Friday, July 30, 2010

Friday Postpourri

-- "This Week in Rick Perry's Lies" may have to become a DAILY feature. Did you know the governor called Texas' 46th-ranked health care system "the best in the United States"?

-- Look for weekend postings on Barbara Radnofsky's efforts to wake up Greg Abbott with SueWallStreet.com, as well as the incompetence and willful negligence associated with the attorney general's signature issue, child support collection.

-- I also attended a luncheon sponsored by Houston Votes, which has ambitious plans again this election cycle to register 100,000 disaffected Houstonians in time for them to vote in November. Long post due on their efforts.

-- No sooner did I call Rick Perry a cartoon character than we learned that the Bill White campaign was putting out a casting call for a "clueless" Perry look-alike for some comical campaign ads. I think Josh Brolin -- he also played W in Oliver Stone's movie -- would have been perfect for the role.

--  BP will take a $10 billion tax credit for costs associated with the Gulf oil disaster. Even Goldman Sachs gasped when they heard the news. (Ten billion dollars was the amount of the taxpayer bailout they received.)

-- Time once again to remind our Washington representation to preserve net neutrality. As Al Franken put it:

If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before four or five mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America, not only on television but online. If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC Universal -- or Verizon/CBS Viacom, or AT&T/ABC/DirectTV, or BP/Halliburton/WalMart/Fox/Domino's Pizza -- start favoring its content over everyone else's? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News Web site loads five times faster than Daily Kos?

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Top ten signs Republicans will lose the midterms

Though the GOP can rub their flat hooves with glee over Charlie Rangel's ethical troubles (he's no Duke Cunningham or Tom Foley; certainly no Tom DeLay, but FWIW he should still resign from Congress) their opportunities to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory continue to mount. Let's count the ways ...

1. Former 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is still in the national spotlight, meaning that either there are no Republicans more qualified than her, or that she will follow through with her plans to carve off so-called "Palinistas" from the national Republican Party and form her own ultra-conservative political party.

2. Former vice president Dan Quayle believes that the Republicans will make big wins this fall. Given who is making this prediction, it has a lot of Republicans nervous.

3. A lot of the polls showing Republican candidates in the lead were taken by pollsters who "polled" a variety of zoo animals, the majority of which were elephants.

4. Though George W. Bush appears to have quietly retired to his ranch in Crawford, there are rumblings that his book "Decision Points", which will hit shelves this fall, is full of meaningless ramblings about knowing when to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

5. Though President Obama's approval ratings are "only" hovering around 40%, this is pretty good considering that we are in the middle of Great Depression 2.0 and the worst national natural disaster since Godzilla invaded New York has befallen the Gulf coast. However, vice president Joe Biden -- making a characteristic gaffe -- said that his boss's numbers could "go a whole lot lower."

6. Rumors of an alien spaceship landing this summer in Ohio have lead many to conclude that the 2010 midterm elections will be postponed a year so that Congress and the President can prepare for a Martian invasion.

Rest here. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, the ten reasons why Democrats could still choke, including these gems:

2. Odds in Las Vegas are now only 2 to 1 that Democrats will hold onto the House of Representatives, and 3 to 1 that Levi Johnston's marriage to Bristol Palin won't make it to its one year anniversary.

3. Bo the White House dog has held several press conferences in which he has stated his willingness to work with a Republican majority in the Senate.

4. South Carolina Democratic candidate Alvin Greene, who is facing federal obscenity charges amid rumors he is a Republican plant, plans on switching his party affiliation to the newly formed "Greene Party" should he lose in November.

...

6. Lobbyists trying to bribe public officials are, for the first time in four years, spending a slight majority of their money on Republicans instead of Democrats.

Seriously though, if you cannot comprehend the scenario that a change of leadership hands in the House portends, then please don't watch this. You'll have nightmares.

Hey, Greg Abbott! Here's a case of voter fraud

Your only problem is that he is a Republican state senator.

The newest member of the Texas Senate, Brian Douglas Birdwell, voted in the November 2004 presidential election twice, choosing between George W. Bush and John Kerry in Tarrant County, Texas, and again in Prince William County, Va., according to election records in the two states.

Voting in the same election twice is a third-degree felony in Texas.

What's more, Birdwell's record of voting in Virginia from 2004 through 2006 would seem to place his residency in that state, not in Texas, which could imperil his spot in the Legislature. Birdwell voted a Virginia ballot in November 2006; if that's enough to establish him as a Virginia resident, an issue that can only be settled in court, it means he's not eligible to serve in the Texas Senate until at least November 2011.

Abbott, you may recall, has had his goons peeping into little old ladies' bathroom windows in his quest to find any examples of voter fraud in Texas.

"It's a piece of evidence that's hard to refute and usually fatal," says Randall "Buck" Wood, an Austin lawyer and a Democrat respected across the political spectrum for his mastery of election law. The residency question, as Wood sees it, puts the courts in the position of deciding whether someone did something illegal — voting in an election in a place where they don't reside — or simply is ineligible to run in another place because of that vote. He thinks most judges would choose the second option rather than deciding the candidate in question did something criminal. The crime, if there is one, would be voting in Virginia while residing in Texas. Wood thinks a court would most likely see no crime, saying instead that the voter was a Virginia resident and voter who is simply not eligible to run for Texas Senate.

So will Birdwell resign? Will the Texas Attorney General prosecute him whether he does or doesn't? Or will the judge who eventually hears the case do what Buck Wood thinks they will do?

Inquiring minds and all that. Charles Kuffner has more.