On the continuing splintering of the GOP

Much has been written already of the pending divorce of the Christians from the Republicans, and I've posted the most articulate report previously.

One of the more fascinating things about watching the fracturing of the various coalitions comprising the Republican Party has been the story behind the phenomenon of the rise of Ron Paul. Primarily viral and online, he has captured a toehold on the conservative psyche like few have in the past several years:

... Paul's popularity can't necessarily be explained by a previously undetected craving for gold-standard debates on college campuses. His message, even if packaged in obscure economic lectures, is that there is something very corrupt, very Halliburton-Blackwatery going on with our military-industrial complex, and that can attract some pretty weird followers. At the Iowa State event, a student stood outside in a tricornered hat and Revolutionary War–era suit, ringing a bell. Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot G.O.P. candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit." There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government. And there are anarchists as well: They've picked Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, for a fund-raising drive.

Even when Dr. No ran as a Libertarian for president in 1988 he wasn't as popular a figure as he is today. In truth he speaks to the strain of conservatives who do not favor the corporate brand Bush and Cheney have made so (un)popular. These anti-establishment conservatives are represented in polling as being in the majority with many of us on the left: they don't favor endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan, don't favor government surveillance and expanded executive branch authority, and they do not support local issues that give government and huge corporations more public assets (like the the Trans-Texas Corridor). They remain beholders of much of Republican orthodoxy, such as a Grover Norquist opinion of government and a xenophobic worldview, but they part company in so many places that it's fair to view them as a distinct and growing subset within the conservative ranks.

(Pausing to discuss the labeling: "anti-establishment" and "establishment" Republicans are clumsy terms and don't do descriptive justice to the dividing groups. They defy compartmentalization, but I'll still use the labels for the ease of making this observation.)

Make no mistake, though: the establishment Republicans -- corporate, pro-war, supportive of Bush and Cheney's assault on the Constitution via the unitary executive concept -- remain in the vanguard of Republican party control. They are represented by the concentric circles occupied by Rudy Giuliani and Rick Perry; it's worth observing that the international law firm of Bracewell Giuliani represents the Spanish corporation CINTRA, which is one of the primary contractors of the Trans-Texas Corridor, which is Rick Perry's prized "public/private initiative".

Now that's fascism at its finest. But I won't digress.

What's really amusing is to observe the two factions calling each other RINOS. If, for example, Kay Bailey Hutchison votes for SCHIP, she's a RINO. If Chuck Hagel doesn't support the war, he doesn't support the troops and he's a traitor and so on. If John McCain can't buy Attorney General-designate Mike Mukasey's quavering on the definition of torture any better than any of the Democratic senators on the Judiciary committee, but still wants to follow Osama to the gates of hell and shoot him ... well, you get the picture.

That last example is just so confusing for most Republican voters.

Fortunately though many people left and right do get it, and the rejection of corporate politics is fast growing within the Democratic ranks as well (and a bit ahead of the GOP, naturally).

Still, Republicans were the ruling party in this country for too many years. They aren't any longer, and just over a year from now will really have a lot to to whine about, but the majority party won't be the Democratic Party, either; the majority will be the Democrats and Republicans who continue to represent the special interests rather than the public interest. They will take millions from corporate lobbyists and pass tort reform and earmark pork for useless projects back home and claim to be something they are not -- representative of the people. And the people understand this: it's why you regularly hear "both parties are just the same", "why can't you guys just get along", "my vote doesn't matter" and so on and so forth. Usually these words are coming out of the mouths of people who don't vote, naturally.

And this goes to the heart of my inability to support Hillary Clinton as the nominee: she's politics as business as usual, the same as Giuliani. Because people on both sides of the spectrum get this, that's why there will be independent and third-party presidential challengers in 2008 if we wind up with those two as the nominees. Not because they aren't different enough -- certainly they are -- but because they're too much alike.

A rather substantial number of Americans don't favor the status quo, or the America the Republicans and Democrats have given them. They want fundamental change, not a mouthpiece.

They still may not get that kind of change next year, but it certainly looks like they'll have more choices for change than we've had in a long time. And not John-Anderson, Ross-Perot, Ralph Nader-style choices. Real legitimate choices.

