Sunday Funnies (primary edition)

Borris Miles disappoints me, again

I didn't particularly like it when he played art censor, and I don't think too highly of his gunslinger mentality, but both incidents were surprisingly quite popular with the majority of his constituency.

But this -- if the police report is accurate, if these accusations are not the politically motivated exaggerations of a group of people associated with former HD-146 Rep. Al Edwards -- is almost too much:

The Harris County District Attorney's Office is investigating a complaint that state Rep. Borris Miles, D-Houston, made threats and brandished a gun at a holiday party last month.

According to witnesses, Miles entered a St. Regis Hotel ballroom uninvited, confronting guests, displaying a pistol and forcibly kissing another man's wife.

There's more, and it gets worse for Miles. He's going to have to do some damage control, if there's any that can be done.

I have blogged extensively about Miles, my support of him as a former precinct chair in his district, attending his swearing-in ceremony in Austin, and the ridiculousness of his predecessor, confirmed Craddick acolyte Edwards. Remember one of the things he's famous for, the too-sexy high school cheerleaders in the state? Jon Stewart is here to remind you:



There will be more of this story to be told and re-told between now and March 4th, when Democratic voters will determine which of the two men gets to represent the 146th in Austin (the district is about 90% blue, so it's all about the primary). For now, and provided there isn't further embarrassment to be endured from Miles, I believe he's still the right choice for the Texas House.

But it's getting a little shaky for me, and certainly many others.

John Edwards and the people he scares

Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- Democrat John Edwards. ...

One business lobbyist, who asked not to be named, said Edwards "has gone to this angry populist, anti-business rhetoric that borders on class warfare ... He focuses dislike of special interests, which is out there, on business." Another lobbyist said an Edwards presidency would be "a disaster" for his well-heeled industrialist clients. ...

"My sense is that Obama would govern as a reasonably pragmatic Democrat ... I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group.

But Edwards, Valliere said, is seen as "an anti-business populist" and "a trade protectionist who is quite unabashed about raising taxes."

"I think his regulatory policies, as well as his tax policies, would be viewed as a threat to business," he said.

He instigates fear and loathing in the DLC as well:

As would be expected, the two gentlemen from the Democratic Leadership Council on a conference call today told reporters they’re very confident in their party’s chances of reclaiming the White House, they’re happy that substantive issues are being discussed…

And then Al From, the D.L.C. founder, said he was “very happy about the two candidates” Americans are considering.

Only two candidates?

Our ears perked up as we listened on.

“This is a really hard choice, really, for Democratic voters because they like both candidates,” said Mr. From. “For me, I don’t see that going to be a problem. I think in the end, Senator Obama’s appeal that he’s made very firmly and directly to independent voters, and Senator Clinton’s appeal to the forgotten middle class are going to add up to a very smashing Democratic majority in the fall.”

“This is not uncommon in primaries to see this kind of passionate support for one’s candidate,” added Harold Ford Jr., the D.L.C. chairman and a former Tennessee congressman.

Well, O.K. But what about John Edwards? He beat Mrs. Clinton in Iowa, as one reporter pointed out, but Mr. From still doesn’t think Mr. Edwards is viable.

I’m not going to speculate where the Edwards people go because I don’t know, to be honest with you. I think Edwards has run a hard, tough campaign. It’s not a, you know, he doesn’t take the tack that necessarily I agree with. What we’ve seen so far in this campaign is optimism. …

I think what you’re saying is that this is moving into a two-person race and that people in the race have been optimistic and hopeful, and I think that bodes well for the party because in the end, as long as I’ve been in politics — and I’m a lot older than 37 — the optimism always beats pessimism.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post says that "Edwards has offended many Democrats with his candidacy". Like whom? Lawrence O'Donnell says he is a loser and maybe even both a sexist and racist because he would "deny Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the one-on-one contest they deserve."

Now I would expect rabid dogs like the US Chamber of Commerce to come out against him -- hell, they even hate Huckabee, for God's sake -- but I would also like to know which Democrats Balz is referring to. Because if any of them have the stones to identify themselves, it should be pointed out that they aren't actually members of the Democratic Party.

They may be Democrats but they're not Democratic.

I was greatly disappointed that Iowa -- and then New Hampshire -- did not give Edwards the boost he needed. While he is now a long-shot for the nomination, I welcome his determination to stay in this race. In the wake of the Granite State's surprising result, I began to notice on the various Democratic fora I visit that many Obama supporters appeared frustrated that Edwards had not dropped out and endorsed their candidate. They believe he is splitting the anti-Hillary vote.

I think everyone should be happy that Edwards would, as he has signaled, campaign through to the convention even though the others are currently favored to win the nomination. Once Edwards does, sadly yet eventually for this blogger, withdraw -- and be that immediately after February 5, or sooner, or later -- I agree with the Obama camp that a vast majority of his support moves to the senator from Illinois and not to Mrs. Clinton. It could well be enough support for her opponent so as to deny her the nomination -- from any moment well before, to shortly after -- the roll call of the first ballot in Denver this summer.

Or to deny her the nomination entirely, of course.

Thus Clinton supporters calling for Edwards to end his campaign ought to be able to better demonstrate that Clintonian savvy for triangulation.

John Edwards, like David Van Os, is precisely the kind of Democratic politician this country needs to elect more of. Edwards -- like Van Os did in his 2006 race for Texas Attorney General -- is talking about the issues in a way that Clinton and Obama never have (and likely never will). In the debates, his campaign rallies, in his television advertisements, he calls attention to problems that the corporate media all too often filter out. His rhetoric about rescuing the middle class, and those below, ought to be terrifying to the entrenched elites in corporate America and the Democrats in the Democratic Party. John Edwards in the White House threatens business as usual, right to its foundations.

Obama and Clinton, despite all the "change" rhetoric, have not shown themselves to be committed to a progressive agenda. Clinton, in my now-updated opinion, is beatable in a general election if McCain is the nominee. And even if she wins, it will be a narrower victory than any other Democratic nominee could achieve, and probably without even a slim majority in the Senate or House or both. And we would be back to all the things that destroyed the Democratic party in the 90's: triangulation and center-right policies masquerading as liberal positions. The return of the vast right-wing conspiracy machine with a vengeance. Endless media stories about Clintonian "scandals" regardless of the merit. The snarling mug of James Carville on television every night. The DLC and its own K Street strategy, triumphant.

