Harmonic blogosphere convergence

Yesterday, a disturbance in the Force compelled the Texas Progressive Alliance to join armies with the ... whatever the conservative blogs in Texas call themselves. I'll let Ted tell it:

Yesterday Senator Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) introduced SB1950, which would have subjected political bloggers to some severe disclosure requirements under the Texas Election Code. The new bill could have seriously hurt a lot of political bloggers, especially those who sell ads on their blogs.

The Texas Progressive Alliance, an association of about 50 Texas left-wing political blogs, decided the bill must not pass, and geared up to oppose it in a unified effort. A couple of phone calls were made, and by 11:00am they were joined by at least 30 right-wing Texas blogs and a promise that more could be activated if necessary.

Then Harold Cook, a political consultant for Senate Democrats, approached Senator Zaffirini with the concerns of the bloggers. The senator withdrew the bill, saying she didn't realize the impact it would have on Texas bloggers and citizen journalists. The bill was dead because bloggers from both ends of the political spectrum had stood stood together.

There's more from Vince, who spear-headed the mobilization:

“Senator Zaffirini was very understanding, and had no intention to harm bloggers with this bill. She had a very bad experience in her last campaign with a website -- I won’t even give it the credibility of calling it a ‘blog’ -- that went pretty low in the gutter, and I think this bill was a way to address that. As soon as she heard that this bill would harm mainstream bloggers and citizen journalists, which are so important to the flow of information in modern politics, she immediately offered to pull (it)."

And lastly, more on Aaron Pena's HB-4237:

Citizen journalists and bloggers in Texas would have the same protection to write about politics and other matters of public concern as do members of the “mainstream” press under a bill filed today in the Texas House of Representatives.

House Bill 4237, from Aaron Pena (D-Edinburg), would allow bloggers and citizen journalists to be protected by what is known as the “Privileged Matters Clause” in the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code. Under the clause, newspapers and other periodicals are protected from being sued for libel when reporting on things that happen in a court of law, the proceedings of a government body, or meetings dealing with public issues.

If Pena’s bill passes, citizen journalists and bloggers would be placed on level footing with the mainstream press when it comes to covering matters of public concern. In addition to protecting bloggers and citizen journalists, the bill also adds “privileged matters” protections to bloggers who use technology such as webcasting and podcasting.

I give Pena a lot of grief often enough for his past support of Tom Craddick, for showing up in preferred seating at an Obama rally when he was still a declared Clinton supporter, and some other weaseley things. But he has his own blog, has attended our statewide functions, believes in us and supports our cause.

He done me proud with this legislation.

The message

They still won't get it, though ...

Gov. AMF continues GOP assault on poor Texans

Fresh on the heels of efforts to deny millions of Texans their vote, the worst of the Rabid Right -- led by their feckless leader in the governor's mansion $10,000 monthly taxpayer-funded rental house -- traveled to a luxury hardware store in Houston and rejected stimulus funds extending unemployment benefits for out-of-work Texans:

Gov. Rick Perry set up a possible battle with the Legislature today by rejecting about $555 million from the federal government for expanded aid to unemployed Texans on grounds that the money would come attached with too many costly obligations.

Perry announced his refusal of the funds in Houston at a Bering’s Hardware store near the Galleria, where a store official said accepting that share of the nation’s so-called stimulus package might mean having to pay an additional $12,000 a year in unemployment insurance.

"Employers who have to pay more taxes have less money to make their payroll" and would have to raise prices on their products, the governor said. "The calls to take the (stimulus) money and sort out the consequences later are quite troubling to me."

Discombobulated as he is, perhaps he just shouldn't be making any important decisions.

The stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama allows for state legislatures to bypass the type of rejection Perry made today. Around the time of the Republican governor’s announcement, Republican Jim Pitts of Waxahachie, chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, voted to accept the half billion dollars in unemployment aid.

He was joined by four Democratic state representatives at an Austin meeting of a legislative committee studying the stimulus aid. Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton voted no.