At least I hope they -- we -- do.

The latest right-wing e-mail smear

Remember the e-mail strings of lies we were talking about earlier, the ones that continually circulate through your brother-in-law's inbox? Here's the latest, and yes, it's regarding Hillary Clinton:

Fw: "INDICTMENT OF HILLARY CLINTON"


"I would share the following link that came to me from a friend. Taking for granted that he's not particularly a Clinton enthusiast, still the accompanying video is worth your investment of 13 minutes. Taken as a whole it is incredible nearly to the point of unbelievability. I checked it out on Snopes but there is no reference whatever to this story, the Paul lawsuit, the 2000 $1.2MM fund raiser, or any part of what you'll see. In light of the magnitude of the story, that fact alone is puzzling."

"Whatever, watch it and make up your own mind whether it's relevant to you and your potential choice for President of the United States or not. Or even whether it's worth sharing with others who might find it interesting."

"I suggest you watch this immediately before the Clintons have it removed from the internet..."

Hillary Uncensored - Banned by the Media

Now most of the people who receive e-mail of this kind are on dial-up connections, so they won't be able to view the video. But you can read about Peter Paul at his Wiki entry. I'll summarize:

Paul emerged in 2000 as the largest contributor to Senatorial candidate Hillary Clinton. Paul and his attorneys have at various times offered two explanations for this. First, that he was trying to attract her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, to serve on the board of Stan Lee Media after leaving office. Second, that he hoped to negotiate a pardon for his previous criminal convictions.^[21][22] Paul produced and underwrote what he described as the largest fund raising event ever held for a federal candidate ^[23], in Los Angeles, days before the 2000 Democratic Convention began. The Hollywood Farewell Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton featured prominent entertainers singing for the President, while raising over $1 million for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.^[24] The event cost $1.9 million to organize according to Paul and $500,000 according to the Federal Election Commission filing, much of it borrowed fraudulently by Paul from Merrill Lynch. Later indictments would state that Merrill Lynch lost about $5 million it had lent to Paul.^[22]

Two days after the gala, the Washington Post publicized Paul's criminal record, and Hillary Clinton denied knowing Paul and "vowed not to take any contributions from him". Through her official spokesman, Howard Wolfson, Hillary stated on August 16, 2000 that she would return $2,000 she reported receiving from Paul in June 2000,^[22] and would not have anything further to do with him.

Paul alleged that Clinton was deceitful in this,^[25] and retained public interest law firm, and frequent Clinton opponent, Judicial Watch to represent him in a series of civil and criminal lawsuits against the Clintons, the Clinton campaign, and ultimately the Federal Election Commission (which he charged was negligent in failing to convict Mrs. Clinton).^{[26][27][28][29]} These charges were delayed, as courts held that Paul could not bring charges against the Clintons as he fought extradition from Brazil,^[30] but proceeded once he was returned to the States.^[31]

The Clinton campaign was ultimately asked to pay $35,000 in fines for having underreported the cost of the gala.^[32] Paul's suit against the FEC was thrown out; his attempt to bring ethics charges against Clinton were rejected,^[33] and his fraud charges against Senator Clinton were tossed out in April 2006.^[34] As of April 2007^[35], Paul's civil charges against Senator Clinton and former President Clinton for "looting"^[36] his business remained outstanding.

Peter Paul, a career criminal, sues everyone that he gets even remotely involved with -- or else he steals from them and then sues them. The GOP has been reduced to using a chronic and habitual felon to carry their latest message of hate, lies and distraction.

Has the supply of honest Republicans been exhausted by their 15-year smear machine? I'm surprised the inventory lasted as long as it did.

CNN examines noose displays

In a special report broadcast this evening at 7 p.m. (Central) CNN will air "The Noose: An American Nightmare":

Do all the incidents of hanging nooses -- many with hateful notes to their intended black audience -- reveal an ugly truth about race relations in the United States, or are they just stupid pranks by a few foolish, attention-starved people?

Oh, Jesus. I hope this isn't going to be a 'fair and balanced' account.

