"Save a pretzel for the gas jets" come to life

Does everyone remember seeing this? Well, Rick Perry decided to do a parody of it.



The sound is a little low but you can watch it muted and get the full effect. My initial reaction is that he's taking too many of whatever pain meds the doctor prescribed for his back. And perhaps washing them down with too much tequila.

There's been some talk that Perry might be able to mount a comeback, particularly given Herman Cain's Manic Monday, but not if things like this keep showing up.

Update: Herman Cain demands equal time, so here we go. You decide which one is real.

Halloween Toons

This one is from the 1930's. The more things change ...

Commissioner's court, city council, "mine's bigger", and what we can do about it

Charles has an interesting rant on the friction that seems to perpetually exist, in varying degree, between the City of Houston and the County of Harris.

A few months ago, I was invited to speak at a Rotary breakfast. I talked about the importance of paying attention to local government, which I said has a much greater impact on your daily life than what goes on in DC but which tends to get less scrutiny. Someone asked me a question about waste, and I told him that if you had to design a government structure for the Houston region from scratch, you’d never come up with what we actually have. You’d want something more broadly focused, with less duplication and not as hindered by arbitrary boundaries. Something like that would surely be better able to solve regional issues, and be much less prone to the kind of penny ante pissing matches that we’re so used to around here.

We’re not going to get the chance to reinvent our government structure, of course. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think about doing things differently. And the question I find myself asking is why should Houston be a part of Harris County? As a taxpayer in the city of Houston, it’s hard for me to see what benefit I get from that arrangement. They don’t build roads that I drive on, Sheriff’s deputies don’t patrol my neighborhood, and so on. More to the point, there’s no one on Commissioners Court that gives a damn about the city of Houston, and three fourths of their combined budget is controlled by people who are unaccountable to me or anyone else electorally. So why should we put up with this? Why not get out?

Chuck knows he's spitballing and so do the rest of us. First of all, much of the antagonism comes about because of all of the conservatives on commissioner's court bumping up against all the libruls on city council. And commissioners are, for the most part, not really held accountable by the voters -- Sylvia Garcia being a recent exception -- and thus the corruptive influence of money combined with what is essentially a lifetime job turns it into a good old boy's club. (Sorry, El Franco.)

Houston resolved some of these character issues with term limits and a cap on campaign contributions some years ago. Don't expect the court to ever do anything that radical.

With about 4 million residents of Harris County compared to roughly 2 million Houstonians, and the proportion of county voters slightly skewed to the GOP, it really shouldn't be a surprise about how much influence those "unincorporated-area" voters have on county elections -- not just commissioners but judges and executive offices like county clerk and tax assessor/collector. Bellaire and West U Place and Pasadena may have a few more Democratic voters but the Republicans in Jersey Village, Katy, Webster, Baytown and Humble even things out. Those folks out in the sticks sure do turn out the vote. Must be those excellent bridges and roads providing easy access to the polls.

I don't expect redistricted precinct maps to help this phenomenon. It wouldn't matter if we threw the whole thing out and started over with a map that more closely approximated community interests -- where and how people live, instead of the woefully gerrymandered precincts now. Say for example there was a precinct roughly inside the Loop, another couple consisting of everything outside the Loop but inside the Beltway, and then one for everybody else in the boonies. We would still have 3 TeaBaggers and one Democrat, very likely an African-American. Just like now.

That leaves County Judge, who among his other imperial duties gets to fill the rare vacancy on commissioner's court unilaterally. He alone picks the replacement for everybody, including himself (with the voters eventually confirming his selection). That's where IMHO the most emphasis for change should be focused each election cycle. But even if someone with the money and the electoral base -- like say, Rodney Ellis -- decided to run for the top job, and then somehow managed to get elected, he'd still have to push a reform agenda through with a Republican vote.

So then the most reachable goal to implement reform becomes electing a Democratic county judge and replacing a Republican county commissioner. Still a pretty tall order when we can't get Democrats to come back and vote in off-presidential years.

Nedless to say I just don't see any of this happening in my most feverish of dreams. Which is why the most powerful agent of change on Commissioner's Court winds up being ... Wayne Dolcefino. And that begs the question: what's really the difference between Cactus Jack Cagle and Jerry Eversole besides a criminal record?

Given a little time, that probably evens up too.

All Hallows Eve Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wants more treats and fewer tricks as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff has some updates on the state of play in the redistricting lawsuits.

McBlogger finds Texas House speaker Joe Straus finally discovering that he fudged the numbers on the budget (profanity warning). And when McB offers a profanity warning, you know it's pretty salty.

As Michelle Obama appears at a Houston fundraiser hosted by hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wants to know what the difference is between Democrats who cozy up to Wall Street and Republicans.