Waco-based economist Ray Perryman today told the committee, headed by Democrat Jim Dunnam of Waco, that "we’re probably better off taking the money."

Without the funds, Perryman said the state’s unemployment fund is projected to run dry this year, possibly triggering higher unemployment insurance levies on employers even without the state’s acceptance of federal funds.

With an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent, rising but well below the rate of other big states, Texas reported a record loss of 77,800 jobs in January. The controversy is far from getting a full airing in the Republican-controlled state House and Senate, which would have to change several laws to fit stimulus package rules.

But Dunnam said it was time for lawmakers to take over from Perry.

"His statement is nothing more than grandstanding," he said. "This was really never the governor’s call."

This is nothing but kow-towing to the reactionaries in the Texas Republican Party who think Kay Bailey is a RINO, reflecting the spectacular ridiculousness of Texas Republicans in a world lately overrun with conservatives gone mad. It's just amazing to see how low these state officials will stoop in their quest to drive this state to the bottom.

(h/t to Phillip at BOR for the graphic)

Update: Harvey K at QR adds ...

Reps. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) and Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) predicted today that Gov. Perry’s decision to reject $555 million in enhanced unemployment insurance aid would not play well in conservative circles once people realize that the state’s employers would have to make up that money through higher unemployment taxes.

“We’re talking doubling the tax on small employers,” Dunnam said while meeting with members of the Capitol press corps this morning. He said the facts in favor of accepting the aid would make it difficult for Perry to maintain his position.

He pointed to statements made by Bill Allaway of Texas Taxpayers and Research Association (TTARA) and the economist Ray Perryman yesterday in favor of taking the UI money. Perryman, who testified Thursday before Dunnam’s select committee on the federal stimulus package said that accepting the enhanced aid would have an immediate impact on the economy and would create $2.66 of economic impact for every $1 in aid. That’s due to the effect of the aid money flowing from unemployed workers into local businesses and through the rest of the economy.

And while Perry rests much of his argument against the aid as the long-term costs of expanding the unemployment insurance system outweighing the short-term gain of federal money, Perryman testified that it would take 10 years for the costs associated with expanding unemployment benefits to outstrip what the state would be receiving from the feds.

Voter ID rubberstamped by Republicans

No surprise ...

Exhausted after an all-night debate but assured of victory, Republicans (yesterday) rammed a bill requiring Texas voters to present identification papers through the first Senate vote on the bitterly partisan issue.

After emotional pleas to stop the bill, and expert and public testimony that begin Tuesday and didn’t end until shortly before 9 a.m.today, the so-called “Voter ID” bill passed a special Senate panel 20-12.

The “committee of the whole” includes all 31 senators and Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. While the bill must still get a final Senate vote, today’s action all but assures it will pass and be sent to the House as early as Monday.

The bill is being driven by Senate Republicans over fierce opposition from Democrats, who promised a legal challenge if the bill ultimately passes.

They don't want poor people or the elderly to vote, to say noyhing of all those people with extra pigmentation, because they lose when that happens. So, like redistricting, it's going to the courts. But not before the Texas House gets a crack at it:

Now that hotly contested legislation to require Texans to produce more identification to vote has won tentative approval in the state Senate, the battle will soon shift to the House, where prospects are less certain.

Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, who will play a lead role in shaping a voter ID bill in the Legislature, says he will oppose attempts to duplicate a strict photo-ID law now on the books in Indiana and will fight vigorously for safeguards against voter discrimination.

"I don’t think there is any chance we’ll be proposing the Indiana law on the House floor," Smith, chairman of the House Elections Committee, said Wednesday after the Senate advanced its version of a voter-ID bill after an all-night hearing.

The Indiana statute, considered the strictest law of its kind in the country, requires voters to present a photo identification before voting. The Senate measure also calls for photo identification but would allow voters without a photo ID to present two forms of alternate identification, such as a birth certificate, library card and hunting or fishing licenses. It also allows provisional ballots for registered voters without the required identification.