And days before Halloween, a Stratford, Connecticut, woman reluctantly removed from her yard a dark-hued figure hanging from a noose. It was among numerous innocuous lawn decorations, such as ghosts and a plastic grave marker. "It's unfortunate that now, we're goingto have to think twice about what we display because someone might be offended," Jennifer Cervero told CNN.

Yes, how unfortunate for you to be inconvenienced by tolerance, Ms. Cervero. Back to some actual news:

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, said that the apparent increase in noose incidents is, in part, reaction to the news coverage of the "Jena 6".

Since September, the SPLC has recorded between 40 and 50 suspected hate crimes involving nooses, one involving two people traveling the road to Jena during the protests in a pickup truck with nooses affixed to the bumper.

"Tens of thousands of white people, if not more, feel that the events in Jena were grossly misportrayed by a politically correct media that twisted what was [to them], really, a six-on-one, black-on-white hate crime into an instance of the oppression of black people," Potok said. "That accounts, in part, for a backlash."

And then there's the well-documented effect in the "corporate" environment:

While the Department of Justice doesn't keep track of noose-specific offenses, the government published a report in 2000 showing an increase of nooses in professional environments.

And The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the race-baiting technique still creeps up in professional environments. There have been at least 20 lawsuits involving nooses in the workplace since 2001.

Of the 5,500 racial harassment charge filings in 2006, anecdotal information from EEOC field offices suggests that some involved nooses, but the agency is unable to quantify that data, according to EEOC spokesman David Grinberg.

On Wednesday, seven black workers employed by an Oklahoma-based drilling company won a $290,000 settlement in a discrimination lawsuit which claimed they felt threatened by the display of a noose on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig.

"It's time for corporate America to be more proactive in preventing and eliminating racist behavior," said EEOC Chairwoman Naomi C. Earp. "The EEOC intends to make clear that race and color discrimination in the workplace, whether verbal or behavioral, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

Don't miss the special broadcast this evening.

Constitutional amendments: an opposing viewpoint

My man David offers a his usual cogent opinion on the Texas constitutional amendments appearing on next Tuesday's ballot -- or sooner than that if you're an early voter. He endorses several 'against' votes, including Propositions 12 ($5 billion in bonds to be issued to the TxDOT for road maintenance) and 15 ($3 billion for a new cancer research and prevention facility). I'll excerpt his analysis on those two below and refer you to Bluedaze, who has the full list:

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Proposition 12 – I begin with Proposition 12 because it is the worst of the worst. In this proposition, we are being asked to amend Article III, Section 49 of the Constitution in order to permit the Texas Department of Transportation to sell 5 billion dollars worth of bonds. This is the same agency that today, this very day, is cynically and arrogantly using your and my tax dollars in a high-pressure marketing campaign designed by a political consulting firm to convince us that we want toll roads; in complete disregard of the fact that government is supposed to follow the will of the people, not the other way around. This is the same agency that intends to tear up our beautiful Texas with the most gigantic land grab in history, the Trans-Texas Corridor, so that Texas will turn from a state into a highway and the people and farms of Texas will turn into the highway’s butlers. This is the same agency that Slick Rick Perry uses as his personal toy for the pleasure of the special interests, both domestic and international, whose moneys are expected to continue funding the political ambitions of Slick Rick and his new patron, Rudy Guliani (and it is such a coincidence that the international corporate law firm of Bracewell Guliani is legal counsel to CINTRA). Let’s put it this way – if you trust TXDOT and Rick Perry, then by all means do cast your vote to amend the Texas Constitution to allow TXDOT to indebt your children to paying off 5 billion dollars more for TXDOT to build toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor with. But if you don’t think TXDOT and Rick Perry have earned your trust, then get off your duff and tell everyone you can think of to vote against Proposition 12.