Now that Rick Perry has flamed out, CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders if the batsh*t crazy crowd will prevail with Herman Cain?

Darth Politico takes a break from their Austin Film Festival coverage to offer some Star Wars-themed advice to those enemies of the Occupy Wall St movement, and offer solidarity with those who have been arrested: The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

The DOJ stated the GOP redistricting plans in Texas had "... the intent of limiting the voting power of Hispanic voters". WCNews at Eye On Williamson has that and more: Texas GOP's attack on Hispanic voters.

Lightseeker explains why the banks have no grounds for raising their fees now! Check out the details at TexasKaos.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered his views on who liberals and progressives can support in upcoming Houston municipal elections. Neil's view is that Green candidate Amy Price leads the pack for City Council, while incumbent Mayor Annise Parker does not merit the support of those on the left.

As OWS settles in for Valley Forge winter, Arab Spring has sprung in Yemen, Syria

President al-Assad doesn't realize he's the one straddling the fault line.

Western powers risk causing an "earthquake" across the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said, after protesters called for foreign protection from a crackdown in which 3,000 people have been killed.

Assad's warning came ahead of Syrian government talks on Sunday with the Arab League aimed at starting a dialogue between the government and opposition and ending violence which has escalated across Syria in recent days.

Activists said Syrian forces killed more than 50 civilians in the last 48 hours and one activist group said suspected army deserters killed 30 soldiers in clashes in the city of Homs and in an ambush in the northern province of Idlib on Saturday.

Assad's suppression of the seven-month uprising has drawn criticism from the United Nations and Arab League. Western governments have called on him to step down and imposed sanctions on Syrian oil exports and state businesses.

Assad is, as the toon suggests, the last in a long line of Arab dictators whose number has come up this year. As with Mubarak, Ben Ali and Ghaddafi, his time is coming. And he'll spill a lot of blood before the sands run out on him.

Western countries "are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely," Assad told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"But Syria is different in every respect from Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen. The history is different. The politics is different."

"Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake."

Even as the Occupy Wall Street movement settles in for its Valley Forge winter, the Arab spring continues, with Yemeni president Saleh the most recent leader teetering on the brink.

Hundreds of Yemeni women set fire to traditional female veils in the capital to protest against President Saleh's regime as it continues a brutal crackdown againsy the country's popular uprising.

Although unverified, amateur video reportedly filmed on Wednesday showed women throwing their full-body veils, known as makrama, onto a pile and setting them ablaze in the capital Sanaa.

The act was a symbolic Bedouin tribal gesture appealing to tribesmen for help in stopping the attacks on anti-government protesters.

As for OWS, they're waking up in a snow blanket this morning. That's much better than taking police projectiles in the head, though. Austin followed Oakland, Portland, and Denver's lead in bashing its protest camp yesterday:

I'm ashamed of my city tonight. 35+ arrests and counting as #OccupyAustin food & water raided by APD. This will only fan the flames.

Update: More in detail from the Austin Chronicle. Meanwhile, Occupy Houston had a real fun Halloween party.

And the beat goes on.

Sunday Choose Funnies

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." -- Rush

Texas Republican Douchebags of the Week

First Place, going away: our gloriously good-haired governor and his massive, big-footed flip flops.

-- Had Anita deliver the shiv to Dave Carney, replacing him with Joe Allbaugh, who ran W's successful (sic) 2000 campaign.

-- "It's fun to poke at" President Obama about the long-past-its-expiration-date birth certificate non-issue, but "it's a distractive issue".

-- Needs to spend more time in Iowa romancing voters one-on-one, so he will be appearing in a lot fewer debates. Update: Whoops. No, he won't.

-- That flat tax plan? Not so much. Gotta get off that Confederate license plate thingie, too.

-- Poll numbers sagging into Bachmann territory, he drags the money bag around California. Is more money really going to help this guy now? Oh yeah; it can't hurt any worse.

And this is actually a better week for Rick Perry than he's been having.

Runner-up: Congressman Michael McCaul, who alas won't run for the US Senate. Because the Rich White Guy Caucus is already well enough represented by David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert. Speaking of Dewface...

Show: ...he comes in third by virtue of his carefully following the Rick Perry 2010 campaign lead and making his Senate '12 race all about Obama. 

Fourth (in the money for those holding superfecta tickets): Herman Cain, riding high atop the national polls and cashing in on the strength of his haunting television ad and the Internet meme it has spawned. Earns honorary Texan status by virtue of his rally with the Clear Lake Tea Party, 3000 strong showing up at the dog track in La Marque to see, hear, and buy his book. If he were a real Texan he might have come in first with this effort.

Place your bets for the next Battle of the Douchebags, ladies and gentlemen. Post time in one week.

Is this what they are talking about?

You know, those roughly 50% of Americans who do not vote who say things like 'Republicans and Democrats are all the same'?