And obviously we will see little if any gain for progressive positions. Universal health care? Dead on arrival. She doesn't make that mistake twice. Maybe a plan that allows health insurance companies and Big Pharma to suck up even more money than they do now. Iraq? A delayed or "deferred" withdrawal, leaving thousands of American soldiers stuck in a quagmire of neoconservative and neoliberal warhawk fantasies. A continued push by AIPAC and conservative Israeli politicians to involve America in a war against Iran. The continued downgrading of environmental issues, especially lacking a response to global warming that promises any hope of real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

And to be honest, despite all the happy talk from Obama about being the candidate of hope and change, I don't know that an Obama presidency would be a whole lot different, with the possible exception of Iraq. He may secretly be a progressive wrapped in moderate/centrist/bipartisan rhetoric, but I'm not convinced that he would engage in promoting policies that would radically alter the status quo. His speeches have actually referenced Republican talking points on Social Security, for Chrissakes. He is tied to as many big money corporate interests as Clinton, and nothing I've seen from him so far in his senatorial career leads me to believe he would cross those special interests if push came to shove. I hope I would be wrong about that, but that's all it is -- hope.

Which leaves us in a place only the punditocracy could love: endless discussions of the "horse race" aspect of the campaign, with little if any substantive discussion of issues and policy differences between the candidates of either party. And the promise of a future only slightly less bleak than the Bush years.

In short, business as usual.

So that's why I still support John Edwards, and hope that he forces a brokered Democratic convention this summer.

Democrats for Romney (but only in Michigan on January 15)

HA HA HA HA HA:

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.) In 1998, Republicans helped Jack Kevorkian's lawyer -- quack Geoffrey Feiger -- win his Democratic primary, thus guaranteeing their hold on the governor's mansion that year.

With a history of meddling in our primaries, why don't we try and return the favor. Next Tuesday, January 15th, Michigan will hold its primary. Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win. How so?

For Michigan Democrats, the Democratic primary is meaningless since the DNC stripped the state of all its delegates (at least temporarily) for violating party rules. Hillary Clinton is alone on the ballot.

But on the GOP side, this primary will be fiercely contested. John McCain is currently enjoying the afterglow of media love since his New Hamsphire victory, while Iowa winner Mike Huckabee is poised to do well in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, poor Mitt Romney, who’s suffered back-to-back losses in the last week, desperately needs to win Michigan in order to keep his campaign afloat. Bottom line, if Romney loses Michigan, he's out. If he wins, he stays in.

And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

And more here.

Join the Facebook group also.

The next Harris County DA's most important job qualification?

To be able to locate the facilities:

Kelly Siegler said she is being blamed unfairly for the video and e-mails on Rosenthal's work computer, and that in fact she suggested several months ago that technicians on Rosenthal's staff randomly check computers for such abuses by any employee.

A day after saying her husband's e-mail activity at work was solely his personal business, Siegler said the e-mail was offensive and hurtful to many people. "If he's stupid enough to waste his time to send out offensive e-mails, I don't agree with it," she said.

Regardless, Siegler said, she is the best candidate to restore faith in the district attorney's office because she has worked there for 21 years, learning its operations inside and out.

"To put it bluntly, Judge Lykos, Mr. Leitner and Clarence Bradford don't know where the restrooms are in the office," she said.

Ms. Seigler's resume' is presumably filled with more job-specific qualifications than this.

Considering that the Harris County Republicans are now voicing concern over how this might effect their electoral chances in November, I'll point out to Siegler that maybe what the voters of both political parties are actually looking for in the next district attorney is less scatology. And maybe a little bit less bluntness as well.

Muse has more fun with it. There is not going to be enough popcorn in all of Harris County for this much hilarity in the months to come.

Update: More Siegler stupidity ...

Republican district attorney candidate Kelly Siegler told a judge last year that members of Houston's Lakewood Church are "screwballs and nuts" and that she works to keep them off of juries.

And the Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, has finally decided to look into the "official misconduct" of Chuck Rosenthal. Don't expect much to come out of a Republican investigating a Republican in an election year.

So is it sexist when MoDo says it?

Or is she just being a humongous asshole as usual? (I think I have answered my own question...)

At the Portsmouth cafe on Monday, talking to a group of mostly women, she blinked back her misty dread of where Obama’s “false hopes” will lead us — “I just don’t want to see us fall backwards,” she said tremulously — in time to smack her rival: “But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not.”

There was a poignancy about the moment, seeing Hillary crack with exhaustion from decades of yearning to be the principal rather than the plus-one. But there was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up. What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her. In a weirdly narcissistic way, she was crying for us. But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing.

As Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn in “Adam’s Rib,” “Here we go again, the old juice. Guaranteed heart melter. A few female tears, stronger than any acid.”

Is it sexist only if a man says something like this? Is this sorta similar to when black people call each other the n-word?

I just want to clearly understand the distinctions. Where the line is, so I won't step on it again.

Or is it sexist not to call Hillary out for a little whining because she was asked "how do you go on" (on the premise that treating men and women differently in similar circumstances is the very definition of sexism)? The incident would not have gone unremarked upon had it been any of the men on either side of the aisle. And it is ridiculous to suggest so.

Or ... was New Hampshire a little payback for all the times women have been put down, pushed down, passed over, held back, paid less, called "little lady", patted on the ass, whistled at, groped, etc.

See, I heard the tremolo (see tremulous for the best definition here) in her voice as well, and described it as "whimpering". But -- I have been appropriately chastened -- that's considered a sexist remark coming from a man. For the record I would call it 'whimpering' had Edwards done it.

The Clintons once more wriggled out of a tight spot at the last minute. Bill churlishly dismissed the Obama phenom as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen,” but for the last few days, it was Hillary who seemed in danger of being Cinderella. She became emotional because she feared that she had reached her political midnight, when she would suddenly revert to the school girl with geeky glasses and frizzy hair, smart but not the favorite. All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural?

How humiliating to have a moderator of the New Hampshire debate ask her to explain why she was not as popular as the handsome young prince from Chicago. How demeaning to have Obama rather ungraciously chime in: “You’re likable enough.” And how exasperating to be pushed into an angry rebuttal when John Edwards played wingman, attacking her on Obama’s behalf.

More of this:

Gloria Steinem wrote in The Times yesterday that one of the reasons she is supporting Hillary is that she had “no masculinity to prove.” But Hillary did feel she needed to prove her masculinity. That was why she voted to enable W. to invade Iraq without even reading the National Intelligence Estimate and backed the White House’s bellicosity on Iran.

Yet, in the end, she had to fend off calamity by playing the female victim, both of Obama and of the press. Hillary has barely talked to the press throughout her race even though the Clintons this week whined mightily that the press prefers Obama.

So Dowd contradicts Steinem regarding Hillary's testosterone level. Hm.