Proposition 15 – This Amendment of Article III of the Texas Constitution would authorize the issuance of up to 3 billion dollars in bonds for a new Cancer Prevention and Research Institute, to research the causes and prevention of cancer. There is no doubt in my mind that it would a good thing to have this. However, I object to the borrow-and-spend philosophy. The State of Texas has a fiscal surplus and could pay for this project out of general revenues without selling bonds. The interest on 3 billion dollars in bonds will be 1.6 billion dollars. Thus the project is not a 3 billion dollar project, it is a 4.6 billion dollar project, to be paid for by future taxpayers. No explanation has been offered as to why the legislature did not fund this project directly out of the existing fiscal surplus. I submit that the explanation is the political convenience of passing the responsibility for spending decisions off to the future. The Texas Cancer Prevention and Research Institute is a worthy project for Texas. It is worthy of being paid for directly out of existing general revenues, rather than engaging in the scam of selling bonds. The corporate law firms that prepare governmental bond issues pull in very large fees in one of the most atrocious rackets in the legal-governmental world. Those same law firms often make large political donations out of their law firm PACs. This proposed bond issue is very likely another example of the hogs wallowing deep in the public troughs while claiming all kinds of feel-good notions to gain themselves entry. Tell the legislature to come back in 2009 and fund this project straight up in the open, as it deserves. Vote NO to passing the buck.

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Again, read all of the Van Os endorsements at Bluedaze.

"Hillary bled all over the carpets"

Booman has observations. I'll jump to the end:

So, where do we stand? The one thing that needed to happen, happened. Hillary bled all over the carpets from beginning to especially the end. If there is any movement in the polls from this debate it will be away from her. Yet, no one set themselves up to be the main recipient of her loss of support.

As for the issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants: regardless of the merits, it will now be used against Hillary with a breathtaking relentlessness not seen since they found out that her husband let his peter out of his pocket. Clinton, if she supports this initiative, needed to stand tall on it, be aggressive, and explain the rationale...which is certainly a hard one to explain in a sound byte. Instead, she said she was for it even though it is a really bad idea, but she is not for it, but it is a gotcha question, but what the hell else can we do, but she doesn't endorse it. It was the worst of all worlds. And it will make Kerry's flip-flop look like peanuts.

If I were advising Hillary, and I'm not, I'd get her out front tomorrow to give a speech about the urgent need to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, because there is no going back now. Either she convinces people she is right, or she is going to get destroyed on that issue in the general election.

That sounds about right to me.

Update (11/1):

A day after she appeared to struggle to give her views on the subject, Hillary Rodham Clinton offered support today for Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s effort to award New York driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, as her campaign sought to contain potentially damaging fallout from what her own supporters saw as a tense and listless debate performance.

Nooses in the news in Houston

I just have to wonder what these people have displayed at home, if this is what they think is OK for work:

Four contract workers were banned from FMC Technologies after they hung nooses at one of the firm's Houston facilities, the company announced Tuesday.

The three men and one woman also were fired from their jobs with the contractors for FMC, an oil-field services equipment manufacturer, said Maryann Seaman, FMC spokeswoman.

"FMC has zero tolerance for workplace harassment," Seaman said.

Seaman said about a month ago an employee notified company officials that he had seen a noose hanging in the FMC's Gears Road facility.

Three workers were banned from FMC after they were discovered to have been involved in placing the noose, she said.

Last week, another noose was seen hanging in the same facility, Seaman said, and another person was banned from the firm because she was involved in placing that noose.

And on and on it goes. But hey, there's some good news:

The number of lawsuits the EEOC filed related to nooses has dropped steadily from 10 in 2001 to two so far this year, said James Ryan, EEOC spokesman.

The EEOC recently won settlements in three harassment cases related to nooses, including one in the Houston area, Ryan said.

In May, the EEOC reached a $390,000 racial harassment litigation settlement with Pemco Aeroplex of Birmingham on behalf of a class of black employees who were subjected to racist graffiti, slurs and the display of nooses, Ryan said.

The EEOC settled a racial harassment suit in January for $600,000 against AK Steel Corp. of Butler, Pa., Ryan added, after nooses were displayed and Klu Klux Klan videos were shown in employee lounges.

In March 2006, Ryan said, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million in a case against Commercial Coating Service, Inc. of Conroe, Texas, in which a black worker was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.

Read the comments from a few enlightened locals who just still don't see anything wrong with this sort of thing.

Spooo-ooky Toons

Hillary Flip-floppery?

Not a pleasant evening on the hustings for the front-runner:

Mrs. Clinton was attacked for not offering specific plans on what she might do with Social Security. She was challenged for voting to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization. She was assailed at one moment as being disingenuous, the next as a symbol of tired Washington establishment and the next for being unelectable.

