The Texas GOP came unraveled yesterday

I don't post about the goings-on of the Texas Legislature very often, because so many others do such a good job, but this diary from Glenn Smith of Drive Democracy.org is particularly cogent in its assessment of the fifth failure in four years of the all-Republican leadership to come up with a plan to finance public education:

The GOP majority in the Texas House of Representatives today fell apart, its party discipline destroyed by the stink of corruption that permeates the Bush era in Texas and across the country.

If Texas had icebergs, this would be the tip of one. I'm not talking about Karl Rove's adulterous behavior.

I'm talking about the stinging defeat suffered by the Texas GOP on the floor of the state House today. GOP leadership, helped to election by illegal corporate contributions, watched helplessly as the Democratic minority and a few frightened Republicans voted down bills that 1) raised taxes on the middle class; 2) Cut taxes for Big Insurance and other special interests involved in the scandal; 3) Stiffed school children and teachers under the guise of education reform.

This is no small matter. It should be pointed out that in the early 1970s, a political scandal called Sharpstown surfaced just ahead of a national political scandal called Watergate. By 1976, Jimmy Carter could carry Texas.

The talking points are simple: Texas Republicans are trying to raise taxes on middle class Texans and devastate public education so they can do what they were ordered to do when they accepted the illegal bribes: cut taxes for the people who paid the bribes.

Several corporations have been indicted. So have some staffers who were allegedly involved in the scheme. Tom DeLay, who lives off his aura of power, says he was powerless over a scheme that invoved his committee and its money and its contributers and that advanced his Congressional redistricting scheme. A grand jury, holding all the cards, is still meeting.

Corruption is bad enough. But when corruption is tied to taxes, education and other close-to-home issues, there's going to be trouble.

That's why some Republicans are rebelling. That's why Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, always in over his head with this job, might be losing his head and his job. He's asked his Republican members to cast dozens of career-threatening votes just so he can tell his Bosses at Big Insurance that he was a good little boy who did what he was told.

All of the MSM -- the Texas newspapers and broadcast affiliates -- are far less revealing about this collapse of leadership, and what it means for Texas children.

I wouldn't expect them to catch up to the story, either.

Rove is about to get some of his own medicine

Via Daily Kos, from Radar Online:

For years, political insiders in the Lone Star State have whispered about Rove’s close friendship with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas. The two first became close when Johnson sat on the board of then-Governor George W. Bush’s Business Council over a decade ago. Their friendship reportedly deepened after Bush appointed Johnson—a little-known spokesperson for the Texas Good Roads Association—to a seat on his Transportation Department transition team in 2000. The plum appointment enabled Johnson’s lobbying firm, Infrastructure Solutions, to snare such high-paying clients as Aetna and the City of Laredo. Sources say Johnson now frequently travels between Washington D.C. and Austin, where she frequently appears at Rove’s side at parties and unofficial functions.

Although there is no evidence that their relationship is anything but professional, the close association between the married White House aide and the comely lobbyist has long raised eyebrows in conservative Texas circles. Asked about the pair, a prominent political journalist who has written extensively about Rove says, “I’ve heard the stories, but I would never write about Karl and Karen. If you want to keep your job as a reporter in Texas, you make believe you don’t see them together.”

In the post-Lewinsky era, Washington’s press corps has mostly avoided reporting on the private lives of public officials. But as the political climate in the capitol grows more poisonous, Rove’s close friendship with the lobbyist has attracted increased scrutiny from opponents eager to prove that Bush’s dirty trickster is sitting on some dirty laundry of his own.

And kos adds:

In a fortuitious coincidence, Jerome and I have just finished interviewing a long-time Texas political writer here in Austin who says that Rove is absolutely having an affair with Karen. Rove is married and has a teenaged son. According to this writer, Rove's wife is a hardcore liberal. "I don't know how he and his wife get along," he said.

Well, quite obviously, they do not.

In a more discreet political era -- say, just a few short years ago -- I might have said that a politician's personal private life is none of our business.

But, as we are constantly reminded, 9/11 changed everything.

Meet Texas' newest precinct chair

Well, maybe not the newest, but one of them, as I accepted the appointment yesterday.

In order to maintain a tiny shred of anonymity, I won't identify it by number, but if you've been reading here and elsewhere I post for any length of time you can figure out a lot; I will tell you that my precinct flips conventional wisdom about the city I call home on its head. In fact it is even more liberal than I suspected -- in 2004 it went more than 60% for John Kerry.

And there's plenty of room to improve upon those numbers.

Heh.

The very first GOP talking point

A summary of the trouble

... the Bushies are in over Leakgate, from Daily Kos:

Bloomberg is reporting that Rove and Libby both gave testimony to the grand jury that flatly conflicts with the testimony given by those they said they talked to.

We now know that the Top Secret memo most consistent with the talking points that Rove and Libby told reporters was seen in the hands of Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in the days before the leak occurred. And that he told the grand jury he never saw it.

And Steve Clemons has verified that John Bolton was one of Judith Miller's regular sources on WMD issues, and that MSNBC stands by its story that Bolton gave testimony to the grand jury about the State Department memo in question. Bolton, you may recall, has previously been identified to have been involved in the Niger uranium claims that Wilson's trip helped disprove ...

... the Bushies are in over the latest Abu Ghraib torture photos they're refusing to release:

On July 22, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced the latest efforts of the Bush Administration to block the release of the Darby photos and videos depicting torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison facility. On June 2, 2004, CCR, along with the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace filed papers with the U.S. District Court, charging the Dept. of Defense and other government agencies with illegally withholding records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody. Since then, the organizations have been repeatedly rebuffed in their efforts to investigate what happened at the prison.

In June, the government requested and received an extension from the judge stating that they needed time in order to redact the faces of the men, women and children believed to be shown in the photographs and videos. They were given until today to
produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

... and ...

The images, according to those lawmakers who have seen them, paint a picture of torture at Abu Ghraib far, far worse than most Americans have yet been willing to admit. Via the Boston Herald, May 8th, 2004:

Signaling the worst revelations are yet to come, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the additional photos show "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman." ...

The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is "going to get worse" and warned that the most "disturbing" revelations haven't yet been made public. "The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here," he said. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."

And from Seymour Hersh:

The women were passing messages saying "Please come and kill me, because of what's happened". Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking.

Note these links are from 2004. The administration, and several members of Congress, have known about these additional abuse cases, including photos and video not released to the public, for over a year. And yes, the rest of the world already knows.

So we've been sodomizing children. In the name of freedom.

Can you stand some more?

The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.

"If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice," the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.

So on the one hand, the Bush administration is blocking the release of the photographic proof of the most horrific war crimes committed in U.S. military-run prisons. And on the other hand, they are threatening to veto any attempts by Congress to establish laws banning such torture -- or even to investigate the torture already documented.

Had enough? Apparently, some have:

A rapid series of car bombs and another blast ripped through a luxury hotel and a coffeeshop in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik early Saturday, killing at least 83, a hospital official said. Terrified European and Arab tourists fled into the night, and rescue workers said the death toll could still rise.

It was another day of high tension, disruption and fear on the London Underground. The union for subway and bus drivers said workers would be justified in staying away from work if the government fails to take more precautions to make the operators safe. "I think they're going to strike again," commuter Warren West, 27, said of the bombers. "I think they're doing to London what's happening in Iraq."

Is George Bush still making everyone feel safe?