To play level on this field, I also dismiss a rather incessant carp on the part of my camp about Edwards being ignored in the media; "this is now a two-horse race", etc. (By the way, is it sexist or racist or something else-ist to refer to Clinton and Obama as thoroughbreds? Just checking. My sensitivity meter may be giving me false readings.)

Bill Clinton, campaigning in Henniker on Monday, also played the poor-little-woman card in a less-than-flattering way. “I can’t make her younger, taller or change her gender,” he said.

I think the Big Dog forgot to say "black".

And I don't think I like the turn this campaign has taken. Is it too late to turn around?

Oh wait, here's Andy Borowitz. He'll lighten things up for me:

Hillary Schedules Official Crying Jag for South Carolina

Launches ‘Sniffling Tour’ Before SuperDuper Tuesday

Saying that she has learned valuable lessons from her victory in the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) today announced that she was scheduling an official crying jag for the eve of the South Carolina primary on January 26.

Speaking to reporters in Las Vegas this morning, her eyes noticeably watery, Mrs. Clinton said that her election eve crying jag would be scheduled for 4 PM EST on January 25.

But the newly lachrymose junior senator from New York indicated that her South Carolinian waterworks would only be one stop on an ambitious tear-drenched campaign schedule leading up to SuperDuper Tuesday on February 5, an itinerary which she and her aides are calling her “Sniffling Tour.”

“I’m going to be crying so much you’re going to think I’m Anderson Cooper,” she wept.

But even as Mrs. Clinton said that “this election is a crying game, and I’m in it to win it,” some political observers wondered if the New York senator would be able to cry at will as often as her punishing schedule demands.

According to strategist Mark Penn, a trusted group of campaign aides would have the job of inducing tears from Mrs. Clinton by “saying mean things to her” before every appearance.

Additionally, Mr. Penn says, Mrs. Clinton has a secret weapon in her latest endeavor, former president Bill Clinton: “No one can make Hillary cry like Bill can.”

More Rosenthal scandal, anyone? No thank you, I'm full.

Let's just go to the story:

New e-mails released Tuesday show District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal sent and received racist jokes and strategized with political consultants and colleagues about his re-election campaign on his county e-mail account.

Also within the correspondence obtained Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle were numerous sexually explicit images. It was unclear, however, if Rosenthal ever forwarded those files.

The latest batch of 730 e-mails was met with concern by Harris County GOP leaders, who had already successfully pressured him to abandon his re-election bid.

"It's time for Chuck Rosenthal to pack his bags and leave," said county GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill.

Rosenthal declined to comment late Tuesday.

Rosenthal has hit Bush's trifecta. The only way anyone will ever be able to feel sorry for him now is if he shoots himself.

The scandal is blowing back to assistant DA -- (and filed candidate for Chuck's job) Kelly Siegler, whose husband sent much of the naughty e-mail in question:

Also included within the e-mails is heavy traffic between Rosenthal and Sam Siegler, Rosenthal's physician and the husband of Kelly Siegler, who is running for district attorney.

In one e-mail from Sam Siegler to Rosenthal, an attached video shows women having their breasts exposed after men forcibly pulled down their blouses in public. The video called the act "sharking."

And the story goes on. And on.

Now let's be clear: we've all gotten nasty crap like this in our inboxes. Some of us have even forwarded -- and originated -- some of it. I just got this howler (VNSFW) over the holidays, to use myself as an example. But I'm not the Harris County district attorney, either. In fact I won't ever be able to be a candidate for public office, having blogged many of my coarser opinions under my birth name.

No great loss to public service, you're thinking. And hey, you're right.

Of course this isn't about me. This is about elected officials who use their taxpayer-funded time and computers in the most unprofessional of circumstances, to say nothing of the hypocrisy demonstrated in the self-righteousness they proclaim publicly by wearing WWJD bracelets and standing up in Second Baptist Church to declare their close relationship with the Almighty.

And it's also now about candidates for the same public office who haughtily dismiss the hijinks:

"He cusses like a sailor and his sense of humor is crude, to put it mildly," (Siegler) said. "It's his computer and what he does at work is his business. He's the boss."

She declined to comment on whether Rosenthal should resign but said the revelations wouldn't affect her campaign.

"I would hope the voters are more concerned about qualifications of their DA than some inappropriate e-mails."

Oh trust me, Kelly; we are.

Rhymes with Right calls for Rosenthal's immediate departure and not because of nasty e-mail but because the DA was also using his work computer for campaign-related activities, which of course is a violation of election law.

Whatever. It's long past time for Rosenthal to move out -- of his office, of the newspaper headlines, and probably out of town.

The FairTax and other right-wing populist scams

I came home late last night to the New Hampshire returns because I was on the program (along with David Mincberg, Michael Skelly, and Steven Kirkland) at the meeting of Galleria Democrats to debate the Fair Tax.

Well, 'debate' isn't the right word. It was more like a beatdown of the poor guy advocating in its favor.

Anyway, on the news that Kuffner posts regarding the alliance of former Houston mayor Bob Lanier and FairTax founder Leo Linbeck Jr. and others to camouflage their latest elitist-welfare scheme as grassroots populism, it's worth pausing to note the various "citizen activist" efforts Linbeck is involved in, such as Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

(Recall that one of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist's fundamental strategies for starving the Democratic Party has been to starve plaintiff's attorneys by reforming tort laws; in Texas, with Republicans controlling every statewide office including all nine seats on the Texas Supreme Court as well as most of the Texas Legislature, they managed to push through damages caps on lawsuits like medical malpractice, for example. This article details the effects of that on the local legal community -- and the injured patients wounded a second time by tort reform.)

Linbeck is simply another stinking-rich conservative Republican who doesn't have enough yachts to water-ski behind. His activism consists of his actively looking for ways to hoodwink uninformed suburbanites who have mindlessly cast their straight GOP tickets for self-devastating causes like these before. And he's almost as successful at that as he is at making millions in his core businesses.

FairTax, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and now Houstonians for Responsible Growth. Orwellian truthspeak in name, nefarious welfare-for-the-wealthy in intent.

Let's not get fooled again, shall we?

Well, well. We got a race.

Clinton 39, Obama 37, Edwards 17 (81% in).

On the Republican side, not so much surprise: McCain 37, Romney 32, Huckabee 11, 9iu11ani 9, Paul 8 (78%). Thompson 1%. LMAO

OK, back to the presidential race (emphasis mine):

After Iowa, Clinton and her aides seemed resigned to a second straight setback. But polling place interviews showed that female voters — who deserted her last week — were solidly in her New Hampshire column.