At one point, she appeared to say she supported an attempt by Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, a plan he abandoned in the face of fierce opposition. A moment later she backed off, leading her opponents to denounce her again for obfuscating.

John Edwards and not Barack Obama led the way:

But for all the attention Mr. Obama drew to himself coming into the debate, he was frequently overshadowed by former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who — speaking more intensely — repeatedly challenged Mrs. Clinton’s credentials and credibility, and frequently seemed to make the case against Mrs. Clinton that Mr. Obama had promised to make.

“Senator Clinton says that she believes she can be the candidate for change, but she defends a broken system that’s corrupt in Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Edwards said.

He added, “I think the American people, given this historic moment in our country’s history, deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won’t say one thing one time and something different at a different time.”

And there was also this:

Mr. Edwards offered a similar line of attack. “I mean, another perspective on why the Republicans keep talking about Senator Clinton is, Senator, she — they may actually want to run against you, and that’s the reason they keep bringing you up,” he said, adding, “I think that if people want the status quo — Senator Clinton’s your candidate."

Boom. Thud.

But Clinton had moments of her own undoing, as witnessed by this:

In an exchange with Mr. Russert, arguably her third toughest opponent on the stage, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly declined to say whether she would push the National Archives to release correspondence from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Clinton in the White House when he was president. Mr. Russert held up a copy of a letter from Mr. Clinton asking the Archives not to release any of those documents until 2012.

“Well, that’s not my decision to make,” she said. “And I don’t believe that any president or first lady has. But certainly we’ll move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.”

Mr. Obama raised his hand, asking for a response. “We have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history, and not releasing, I think, these records at the same time, Hillary, as you’re making the claim that this is the basis for your experience, I think, is a problem,” he said.

"Not her decision to make". How thoroughly disingenuous. An excerpt from Christopher Hayes' article about Rudy Giuliani identifies the former mayor as the candidate most likely to advance the secrecy of the presidency down the trail Bush and Cheney have blazed. Mrs. Clinton now grades out as the salutatorian in that contest.

Back-runner Bill Richardson, in the most obvious display of pandering for the vice-presidential slot ever witnessed, tried to defend Hillary:

“You know what I’m hearing here, I’m hearing this holier-than-thou attitude toward Senator Clinton,” he said. “It’s bothering me because it’s pretty close to personal attacks that we don’t need.”

As Chris Matthews noted in the post-debate spinning, in his forty years of covering elections, never has he observed a candidate at the back of the pack take up for the person at the front. That's simply not a strategy for victory ... if you're running for the presidential nomination.

And Senator Clinton is going to have some 'splainin' to do about that illegal immigrant/driver's license thingie. That could actually be the pivot upon which the worm turns for her. We'll see how things play out in the days ahead.

Finally, which line did you like best; Joe Biden's:

There's only three things (Giuliani) mentions in a sentence, "a noun, a verb, and 9/11."

Or Dennis Kucinich's:

"I believe more people have seen UFOs than approve of Bush's presidency."

A good time was had by all -- with the exception of Hillary Clinton and her supporters, that is.

Update: Meant to insert the Dodd Talk Clock...

A Voter's Guide Wrangle

(This collection of election news and endorsement posts is brought to you by the Texas Progressive Alliance in anticipation of the November 6 general election. Some of the blogs and sites included in this round-up are not member sites of the Texas Progressive Alliance, but are included to give a wider picture of the many issues facing voters in local races around the state. The round-up was compiled by Vince at Capitol Annex.)

On November 6, Texans will go to the polls to vote on a variety of state and local issues. First and foremost, voters decide on 16 amendments to the Texas Constitution including Proposition 15, the much-touted amendment to fund cancer research in the state.

In addition voters in some municipalities, most prominently Houston, will be casting votes for city officials including mayors and city council members. College districts, independent school districts, and special districts across the state will also hold elections for their leaders. A number of cities and school districts will also hold bond elections to fund everything from jail construction to parks and recreation and school facilities. Some school districts will also hold elections to authorize tax rates higher than those allowed by the tax reform plan passed by the Texas Legislature in special session in 2006.