The SCOTUS, the above article notes, upheld the Indiana law on appeal. So eventually -- unless legal action delays its implementation -- the GOP will get its voter suppression, and Texas gets a few more years of one-party rule.

Update: Eye on Williamson, linking to Burka, leads me to believe that Voter ID will go through the DOJ, rather than the court system, due to (what else?) Texas' long sordid history of disenfranchising minority voters.

Voter ID: solving a non-existent problem *update*

Floor Pass:

The main argument put forth will be that the only problem Republicans are solving by requiring photo identification in order to vote is the problem of citizens casting legitimate votes for Democrats. The people least likely to have photo identification—such as the elderly, the disabled and the poor—all belong to groups that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

“The burden should be on the state to prove that there’s a real problem, that there’s no other way to deal with this problem, and that the state will not be precluding people from voting before it enacts this sort of legislation,” said Sen. Kirk Watson.

The only type of voter fraud that Voter ID prevents is voter impersonation. The Democrats will point out, as they did today, that one is more likely to be struck by lightning or see a UFO than they are to come across an act of voter impersonation.

Campaign Legal Center executive director Gerald Hebert said, “There is no widespread, organized, or even significant voter impersonation in Texas. Not a single case has been prosecuted in over 20 years. And I know, because I brought a lawsuit against [Texas Attorney General] Greg Abbott to prove that fact and he acknowledged that it was so.”

Greg Abbott sent agents from the OAG to peek in a little old lady's bathroom window, and he STILL couldn't find any evidence of voter fraud.

Many, many more Texans will be denied their vote because a volunteer poll worker would have the unquestioned authority to decide whether or not someone looks "correct". Think this an exaggeration? Well, it used to be the case during both the Jm Crow period, as well as the time prior to the suffrage movement in the US:

In Texas this week, debate opens on a proposal that places extraordinary identification requirements on citizens who wish to vote. The proposed law's ambiguous language appears to grant part-time, amateur polling place officials the absolute power to accept or reject a would-be voter based solely on that citizen's appearance or other subjective judgments. For the first time since women and blacks were granted the vote, appearance alone may disqualify a would-be voter.

But since this is the greatest single issue facing Texas today, the Republicans are going to make certain it passes.

Update:

"This hearing is a sham, just like your redistricting hearings were a sham," (civil rights attorney Gerald) Hebert said.

Hebert said the voter identification legislation is the "latest in a long series of attacks on minority voters in this state" and is part of a "long dark history of keeping people on the reservation through voting."

Hebert, who works out of the nation's capital, said there is no widespread "or even occasional" cases of voter impersonation in Texas.

He called the bill "raw partisan politics" by Republicans "to harm voters in their own state." Hebert said the bill will cost taxpayers millions of dollars to implement.

Follow the live action here and here. And more summary assembled at Off the Kuff. Still more play-by-play from Patricia Kilday Hart at Burkablog.

The Weekly Wrangle

In the wake of Texas Independence Day (March 2) and the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo (March 6), with the pending fight over voter identification legislation set to open tomorrow in the Texas Senate, take a moment to click on the links below that feature past discussions of the skirmish.

Following is the round-up of some of those posts, along with the rest of the best from the Texas left last week.

jobsanger knows that more money needs to be raised to pay for needed improvements and repairs to America's infrastructure, but he remains convinced that the Mileage Tax Is A Terrible Idea.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson gets readers ready for the upcoming Voter ID debate, or as the the Texas GOP calls it The single most important issue facing Texas today.

The new video at Texas Liberal is called Reading About The Panic Of 1873 In Front Of The Enron Building.

Over at McBlogger, Captain Kroc posts an interesting piece about seemingly unrelated issues, Rush Limbaugh and Child Molestation.

The Texas Cloverleaf gives a brief on Equality Texas Lobby Day this past Monday.

Off the Kuff looks at the case against voter ID, also known as the single most important issue facing Texas today, as advanced by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Dos Centavos posts about the latest on the Voter ID. Can national Latino political and economic muscle be flexed effectively, as it was for Obama?