She also was winning handily among registered Democrats. Obama led her by an even larger margin among independents, but he suffered from a falloff in turnout among young voters compared with Iowa.

Word of Clinton's triumph set off a raucous celebration among supporters at a hotel in Nashua — gathered there to celebrate a first-in-the-nation primary every bit as surprising as the one 16 years ago that allowed a young Bill Clinton to proclaim himself "the comeback kid."

Ah, the Comeback Gal will be the story for the next few weeks. More on that girl thing:

So there's a huge gender gap. Massive. Apparently, women didn't take kindly to people beating up on Hillary for -- gasp! -- tearing up. Can you believe it? In a way, this is a nice middle finger to that bullshit double standard.

Had a nice lively conversation today about whether that statement by Edwards was sexist or not. I thought it wasn't, but maybe obviously I was wrong.

Update (1/9): Two different yet similar opinions on why Clinton snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Not how. Why.

FOX News: now even conservatives know it sucks

After Ron Paul was denied the opportunity to participate in a debate of Republican presidential candidates carried by FOX, he held his own forum in New Hampshire. The local Paulistas took the Chron's bait and posted diatribes against the Fairly Unbalanced news network, calling them "traitors" and "scumbags" -- epithets usually reserved for capital criminals, victims of Joe Horn, and Democrats. Some of the 'nicer' comments:

Torque wrote:

Fox, Fox News, their supporters, and sponsors just earned a LIFELONG boycott from me! I suggest all Ron Paul supporters do the same. They should have let him debate, them neo-facist Nazi War MONGERS pretending to be fair media! Lies.

Kind-of sucks for me too because COPS was one of my favorite shows.

Clearspeak wrote:

According to the numbers, Mr. Paul had a right to be included. Fox is trying to put in a "fix", blatantly manipulating the contest, and should have their license pulled by the FCC.

Josey2006 wrote:

If you're upset with Fox News, do like I've done: Buy a share of their stock and crash their stockholder meeting in October.

Hankskool wrote:

Why would Fox want to invite a true fiscal conservative to rain on their reckless parade? Somehow they've already bamboozled millions into believing they provide a conservative "balance" to the rest of the "liberal" news coverage despite the fact that their idea of fiscal conservativism , both for the individual and the nation, is to borrow as much money as you can and blow it all. How many ads a day did they run on behalf of the subprime frauds anyway? So much for conservative having anything to do with "conserve". Most of their pundits have already endorsed Rudy G.. A smaller government conservative ? No, actually if he had his way the U.S. would be a full blown police state with one cop for every citizen, hardly smaller government from the free individual's standpoint.
FAUX NEWS-- We've taken the conserve out of conservative!

So then the Paulites decided to protest outside the Faux News building in New York, where they ambushed Sean Hannity as he was leaving (you have to watch the video).



This on top of Bill O'Reilly's meltdown at an Obama campaign event, where he screamed at, grabbed and shoved an Obama staffer. Secret Service agents actually surrounded the guy. Yes, there's a YouTube of it also, though it isn't as embarrassing to O'Reilly as it could have been:



Boycotts, protests, embarrassing actions by their anchors videotaped -- how long before FOX's core audience really does put down the Kool-Aid, sober up and start deserting them?

As with the rest of the crumbling Republican monolith, are we watching the beginning of the end of Faux News' media "dominance"?

Pop the corn.

Update: Robert Greenwald's video is a more thorough report on the flap between FOX and Obama that O'Reilly apparently is exacerbating.

2008's first Weekly Wrangle

And they're off!

TXsharon burned despair's chair. See Bluedaze for an inspirational New Year's message of hope.

Off the Kuff asked a variety of interesting people to write a post named Looking Forward to 2008. Topics ranged from music and television to local, state, and national politics. The entire series, which wrapped up last week, can be found here.

Barfly at McBlogger says thank you to our neighbor to the north for giving us some of our most cherished celebrities. Like Celine Dion.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston lists who is running for officeand who is not in Clear Lake.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News saw the Iowa results as a progressive sweep and picked out the winners and losers.

winding road in urban area declared that of all the undignified events surrounding the Harris County District Attorney's office, the announcement regarding assistant district attorney Kelly Seigler's run for her boss' job has taken the proverbial cake. It is just charming that Ms. Seigler said on camera, that aspects of being district attorney "sucks." Nothing says "get to know me" the first time a voter may see a candidate like saying the job I want, "sucks!"

nytexan at BlueBloggin points out the newest GOP stunt to block the Senate and screw up another presidential election. With the primary season underway for the presidential race the Federal Election Commission has shut its doors.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes James 'Rick' Perry ignored ceremony for fallen Texas military hero. That's how Republicans support and honor our troops!

It was a bad start to 2008 (if you happened to be a Republican), no matter if your name was Vicki Truitt, or Chuck Rosenthal, or Jared Woodfill, or Mitt Romney. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has more on the conservative misery.

To kick off the new year for Texas Kaos, Lightseeker takes a look at some of The Big Texas Issues we'll be talking about in the coming year.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson opines about the death of Ric Williamson and who will be the next leader of TxDOT.

Muse is only now able to get her bulls---t detector to quiet down after Harris County DA, Chuck "Romancethal" Rosenthal, told the Houston Chronicle that he was only sending romantic emails to his secretary because she had personal problems. Right (wink, wink, former FBI agent wife). What else happened? Pity sex?

Phillip at Burnt Orange Report takes a preliminary look at some numbers on filings for the Texas House, including the large number of Republicans that are facing both a primary and general election opponent.

Texas Toad at North Texas Liberal introduces the new slate of Denton County Democratic candidates, as revealed at a press conference promoting the strength of the local party with high hopes for 2008.

The Texas Cloverleaf cautions you to smoke 'em if ya got 'em, but you still might go to jail. DFW area law enforcement is ignoring the new option to give citations to pot smokers.

On The Texas Blue this week, contributor David Gurney explains that he doesn't really buy this business of a "war on Christmas."

Devastating account of e-voting's flaws

Is anybody in Texas who can do anything about this paying attention?

The earliest critiques of digital voting booths came from the fringe — disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks — but the fears have now risen to the highest levels of government. One by one, states are renouncing the use of touch-screen voting machines. California and Florida decided to get rid of their electronic voting machines last spring, and last month, Colorado decertified about half of its touch-screen devices. Also last month, Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, released a report in the wake of the Cuyahoga crashes arguing that touch-screens “may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” She was so worried she is now forcing Cuyahoga to scrap its touch-screen machines and go back to paper-based voting — before the Ohio primary, scheduled for March 4. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat of Florida, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, have even sponsored a bill that would ban the use of touch-screen machines across the country by 2012.