Texas bloggers have dedicated a considerable amount of coverage to election issues across the state, from the statewide constitutional amendment election to local issues. Much of this coverage is highlighted below.

Local Elections, Bonds, & Referendums

Charles Kuffner at Off The Kuff has exhaustive coverage of local elections in Houston from city council elections to college district elections and city bonds. There are a large number of posts, but mosts can be found in two categories, here and here.

Bill Howell in Stoutdemblog recommends a 'Yes' on the Dallas referendum on the Trinity River in River Don't You Weep.

Texas Cloverleaf has a round-up of campaign spending on the Trinity River campaign.

Grits for Breakfast has a collection of jail-related propositions on the ballot across the state, including in Smith County (Tyler).

North Texas Liberal explores the pros and cons of the Trinity River referendum in Dallas.

Other Key Local Election Coverage:

Homophobia Rears Its Nasty Head in Fort Worth City Council Race (Doing My Part For The Left)

Endorsements & Voters Guides: Statewide Amendments & Local Races

Non-partisan voter's guides on the 16 statewide Constitutional Amendments: Texas League of Women Voters, Texas Legislative Council (full version), Texas Legislative Council (condensed version--warning, this is a .doc file), Texas House Research Organization.

Newspaper Endorsements For Constitutional Amendments: Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, Waco Tribune-Herald (split editorials: here, here, here, here, here), El Paso Times (Prop. 4) Lufkin Daily News, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, San Antonio Express-News.

Bill Howell at Stoutdemblog provides links to analyses of the amendments, then compares different stands taken on them by some other bloggers and Republicans and Libertarians, then gives his personal stands on each at Web Resources On The Endless Amendments.

Muse at Musings urges voters to just vote the opposite of the Harris County Republican Party's endorsements.

Capitol Annex has endorsements of the 16 Constitutional Amendments with detailed information behind the reasons for their picks in their four endorsement posts.

Gary at Easter Lemming News in Harris County has his thoughts on all the propositions, amendments and bonds to follow his election page.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson has "Early Voting in formation for Williamson County" along with several guides and couple of opinions on the amendments .

Off the Kuff gives his recommendations for the state and local bonds and propositions.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme points at some resources to decipher the proposed Texas constitutional amendments.

Other Notable Statewide Amendment Coverage:

Proposition 4 (Off The Kuff)

Proposition 15 Ramps Up (Off The Kuff)

The Weekly Wrangle

Once again it's time for the Texas Progressive Alliance blog round-up, wrangled each week by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Refinish69 from Doing My Part For The Left is outraged with certain politicians in Fort Worth. Homophobia Rears Its Nasty Head in Fort Worth City Council Race tells who is being a jerk and how to contact one of them.

Muse was at Armando Walle’s campaign kick-off and reports why it’s time for a change in Texas House District 140. Kevin Bailey (D-Craddick) has been serving the speaker and not his constituents. Walle, who grew up in the district and has a proven track record of service and leadership, already has a large group of supporters lined up to help him take back 140 for the people.

Phillip Martin of Burnt Orange Report provides a detailed chart and analysis updating what's going on with the Craddick D's. The post brought forth an interesting reader response as well.

TXsharon at Bluedaze gives the Texas Railroad Commission Protection Money Breakdown, and makes it easy for you to take action. So please take that action before you become the next victim of RRC malpractice.

Hal at Half Empty wonders whether FEMA has finally taken a page out of George Orwell's book when they held a 'news conference' this past week without a single journalist in attendance.

WhosPlayin notes that he would gladly pay the $13.30 per year per person to pay for SCHIP.

McBlogger takes a look at the strange world of Focus on the Family and the very odd people that attended their Values Voters conference.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notes that Gov. Perry appointed a public corruption figure to the UT System board of regents.

Johncoby at Bay Area Houston finds the highest and lowest costs for electricity in the Houston area in his post entitled "Power Watch: Highest and lowest rates for November".

Stace at DosCentavos features the trailer to the upcoming Jesse Salmeron film "This Is America", the story of a family torn apart by deportation.

NatWu at Three Wise Men exposes the truth about why we need net neutrality, especially with all the recent telecom shenanigans.