Obama sent the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see what our military can do to stop drug cartel activities. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks John Cornyn is shopping border violence as a theme for his 2012 presidential run.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is frustrated at the regression, into childhood, of those who claim to be Republicans. They are NOT Republicans. They are the Neo-Republicans who have hi-jacked the party name to deceive ordinary conservative Americans. They have stolen the GOP cloak to hide their real agenda. Read more in Neo-Republicans Are Not The Grand Old Party, scatological analogies.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men rounds up opinion on the newly released OLC memos. We knew they'd be bad... but still.

John at Bay Area Houston says the Harris County GOP's "Give a Mexican a Bike" program is probably against federal law and smothered with hypocrisy.

As the head of FreeRepublic.com gets visited by the Secret Service, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs finds several pre-post-mortems on the GOP.

TXsharon joined other blogs in areas effected by unconventional natural gas drilling in asking readers to TAKE ACTION and let The View know they were irresponsible to give T. Boone Pickens free advertising for his plan without investigating the full implications. The same drilling practices Pickens promotes recently contaminated water wells in the Marcellus Shale causing one to explode: Manhattan borough president called for drilling moratorium.

Lord of the Freepers gets visit from Secret Service

Let's allow Mr. Robinson to explain:

Unfortunately, we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. Now I remember when America used to fight against communism. It wasn't that long ago. Many of us on FR are veterans of wars against communism and some of us believe that American citizens who are communists are the enemy within, ie, the domestic enemy we've sworn to defend against. American citizen? hmmmm... that may be a loophole for Obama.

At any rate, the oath is to defend our constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I can imagine that this places an enormous strain on our Secret Service agents. It's obvious to anyone with a brain that Obama is an enemy of the constitution. So should the SS defend the constitution or defend the anti-constitution commie?

So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service. And even though your visiting agent may agree politically, and may take his oath to the constitution seriously, he's still sworn to protect the officeholder and it's his duty to take all threats seriously. And that may include serving me with a subpoena to turn over your IP address. Now I'm duty bound to protect your privacy to the best of my ability, but I cannot defend against stupidity.

Best advice I can give is to keep it to yourself. Don't post anything that may embarrass you later, or end you up in the slammer.

Without an ability to understand the distinction between an Iraq war protest and a Tea Party; unable to discern the difference between "Bush is a moron" and "Obama ain't gettin' my guns without a fight"; without the common sense to comprehend why one cannot threaten the life of the President of the United States as casually as one flicks a booger, the rightest of the Right are in for a long and difficult eight years.

What we are seeing is the spasms and convulsions of a political party's sudden yet inevitable demise. The end could have been avoided to no greater success than the dinosaurs or the newspapers. But don't take my word for it; ask David Frum:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of "responsibility," and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence -- exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word -- we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

It's not just about Limbaugh though, as everyone except most people still voting Republican already know:

Even before the November 2008 defeat—even before the financial crisis and the congressional elections of November 2006—it was already apparent that the Republican Party and the conservative movement were in deep trouble. And not just because of Iraq, either (although Iraq obviously did not help).

At the peak of the Bush boom in 2007, the typical American worker was earning barely more after inflation than the typical American worker had earned in 2000. Out of those flat earnings, that worker was paying more for food, energy and out-of-pocket costs of health care. Political parties that do not deliver economic improvement for the typical person do not get reelected. We Republicans and conservatives were not delivering. The reasons for our failure are complex and controversial, but the consequences are not.

We lost the presidency in 2008. In 2006 and 2008, together, we lost 51 seats in the House and 14 in the Senate. Even in 2004, President Bush won reelection by the narrowest margin of any reelected president in American history.

The trends below those vote totals were even more alarming. Republicans have never done well among the poor and the nonwhite—and as the country's Hispanic population grows, so, too, do those groups. More ominously, Republicans are losing their appeal to voters with whom they've historically done well.

In 1988 George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis among college graduates by 25 points. Nothing unusual there: Republicans have owned the college-graduate vote. But in 1992 Ross Perot led an exodus of the college-educated out of the GOP, and they never fully returned. In 2008 Obama beat John McCain among college graduates by 8 points, the first Democratic win among B.A. holders since exit polling began.