Gotta love that first sentence: "the fringe" are "disgruntled citizens".

Anyway, there's plenty to be appreciative of in this report...

If the machines are tested and officials are able to examine the source code, you might wonder why machines with so many flaws and bugs have gotten through. It is, critics insist, because the testing is nowhere near dilligent enough, and the federal regulators are too sympathetic and cozy with the vendors. The 2002 federal guidelines, the latest under which machines currently in use were qualified, were vague about how much security testing the labs ought to do. The labs were also not required to test any machine’s underlying operating system, like Windows, for weaknesses.

Vendors paid for the tests themselves, and the results were considered proprietary, so the public couldn’t find out how they were conducted. The nation’s largest tester of voting machines, Ciber Inc., was temporarily suspended after federal officials found that the company could not properly document the tests it claimed to have performed.

“The types of malfunctions we’re seeing would be caught in a first-year computer science course,” says Lillie Coney, an associate director with the Electronic Privacy Information Commission, which is releasing a study later this month critical of the federal tests.

In any case, the federal testing is not, strictly speaking, mandatory. The vast majority of states “certify” their machines as roadworthy. But since testing is extremely expensive, many states, particularly smaller ones, simply accept whatever passes through a federal lab. And while it’s true that state and local elections officials can generally keep a copy of the source code, critics say they rarely employ computer programmers sophisticated enough to understand it. Quite the contrary: When a county buys touch-screen voting machines, its elections director becomes, as Warren Parish, a voting activist in Florida, told me, “the head of the largest I.T. department in their entire government, in charge of hundreds or thousands of new computer systems, without any training at all.” Many elections directors I spoke with have been in the job for years or even decades, working mostly with paper elections or lever machines. Few seemed very computer-literate.

The upshot is a regulatory environment in which, effectively, no one assumes final responsibility for whether the machines function reliably. The vendors point to the federal and state governments, the federal agency points to the states, the states rely on the federal testing lab and the local officials are frequently hapless.

This has created an environment, critics maintain, in which the people who make and sell machines are now central to running elections. Elections officials simply do not know enough about how the machines work to maintain or fix them. When a machine crashes or behaves erratically on Election Day, many county elections officials must rely on the vendors — accepting their assurances that the problem is fixed and, crucially, that no votes were altered.

In essence, elections now face a similar outsourcing issue to that seen in the Iraq war, where the government has ceded so many core military responsibilities to firms like Halliburton and Blackwater that Washington can no longer fire the contractor. Vendors do not merely sell machines to elections departments. In many cases, they are also paid to train poll workers, design ballots and repair broken machines, for years on end.

“This is a crazy world,” complained Ion Sancho, the elections supervisor of Leon County in Florida. “The process is so under control by the vendor. The primary source of information comes only from the vendor, and the vendor has a conflict of interest in telling you the truth. The vendor isn’t going to tell me that his buggy software is why I can’t get the right time on my audit logs.”

Ugh. More bad news for democracy. Is there a solution? Sancho in Florida may have one:

Optical scanning is used in what many elections experts regard as the “perfect elections” of Leon County in Florida, where Ion Sancho is the supervisor of elections. In the late ’80s, when the county was replacing its lever machines, Sancho investigated touch-screens. But he didn’t think they were user-friendly, didn’t believe they would provide a reliable recount and didn’t want to be beholden to a private-sector vendor. So he bought the optical-scanning devices from Unisys and trained his staff to be able to repair problems when the machines broke or malfunctioned. His error rate — how often his system miscounts a ballot — is three-quarters of a percent at its highest, and has dipped as low as three-thousandths of a percent.

More important, his paper trail prevents endless fighting over the results of tight elections. In one recent contest, a candidate claimed that his name had not appeared on the ballot in one precinct. So Sancho went into the Leon County storage, broke the security seals on the records, and pulled out the ballots. The name was there; the candidate was wrong. “He apologized to me,” Sancho recalls. “And that’s what you can’t do with touch-screen technology. You never could have proven to that person’s satisfaction that the screen didn’t show his name. I like that certainty. The paper ends the discussion.” Sancho has never had a legal fight over a disputed election result. “The losers have admitted they lost, which is what you want,” he adds. “You have to be able to convince the loser they lost.”

That, in a nutshell, is what people crave in the highly partisan arena of modern American politics: an election that can be extremely close and yet regarded by all as fair. Not only must the losing candidate believe in the loss; the public has to believe in it, too.

The article makes the most cogent point possible, that the greatest concern isn't about the integrity of voting officials or hackers, but the vast potential for unintentional errors -- by the programmers, by the administrators, and by the voters themselves.

Can we take preventative action before next November to avoid the possibility of a catastrophic failure similar to 2000 in Florida, and 2004 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio? The only tool at our disposal is the continued agitation of those responsible for the decision-making. At every level of influence.

More Sunday Funnies

Obama and the Mil-Gen vote

Noted but worth emphasizing:

Not only did Clinton lose to Barack Obama by an almost six to one margin among Millennial Generation (those under 25) caucus attendees, but also her weakness in this age group was the key to her overall loss among women. While Hillary carried the over 45 female vote 36%-24%, Obama won women under 45 by a 50%-21% margin and the surprisingly strong turnout among young caucus goers turned that margin into an overall defeat among the female constituency Hillary was counting on the most. Had she and her team only read their history, they wouldn't have been surprised by this outcome.

Plenty more in a variety of tangents at the link, but the youth vote phenomenon belonging to Barack is what I'll pause on with some anecdotal evidence.

I have a nephew who is a freshman at Texas A&M. (I probably don't need to mention that A&M is the most politically conservative public university in the state, if not the nation, do I?) He comes from an Aggie legacy on his mother's side; his father, my younger brother, is a staunch Republican who works for a defense contractor and lives in a suburb of Fort Worth. My nephew spent the past summer interning with my older brother the lawyer (and Republican) here in Houston. When I asked him over the holidays who he planned to cast his first presidential vote for, he said "Obama". The only 'why' we got into was that he had attended an Obama function while he was here and was impressed. Suffice it to say I was surprised (not as much as the rest of the people at the table, though).

And I spent some time over lunch this past week with a prominent Af-Am Democratic activist, also an attorney with a long history of civil rights advocacy. In short he doesn't think the country is ready for a black president, and doesn't think Obama is the right man for the job in any event (not progressive enough -- he, like me, supports Edwards).

Maybe we just both discount Obama's obvious personal appeal; the feature that also obviously resonates with younger voters. The US electorate tends to favor charismatic presidential candidates over those with experience -- exhibits A, B, and C: JFK over Nixon, Reagan over GHW Bush, and even Huckabee over the rest of the GOP field.