North Texas Liberal's Texas Toad gives a breakdown on the factions of the 'Trinity Vote' in his post entitled "Dallas Weighs Pros and Cons of Trinity Toll Road".

WCNews at Eye On Williamson wonders: What Will John Carter's Excuse Be This Time For Voting Against Health Care For Children?

Off the Kuff gives his recommendations for the state and local bonds and propositions.

NYTexan at BlueBloggin asks how many wars and how many enemies can Bush have?

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Tom Craddick has borrowed a page from Warren Chisum in announcing that trial lawyers were behind efforts to remove him during the 8oth legislative session and wonders why, since he reported it some months ago, it is suddenly "news" to the mainstream media.

In the wake of the Houston Chronicle's announcement of a "position-elimination program", PDiddie at Brains and Eggs recounts his personal experience with Hearst newspapers, budgets, and staff cutbacks in The Trouble with the Newspaper Bidness.

Late Sunday Funnies

How conservatives use e-mail to advance smears and lies

Two more premises from the previous posting on the Christians and the Republicans deserve some further examination. First, the widely advanced postulate that Hillary hurts Democrats in ways that other candidates do not:

Many conservative Christian leaders say they can count on the specter of a second Clinton presidency to fire up their constituents. But the prospect of an Obama-Giuliani race is another matter. “You would have a bunch of people who traditionally vote Republican going over to Obama,” said the Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the Christian conservative American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., known for its consumer boycotts over obscenity or gay issues.

In the Wichita churches this summer, Obama was the Democrat who drew the most interest. Several mentioned that he had spoken at Warren’s Saddleback church and said they were intrigued. But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”

“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”

That last part is where we pause and consider just what conservative blind hatred blended with garlic-strength stupidity hath wrought: have you heard the one about Barack Obama being a Muslim? That he attended a "madrassa", a school for children associated with the radical Wahhabist sect?

On August 10, 2004, just two weeks after Obama had given his much-heralded keynote speech at the DNC in Boston, a perennial Republican Senate candidate and self-described "independent contrarian columnist" named Andy Martin issued a press release. In it, he announced a press conference in which he would expose Obama for having "lied to the American people" and "misrepresent[ed] his own heritage."

Martin raised all kinds of strange allegations about Obama but focused on him attempting to hide his Muslim past. "It may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel," read Martin's statement. "His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles where Obama now enjoys support."

There's more about Andy Martin, but you can go to the link for that. We'll continue:

Within a few days of Martin's press conference, the conservative site Free Republic had picked it up, attracting a long comment thread, but after that small blip the specious "questions" about Obama's background disappeared. Then, in the fall of 2006, as word got out that Obama was considering a presidential run, murmurs on the Internet resumed. In October a conservative blog called Infidel Bloggers Alliance reposted the Andy Martin press release under the title "Is Barack Obama Lying About His Life Story?" A few days later the online RumorMillNews also reposted the Andy Martin press release in response to a reader's inquiry about whether Obama was a Muslim. Then in December fringe right-wing activist Ted Sampley posted a column on the web raising the possibility that Obama was a secret Muslim. Sampley, who co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry and once accused John McCain of having been a KGB asset, quoted heavily from Martin's original press release. "When Obama was six," Sampley wrote, "his mother, an atheist, married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim, and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia.... Soetoro enrolled his stepson in one of Jakarta's Muslim Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the rest of the world."

On December 29, 2006, the very same day that Sampley posted his column, Snopes received its first copy of the e-mail forward, which contains an identical charge in strikingly similar language. Given the timing, it seems likely that it was a distillation of Sampley's work.

Yes, despite the e-mail that continues to be forwarded today, and the FOX and Friends news analysis (sic) and the Insight magazine article and the Townhall.com BS, Barack Obama did not ever attend a madrassa. Snopes.com painstakingly details how wild this exaggeration became (similar to Nigerian yellowcake, for example). CNN debunked it, and even FOX themselves corrected the smear, but the damage to fragile conservative minds, as you can see above, remains done:

Despite the fact that CNN and others have thoroughly debunked the smear, the original false accusation has clearly sunk into people's consciousness. One Obama organizer told me recently that every day, while calling prospective voters, he gets at least one or two people who tell him they won't be voting for Obama because he's a Muslim. According to Google, "Barack Obama Muslim" is the third most-searched term for the Illinois senator. And an August CBS poll found that when voters were asked to give Obama's religion, as many said Muslim as correctly answered Protestant.