And did you remember that Republicans won California in every presidential election from 1952 through 1988 -- except for LBJ in 1964? Thirty-six years, or two consecutive political generations. Democrats have owned California in the five consecutive ones since 1988. Florida was lost in 2008 (and in 2000, but who's counting any longer?) and Texas is slowly slipping away. Too slowly, but the trend is irreversible, especially as the GOP continues to demonize Latinos. A voter ID bill to be considered next week in the Texas Legislature only slows the trend a few more years. More from Frum on the current problem for conservatives:

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than … not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him.

But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us. Two months into 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have already enacted into law the most ambitious liberal program since the mid-1960s. More, much more is to come. Through this burst of activism, the Republican Party has been flat on its back.

He's got some ideas about how his party can make a comeback at the link. I just don't think anyone over there is capable of making the necessary changes in time to save themselves.

And that's not a bad thing. If the GOP splinters into opposing factions of social conservatives, economic conservatives and Libertarians, then that would perhaps open the Democratic Party up to a little more balancing of the intra-party lefts and rights. Hopefully.

Have to hope that happens no matter what the Republicks manage.

The Rock Obama defenestrates Kay Bailey

Suffer through the 30-second ad for last night's SNL parody (hat tip to Poli-Tex):

Sunday Funnies (Not-Getting-It Edition)

Failure is not an option *update*

For the Republicans, it has become a requirement.

And the absurdity just gets more comical by the day. David Sirota:

On the same day a new Wall Street Journal poll reveals that Americans trust in President Obama and congressional Democrats on economic issues is skyrocketing (and in the same month Fox’s own polls show the same), I debated Bill Kristol in a Fox News debate that the network’s moderator prefaced by asking why Obama’s economic actions were “forcing Americans to lose trust in the administration?” Watch it here - I kid you not (notice the graphic underneath asserting unequivocally that “Confidence In Obama’s Economic Team [Is] Lost” and that “Disappointment Grows Over Obama’s Economic Team”).

As you’ll see, Kristol has exactly one talking point: He says that the Dow Jones has lost 15 percent, or 1,355 points, since Obama took office, and he then effectively claims that Wall Street speculators’ day-to-day gyrations mean the vast majority of Americans do not trust Obama, irrespective of polls showing exactly the opposite.

Of course, Obama has been in office for 44 days - so just for a comparison, let’s remember that in the 44-day period between 8/28/08 and 10/11/08, the Dow Jones lost 27 percent, or 3,264 points. But Kristol doesn’t mention that little detail, because Republicans were controlling economic policy then (and you’ll notice Fox promptly ends the segment when I start bringing this up).

The point, of course, is to say that judging economic policy by 44-day periods in the market is absurd, and it is especially absurd to blame a 44-day-old presidency on market forces that three decades of conservative policies (that Kristol aggressively advocated) created. But that’s the extent of the GOP’s talking points today.

Earlier this week Jon Stewart tore into CNBC's Rick Santelli and Jiim Cramer, the elite's latest Goliaths of the class war, for the rants they have been spouting and the Tea Parties they have spawned. Watch it:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

None of this revisionist, delusional, own-facts-entitlement BS is going to fly any more. Progressives have their own infrastructure to push it back, and besides, the voters understand who's spinning the lies.

-- Update:

Despite the tumbling economy, Barack Obama continues to enjoy a honeymoon with the American public in the face of the most trying crisis any newly inaugurated president has encountered since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The GOP, meanwhile, is viewed by a majority of Americans as the party of "no," without a plan of its own to fix the economy, and even rank-and-file Republicans are concerned about the party's direction, according to the first NEWSWEEK Poll taken since Obama assumed office.

"People give Obama credit for reaching out to Republicans, but they don't see Republicans reciprocating," says pollster Larry Hugick, whose firm conducted the survey. "A surprising number said bipartisanship is more important than getting things done."