there's an uprising among parents and educators over the way public education was treated last session, but he's still waiting for the campaign rhetoric to match the reporting about it.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger was moved by an award-winning documentary and saw the connection to the current state of mental health in Texas and everywhere else. Here are Lessons of the Weeping Camel for Texas.  

BlueBloggin had not anticipated how long America would engage in war. Enough men and women have been exposed to combat, cruelty and death to populate a small country. Americans must be prepared for When They Come Home – Critical Update.

There aren't many Democrats earning the endorsement of PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, but the most important one of the 2012 primary cycle in Harris County is Lissa Squiers for Congress. And Sean Hubbard for US Senate. Oh, and Rachel Van Os for state party chair (election to be held at the state convention in Houston in June). And maybe a few more coming in the week before Election Day.

This week in GOP infighting: should Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst win his bid for the US Senate, picking his replacement will be a proxy war between Rick Perry and Joe Straus. WCNews at Eye On Williamson has the rest of the story in The Tie-Breaker.

Libby Shaw puts Repug redistricting in prospective in her latest posting: The Gerrymander Cowards. Check it out at TexasKaos.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted a picture of a cigarette machine that he saw last week in Houston. If you can imagine, the cigarettes cost $10 a pack in this machine.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog strongly supports Gene Wu in the race to succeed Scott Hochberg in HD-137.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that Texas is #1 -- in workplace discrimination complaints.

Even Meaner Funnies

"I have no issue with paying taxes and whatever needs to be done for my country to grow. I believe very firmly that my ability to sit here — I'm a black man who didn't go to college, yet I get to travel around the world and sell my movies, and I believe very firmly that America is the only place on Earth that I could exist," Smith said. "So I will pay anything that I need to pay to keep my country growing."

That's when the interviewer mentioned that France could have a 75 percent tax rate on income over one million Euros.

 "Seventy-five?" ("Men in Black" actor Will) Smith gasped. "Yeah, that's different, that's different. Yeah, 75. Well, you know, God bless America."

Click on this one for the larger, more readable version. It's worth it.

Defriending Facebook

I spent much of the past couple of weeks posting status updates to my Facebook timeline castigating the social network's initial public stock offering, which came down Friday. Here's a sample:

-- Four ways the IPO will change Facebook forever: 1. More ads. 2. Ads on your mobile. 3. Less privacy. 4. More FB-generated content.

-- FB testing a feature that charges you to send messages to your friends: It's called 'Highlight' and it's currently live in New Zealand. See, not everyone sees all your posts; just the ones that FB's algorithm decides to publish in their -- not yours, theirs -- feed. So you can pay extra to make sure everyone sees a specific post. Maybe.

Or you can just send them a free e-mail.

Here's more on why using FB is soon going to be costing you money.

-- Facebook changes their privacy policy yet again. Hint: it's not to provide you more privacy, or even more control over what little privacy you still have.

-- Nine ways criminals use Facebook.

-- Deleting a FB app doesn't delete your data from their system. This is probably a good time to be reminded that everything you upload to FB -- and I mean everything-- becomes their property. Not yours. Theirs.

-- FB users 'like' and 'share' too much, according to Consumer Reports. And it's not just college kids on spring break intoxicated and partially nude. That post you liked about diabetes? Your insurer is able to purchase that data from FB, and they probably aren't going to do so to help you manage yours.

-- So given all that, would you be surprised that a majority of its users don't trust Facebook?

More than 40 percent of American adults log in to the site — to share news, personal observations, photos and more — at least once a week. In all, some 900 million people around the world are users. But many of them don’t have a very high opinion of Facebook or trust it to keep their information private.

-- Or would you be more surprised that despite that, Facebookers aren't quitting on them?

Those links are what I posted to FB just from last week alone. Truth to tell, I wanted to see if it was possible to get FB to defriend me on the basis of this criticism. Turns out the answer is no, so far at least.

But as you might imagine, this bevy of bad news gave some negative momentum to Friday's initial public offering.

-- 5 reasons not to 'like' FB's IPO.

-- Warren Buffet stayed far away.

-- The AP's finance writer said just don't do it.

-- There are some other dirty little secrets.

-- HuffPo established the Tech Bubble Death Watch in honor of Facebook's IPO.

-- At $38 per share, the stock was valued at over 100 times earnings. That compares with Apple's 14 times, and  Google's 19 times. Thus the headlines Friday became 'overvalued' and 'under-demanded'. And in case you needed a refresher course on the 'level playing field' for small investors...

It's as if no one at Facebook ever heard of MySpace.

Yes, FB is limping into Monday, where the share price could dip below Friday's closing of $38.63, and with a summer bear market rearing its head. I suppose that last is good news if you're a contrarian.

I would be interested to know how my posts about Facebook and their myriad of fuck-ups affected the FB algorithm for what my interests are. I doubt whether Markie Z will be sharing that with me. Besides he'll be busy honeymooning for a few weeks.

Wonder if the newlyweds are scouting domiciles in Singapore?

Update: Oh, there were some techno-difficulties at the NASDAQ on Friday morning, providing a convenient scapegoat for the lack of momentum.

Despite hours of testing, Nasdaq failed to detect a problem with the way the trading system processed order cancellations. Greifeld said Nasdaq is "humbly embarrassed" about the technical glitch, and plans to redesign its IPO systems. He added that Nasdaq will ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve its plan to repay investors who were hurt by the computer error. 

But read a little further and you find this.

On Friday lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stepped in to keep the stock from falling below its $38 IPO price, and at the end of the day Facebook was up only 0.6 percent. Sources say the bank won't continue propping up the shares this week. There may also be more fallout from the Nasdaq glitch. Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management told Reuters: "I don't know if people stepped away at some point because they just couldn't execute in a clear manner, and that Monday we will have some follow through of people that weren't executed and still need to sell."