But the real open question is: will this youth surge sustain itself, carrying Obama to the nomination and the White House? History is strongly against it, but perhaps a variance to the historical trend is happening even as we blog.

Sunday Funnies

Post-Iowa postpourri

--Lots of commentary to be found, but I'll just link two of my local peers Greg and Gary. Gary's is best for both accuracy and agreeableness; Greg is as usual barely comprehensible through his ponderous writing and conservative -- and Hillary -- bias. He keeps up a theme of antagonistically denigrating Edwards and progressives with excessive harshness, which compels me to dismiss most of his take (most of the time), but at least we all agree that Edwards must find a win somewhere to remain viable after February 5. I don't think it will be in South Carolina, and thus I don't see where it will be.

The agent of change (make that progress) this go-round is Barack Obama. And about progress, I'll quote some of an e-mail Open Source Dem, the irregular poster here, sent me late last night:

Please note that in Iowa the people sent out an overwhelmingly insurgent and populist message.

Please also notice that the people running the GOP have wrecked it. They are more interested in maintaining control of their party than actually winning. Does that sound familiar?

Here is Andrew Sullivan, an actual Tory:

Tonight was in many ways devastating news for the GOP. Twice as many people turned out for the Democrats than the Republicans. Clearly independents prefer the Dems.

Now look at how the caucus-goers defined themselves in the entrance polls. Among the Dems: Very Liberal: 18 percent; Somewhat Liberal: 36 percent; Moderate: 40 percent; Conservative: 6 percent. Now check out the Republicans: Very Conservative: 45 percent; Somewhat Conservative: 43 percent; Moderate: 11 percent; Liberal: 1 percent.

One is a national party; the other is on its way to being an ideological church. The damage Bush and Rove have done - revealed in 2006 - is now inescapable.

Let me say the damage our state and local party establishment have done by pandering to non-existent “moderate” Republicans is also very bad. The competition today is between progressive and reactionary populists. The only in-between strategy is exit strategy.

Does that sound familiar?

The young voters Howard Dean needed four years ago finally showed up last night -- tripling their numbers and making the difference for Obama. The overall turnout Democrats to Republicans was 238,000 to 118, 000, or the two-to-one margin Sullivan refers to. (That compares to 122,000 Democrats caucusing in Iowa in 2004.) In an open primary the percentages would look like this:

Percentage of total vote
24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)

That's all the omen you need.

-- Christ, Chuck Rosenthal is both drama queen and publicity whore. Just go TF away already, you jerk.

-- New Hampshire votes this Saturday Tuesday. On Saturday the 5th there will be back-to-back GOP and Democratic debates moderated by Charlie Gibson of ABC. And Facebook users can participate in debate groups, discussing the candidates and commenting on the play-by-play. But we'll be down in Galveston meeting the Texas 2008 Democratic slate with Jim Hightower.

Watching the caucuses live

on C-Span. I first caught this four years ago and was fascinated.

FWIW, I'm hoping it's Edwards, Obama, Clinton and then Dodd, but I'm thinking it will be Obama, Edwards, Clinton and then Richardson.

Will update here later with results and some post mortem.

7:45 p.m. A good site for the latest:

www.iowacaucusresults.com

And it currently shows:

Senator John Edwards : 33.18%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 32.47%
Senator Barack Obama : 31.52%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.90%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.81%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.07%
Uncommitted : 0.05%
Precincts Reporting: 346 of 1781

8:05 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 33.48%
Senator John Edwards : 31.97%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 31.76%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.73%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.96%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.06%
Uncommitted : 0.04%
Precincts Reporting: 750 of 1781

8:30 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 35.78%
Senator John Edwards : 30.69%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 30.52%
Governor Bill Richardson : 1.89%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.98%
Uncommitted : 0.10%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.03%
Precincts Reporting: 1347 of 1781

9:00 p.m.:

Senator Barack Obama : 37.14%
Senator John Edwards : 30.00%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.60%
Governor Bill Richardson : 2.16%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.95%
Uncommitted : 0.13%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.03%
Precincts Reporting: 1642 of 1781
(Percentages are State Delegate Equivalents.)

Sometimes I hate being right.

A seven-point win is pretty significant. Don't tell Greg, though; he thinks Hillary has already won.

Rosenthal bails

This 180 makes even Jim Rockford jealous:

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has withdrawn his name from the Republican ballot for re-election today amid pressure from his own party following last week's release of intimate emails he wrote to his personal assistant.

Rosenthal publicly had rejected the local GOP's call for him to drop his re-election plans or face the prospect of the party endorsing another Republican for the March primary.

His decision to drop out of the election was confirmed about 5:35 p.m. by Michael Wolse, the Harris County Republican Party's primary director.

The story goes on to identify Jim Leitner as filing to run as a Republican. He was mentioned in the story filed this morning:

Two of the potential candidates, according to sources, are defense lawyer and former prosecutor Jim Leitner and former felony court judge Patricia Lykos, who now works for Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. They both ran against Rosenthal in the 2000 Republican primary.

Let's skip to the part that concerns him:

Leitner, who placed third in the 2000 primary, said his experience on both sides of the courtroom would help the perspective of the district attorney's office.

In 2001, Leitner said he thought Harris County prosecutors were overzealous in their pursuit of death sentences against capital murder defendants.

"As long as that is the prevailing view, there are going to be a lot of capital murder prosecutions. People in other counties don't see it that way."

He added, "I think we kill a lot of people who don't fit the statute."

A Republican arguing against the death penalty. No wonder he came in third. Perhaps the climate has softened a little for his candidacy in the GOP this go-round.

That alone would qualify as progress.

Update (1/3, 5:30 a.m.): This morning's story quotes Leitner as saying he'll stand down for a more qualified challenger and names some assistant DAs as potentials ...

Top Rosenthal assistants Marc Brown, Stephen St. Martin and Denise Bradley, formerly Denise Nassar, also went through the interview process with party leaders, along with former state District Judge Patricia Lykos. Brown and Bradley said they will talk with their colleagues about becoming candidates, perhaps with only one emerging from Rosenthal's staff as a consensus choice.

2008 starts badly (IYAR)

*If You're A Republican.

-- Former state representative Nancy Moffat, a three-term incumbent Republican in Tarrant County who was defeated in a primary by the odious Vicki Truitt, will run again for HD-98 ... as a Democrat:

"It wasn't so much that I left the Republican Party as much as it was that the party left me," Moffat said. "They're all about the wealthy, and I want to be for the little guy and the middle guy."