Oh yeah. And the e-mail continues to circulate.

"Everybody started calling me" when the e-mail first made the rounds, Andy Martin told me. "They said, 'Hey, did you write this?' My answer was 'they are all my children.' "

Heard the one about Hillary Clinton snubbing the Gold Star Mothers? That John Kerry didn't earn his medals in Vietnam? That Al Gore invented the Internet?

Such is the power of the right-wing smear forward, a vehicle for the dissemination of character assassination that has escaped the scrutiny directed at the Limbaughs and Coulters and O'Reillys but one that is as potent as it is invisible. In 2004 putative firsthand accounts of Kerry's performance in Vietnam traveled through e-mail in right-wing circles, presaging the Swift Boat attacks. Last winter a forward began circulating accusing Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim schooled in a radical madrassa (about which more later). While the story was later fed through familiar right-wing megaphones, even making it onto Fox, it has continued to circulate via e-mail long after being definitively debunked by CNN. In other words, the few weeks the smear spent in the glare of the mainstream media was just a tiny portion of a long life cycle, most of which has been spent darting from inbox to inbox.

The profoundly uninformed, relying almost entirely on FOX and Limbaugh and Hannity for their "news", is at greatest risk for this kind of glaring ignorance:

For a certain kind of conservative, these e-mails, along with talk radio, are an informational staple, a means of getting the real stories that the mainstream media ignore. "I get a million of them!" says Gerald DeSimone, a 74-year-old veteran from Ridgewood, New Jersey, who describes his politics as "to the right of Attila the Hun." "If I forwarded every one on, everyone would hate me.... I'm trying to cut back. I try to send no more than two or three a day. I must get thirty or forty a day."

Do you have a Republican relative who forwards these, and other messages of similar intellectual laziness, to your inbox once a week or so -- which may be the only time they turn on their computer? Well, you're not alone:

Mike D'Asto, a 29-year-old assistant cameraman living in New York, received so many forwards from his conservative father he started a blog called MyRightWingDad.net, where he shares them with other unwitting recipients. "I suddenly have connected to all these people who receive these right-wing forwards from their brothers-in-law," D'Asto told me. "Surprisingly, a very large number of people receive these."

And that, as The Nation's Christopher Hayes notes, is the problem.

For conservatives, these e-mails neatly reinforce preconceptions, bending the facts of the world in line with their ideological framework: liberals, immigrants, hippies and celebrities are always the enemy; soldiers and conservatives, the besieged heroes. The stories of the former's perfidy and the latter's heroism are, of course, never told by the liberal media. So it's left to the conservative underground to get the truth out. And since the general story and the roles stay the same, often the actual characters are interchangeable.

Did you ever get the one about the Senator questioning Oliver North about a terrorist (who was named Osama bin Laden in the e-mail but in reality named Abu Nidal -- hey, they all sound alike, right?) In 2000, it was Gore; in 2004 it was Kerry.

"A lot of the chain letters that were accusing Al Gore of things in 2000 were recycled in 2004 and changed to Kerry," says John Ratliff, who runs a site called BreakTheChain.org, which, like Snopes, devotes itself to debunking chain e-mails. One e-mail falsely described a Senate committee hearing in the 1980s where Oliver North offered an impassioned Cassandra-like warning about the threat of Osama bin Laden, only to be dismissed by a condescending Democratic senator. Originally it was Al Gore who played the role of the senator, but by 2004 it had changed to John Kerry. "You just plug in your political front-runner du jour," Ratliff says.

So what can we expect for the next twelve months? Hillary's a lesbian? Check. Her husband still catting around? Roger that. Barack Osama hates America? John Edwards got an expensive haircut, and he and Al Gore are both gay and live together in a 40,000 square-foot house with a $10,000 monthly utility bill?

The next time you get one of these howlers in your inbox from you-know-which-relative, do two things: check out whether it's accurate at Snopes, and then send it back to the forwarder correcting their understanding.

Our republican democracy thanks you in advance.