Recall that Dan Barrett in neighboring HD-97 was just elected in a similarly believed-to-be-red district. Recall also why Vicki Truitt is odious:

Truitt is, of course, no favorite of any bloggers thanks to her sad attempts to pass a blogger libel bill last session.

Hat tip to jobsanger here also.

-- It takes a woman's POV to remind us men that Chuck Rosenthal was either stalking his secretary/former girlfriend, or graciously offering her pity sex. He is one hell of a cocksman, if nothing else. Don't miss the takes from the starboard tack.

-- The Chron plays catchup; Democrats are poised to retake Harris County -- particularly the bench -- back...

With contests for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and district attorney attracting most of the voters' attention to the top of the 2008 ballot, the races for 25 or more criminal and civil court judgeships likely will be decided based on the candidates' party label rather than public awareness of their performance or qualifications, experts said.

Republicans essentially have reached their voter turnout zenith in Harris County in recent years, University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said, thanks partly to the drawing power of the Texan president and the party's mobilization of Christian conservatives. Now some Anglo voters, the core of GOP strength, are trickling away to neighboring counties, he added.

Meanwhile, the number of Spanish-surname participating voters, as calculated by the Harris County clerk's office, is booming — on pace to approach 150,000 in 2008. Hispanics already favored the Democratic Party and surveys show that Republican inroads have been blocked by the GOP's image on the immigration issue as punitive.

In the overall Republican vista, "there are no more Anglos to work with," said Murray, who has been informally advising candidates from both parties as they seek data on the 2008 election. "In some ways you run out of bodies. There's no one else out there."

The trends may explain a narrowing of the gap by which Republican judicial candidates won their races in Harris County. On average, these GOP winners hit a high of 56.47 percent in 2002, with the top of the ballot featuring Republican Rick Perry's gubernatorial election stomping of Democratic challenger Tony Sanchez. In 2006, as Perry won with about 38 percent of the statewide vote against three other major candidates, the average posting for local judges seeking re-election in two-way races was 52.17 percent, a 14-year low.

Similar population shifts helped Dallas County Democrats sweep judgeships and other countywide offices in 2006 after the county had been in Republican hands for many years. That surprise reversal serves as an inspiration for Democrats here, and as a warning for Republicans.

-- Mike Huckabee is still having difficulty not stepping in his own shit in Iowa. Yet it appears from the polling this morning that he and Barack Obama may emerge victorious from the cornfields tomorrow evening. Kooch told his caucus-goers to report to Obama, an interesting development in light of a similar move by him four years ago to send them to John Edwards. Whether that is bad news or not for John remains to develop, but it's all bad for Hillary no matter what.

On shortly to New Hampshire for everyone, where John McCain has risen from the dead and Ron Paul has been excluded from a GOP debate there. The cacophony from the Paulistas is of similar pitch to this incessant whine.

Ric Williamson comes to a fork in the toll road

Feliz 2008

We ate dinner early with some close friends and then went to a small party at our cross-the-hall neighbors, retiring before midnight as has been our custom in recent years, leaving the Amateur Night antics to others. A cool crisp walk with the dog already completed, some black-eyed peas with brunch later, a little football, a little nap...

...what are you doing on the first day of the New Year?

Best-of-2007 Wrangle

Last year was a seminal one for the blogosphere, nationally as well as locally.

In recognition of the excellent work done by the Texas Progressive Alliance and its many member blogs and bloggers, here's a special New Year's edition of the TPA round-up.

Eye on Williamson has been one of the state's leading blogs when it comes to covering toll road issues and state representative Mike Krusee's career. EOW's top posts of 2007 included The "New Way Forward" On Tolls, the coming demise of Krusee in Krusee's Influence And Credibility Are Gone, Time For HD-52 To Start Over and a post on the ongoing battle between the citizens and the county government over a new landfill contract, The Landill, TCEQ Hearing & More Gattis Shenanigans .

The most popular posts from The Texas Blue included coverage of the 2008 Senate race. We kicked everything off with one of our inaugural pieces analyzing Cornyn's potential vulnerability in '08, in a piece picked up by the Washington Post. We then broke the code on Kos' "mystery candidate," revealing that it was Rep. Rick Noriega that Kos had in mind with his draft movement, and interviewed the representative shortly before he declared his official candidacy. And we published some of the first information examining Mikal Watts' candidacy in what became the most read story on the Blue this year; in what was also one of our most-read pieces, we analyzed the role of money in statewide Texas campaigns, looking at the efforts taken by the statewide campaign of David Van Os to illustrate the need for money in politics, the proper role of a nascent state party organization, and the limits on the effectiveness of a political message that come from the inability to spread that message due to the lack of funds. That article led to a dialog with David Van Os, and to an interview with him shortly afterward where he voices his side of the issue. And finally our "Who's Blue" audio interview series also included a number of other fascinating figures in Democratic politics, both statewide and across the nation. Some of the more notable interviews have been with four-star general and 2004 presidential candidate Wesley Clark, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, and current presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

John Coby of Bay Area Houston documented what a team of anonymous citizens have researched to expose the Texas Ethics Commission as incompetent in the series Spending Campaign Cash. Their work uncovered $3 million in undisclosed expenditures by Texas legislators. KHOU-TV featured their work in late December with their report Activist: State's campaign finance oversight out-of-focus.

Easter Lemming Liberal News's topics covered this past year include Pasadena politics, the Joe Horn shooting and our national So-Called-Liberal-Media.

News items covered by TXsharon on Bluedaze: An attempt to shame a Texas Granny who received the Peacemaker of the year award. The depletion of and pollution of our water due to the irresponsible and shocking use by the oil and gas industry including an explanation of Groundwater Conservation Districts and how they can help that was published in two Texas newspapers, and the attempt by oil and gas to sabotage the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District. The failure of the Texas Railroad Commission to protect Texans. The protection money breakdown paid to Texas Railroad Commissioners by the oil and gas industry.

WhosPlayin's favorite posts of 2007 were all about ideas: Universal Health Care - You're Soaking In It which explains that we're already paying for universal health care. Why Democrats Oppose "Voter ID" Bills was an explanation for our conservative friends. Lastly, Fiscal Conservatism with a Broader View.

Hal at Half Empty hemmed and hawed. How to decide which three of this year's postings merited special recognition? Then it dawned on him to mention the posts about three singular events that he attended and took photos. Priceless! In reverse chronological order: The Fort Bend Democrats Have a Booth at the Fair. Then a summer fundraiser featuring TDP Chairman Boyd Richie. And last February the Fort Bend Democrats held a love fest for Rick and Melissa Noriega.

Off the Kuff submits his top posts of 2007: David Dewhurst and Voter ID. Property Tax Cuts Uber Alles, the mantra of the 80th Lege, and Drafting Rick Noriega for Senate.

BlueBloggin', another new blog to the TPA in 2007, submitted these: nytexan wrote on The Christian March Against America; BossKitty has a poignant OpEd: All Answers Are Selfish And Shallow; and nytexan discusses how Mexico Get Texas Land Through Border Fence.

Doing My Part For The Left took a look back and is still disgusted with Hypocrites, Toe Tapping Senators, and Knee Pad Presidents. And who can forget Ann Coulter proving what a witch (usually spelled with a capital B) she is. Refinish69 also looked at Gay Pride and World AIDS Day again to explain some history about himself and the continuing need for Gay Voters to speak out.

One of Grand Moff Texan's too-rare diaries is always a special delight for us at Texas Kaos. But a standout piece inspired by the ignorance of the beltway punditry really broke down Why We Blog, Or Broderism in my Rear-View Mirror. Read it, and be inspired as we kick off the 2008 election cycle. As the wilder-than-usual Texas Legislative session came to a close, Boadicea highlighted a few items of interest in Personal Courage, Political Vendettas, and an Unexpected Outbreak of Spine. With his usual sharp eye and incisive writing, Krazypuppy noted the REAL importance of the Larry Craig scandal in Why Another GOP Sex Scandal Matters--It's Not the Queers, Either.

It was a wild year at McBlogger. We've heard about 39%'s trip to meet the Bilderburgers. We've also had exclusive one-on-one interviews with the Democratic candidates. We also took time to call out some of our friends to be quiet. Because they're being a pain in the ass. This year McBlogger turned two and like all two-year-olds you can expect tantrums mixed with an even larger dose of mischief. Like all children, you'll want to kill us but won't be able to because killing kids is wrong (so very, very wrong). You'll also find us precocious and irresistibly cute.

We at The North Texas Liberal had some trouble deciding on which posts were our absolute favorites, but we decided on a few that seemed worthy of mention a second time. First, a series on Shaquanda Cotton, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl from Paris, Texas. She was sentenced to up to seven years at the TYC for pushing a hall monitor at her school (the same judge gave a white girl probation for burning down the family home). Our coverage of Shaquanda got the attention of someone at the Lamar County DA's office, who used some recycled talking points to trash Cotton and her mother. Despite that, after the mainstream media broke Cotton's story, she became a candidate for early release. By March it was official that she would be released from the TYC, and in April we showed a video of her reunion with her mother. (Cotton has returned to school and wants to study to become a lawyer so she can fight future injustices.) We continued our global warming coverage with our Planet Purgatory series, parts One and Two. In May, we heard that the global warming tipping point could be in only ten years' time. NASA scientist James Hansen, a tireless environment advocate who testified about global warming before the Congress back in the 1980s, explains the tipping point theory as the point of no return. But he also believes in prevention rather than adaptation. Lastly, we gave Sen. John Cornyn the credit he deserved when he finally stood on the right side of an issue. Despite a year of flops and fabrications, he said he would support seasonal workers through the H2-B visa program. But despite the efforts of Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the fix wasn't finalized before Congress adjourned for the winter holidays, leaving thousands of small business owners out of luck this holiday season. When we spoke face-to-face with a legislative expert at Cornyn's DC office, we were told that the Texas senator would like to see comprehensive immigration reform and wouldn't lobby for the H2-B visas, though he supported seasonal workers, because he didn't want a piecemeal fix for the problem. So even though he stood with his constituents on the right side of the issue, in the end he let us down again.

Edmundo Rocha of Para Justicia y Libertad wrote about two protests against the prison industrial complex used here in Texas to detain undocumented immigrants -- the Houston
Processing Center and the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor. Prior to those postings, he reported on the suicide of David Ritcheson of Spring, the Latino teen who was brutally beaten, tortured, and sodomized with a plastic pole by two white racist teenagers, David Henry Tuck and Keith Robert Turner.

Marc G. of Marc's Miscellany analyzed Tom Craddick's preposterous claim that the speaker of the house can only be removed by impeachment. Marc also discussed Gov. Perry's controversial decision to veto the health insurance appropriation for community college employees.

Israel Behar-Ojalvo, PDiddie's father-in-law, passed away in March and Brains and Eggs had a post with photos in tribute. The Texas Youth Commission remains the worst scandal in Texas history, and that was apparent in April of last year. And in the matter of a few hours just before Labor Day, Alberto Gonzales, Phil Garner, and Tim Purpura all lost their jobs. Good riddance to a big bunch of losers. More like this in 2008, please.

2007 was a heck of a year for Capitol Annex. Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex is most proud of his ground-breaking coverage of the saga surrounding the insurgency in the Texas House and Speaker Craddick's power grab, including Terry Keel's Troubling Memo (a smoking gun, for sure), and the saga surrounding the resignation of parliamentarian Denise Davis, which earned him a mention in (among other publications), Texas Lawyer. Coverage of the 80th Legislature was also a major event for Capitol Annex, including a mind-numbing Liveblogging of debate on the General Appropriations Act, and a special video: Jodie Laubenberg Is Screaming.

It has been another exciting year at DosCentavos. I wrote about my expectations for the 2007 Lege Session. Beyond La Politica, we also know DosCentavos enjoys writing reviews on the latest releases in the Tejano and Mexican American music genre. This year, he received the honor of being asked by Los Lobos to rate their most recent release, The Town and The City. Finally, during the last Lege session, some Senators attempted to take up the debate on legalizing gambling to pay for education. DC tells us a few realities about higher education funding in the process.

Musings started the year concerned about science education in Texas (see: Warren Chisum, R-Dark Ages) and ended the year with some commentary about her friend, Chris Comer, who was fired as Director of Science at the Texas Education Agency over her stand on evolution. In between it was all about Melissa and Rick Noriega.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes a church in El Paso falls victim to manipulation by a right wing cadre bent on world domination. CouldBeTrue then wonders what would have happened in a perfect Republican world when the Minnesota bridge collapsed. South Texas Chisme covers the wedge'em and hate'em campaign, also known as the Republican immigration strategy. Hispanics have taken note.

The series The Texas Cloverleaf is most proud of since forming in the summer of 2007 was the continued exposure of the outright lies and misleading statements coming from the pro-toll road crowd in Dallas during the Trinity Vote effort. Even though the referendum failed, we feel we did our part to help Dallas voters make an informed decision. Read the series here, here, here, here and here.

Best wishes for a happy 2008 from all the blogs and bloggers of the Texas Progressive Alliance.