The king of natural gas will be dining with the First Lady.

On November 1st, Michelle Obama will headline a fundraiser hosted by the the young billionaire (via a Houston Chronicle blog).

From the piece:

"The super-wealthy hedge fund manager and his wife will introduce Obama to individuals who paid $10,000 for the privilege or couples who paid $15,000."

Arnold manages Centaurus Advisors.

You remember John Arnold, don't you? He founded Centaurus with his Enron bonus from 2001, which was the year before Enron collapsed under the weight of its scams.

Now he and his wife are tackling pension 'reform' (sic) in California.

John D. Arnold, a former Enron Corp. trader in Texas who became a billionaire by buying and selling natural gas, is bankrolling a group supporting changes to limit California’s pension-fund obligations.

Arnold, who formed hedge fund Centaurus Advisors LLC in Houston after leaving Enron, started a foundation that Meredith Simonton, a spokeswoman, said has given $150,000 to the California group.

The organization set up by Arnold and his wife, Laura, a lawyer, plans to be involved in pension-overhaul efforts around the U.S., Simonton said by telephone from Houston. State and local governments confront “massive financial distress” from the gap between assets and promised benefits, she said.

Let's count the six degrees of separation: Michelle Obama, John and Laura Arnold, Enron (Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Andy Fastow, et.al.), George W. Bush.

Whoops. That's only four.

Anybody still confused about what OWS is all about?

Update: CA Gov. Brown seek sweeping pension rollbacks. It's not just for Wisconsin any more.

Update II: POLITICO's Julie Mason (formerly of the Houston Chron) picks up the story.

An upcoming Houston fundraiser featuring first lady Michelle Obama at the home of a former Enron executive who is part of a movement to convert public pensions to 401(k)-style plans is angering some local Democrats.[...]

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, called the 401(k) proposal "very frightening for teachers." She noted the nose dive many retirement plans took in the stock market in 2008, saying, "What if I was retired and that happened?"

"My people supported Obama big-time in 2008," Fallon said. "This is not helping." [...]

Art Pronin, a Houston Democratic activist, said, "This just got my dander up."

"Does Obama support converting teacher pensions to 401(k)'s? I doubt it," said Pronin, president of his neighborhood Democratic club. "This is creating a lot of consternation in Democratic circles, and it's going to make it that much harder to get the vote out next year politically."

Local activists, including the Houston chapter of Occupy Wall Street, are considering some kind of protest of the first lady's event. Meanwhile, the local teachers' union is working to educate members about the pension campaign.

"We need street action that will make Wisconsin look like a picnic," Fallon said.

Update III (Monday 10/31): Thanks to Matt B. in the comments for the news on Halloween -- the day before the event -- that the First Lady will not be attending and the fundraiser will be "rescheduled at a later date".

Anita Perry brutalizes Dave Carney

Maybe you missed it. It's being called a 'campaign shake-up'. WaPo's Right Turn:

Time’s Mark Halperin reported yesterday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is bringing in two nationally known GOP insiders, Nelson Warfield and Curt Anderson, to help turn around his ailing campaign. Halperin writes, “In some ways, the Texan’s original, relatively small team had been overwhelmed by the demands of getting a campaign up and running.” 

Burka has the skinny.

An advisor to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) tells [Politico's] Ben Smith that the Texas governor has reassembled the team that helped run Scott’s “unlikely, big-spending, and successful 2010 campaign.”

It’s about time. It is my understanding that Anita Perry was the driving force who insisted upon a reorganization.

She's on a mission from God, you see. After the brutalizing her man took at the hands of ... well ... everybody, something had to be done. Which gives me the opportunity to insert this barely-a-sequitur, starring Mandy Patinkin as Governor Goodhair, fresh off the farm in Paint Creek or maybe the campus of Texas A&M University.



Back to the story.

It is hardly surprising that Perry has decided to shake up his campaign staff. (For some time Right Turn has suggested a major overhaul of Perry’s campaign would be in order.) A GOP operative told me last night, “I had heard about a week ago that there was a move to get rid of Dave Carney. This was almost 100% predictable given the collapse of the Perry campaign. Plus, when Perry was deciding if he should run, Carney had made assurances to him that he could do very well in New Hampshire.” Perry is now in the low single digits there. Carney is expected to remain on the campaign but plainly has lost his perch as the top campaign guru.

Sure enough ...

Joe Allbaugh, who headed George W. Bush’s presidential campaign and served as director of FEMA in the Bush administration (pre-Katrina), will hold the title of Senior Adviser in the Perry campaign. He specifically did not want a title that suggested he was in charge of the campaign (although he is).

Allbaugh seems to have a good sense of timing: bailing out of FEMA right before Hurricane Katrina -- leaving the debacle to Heckuva Job Brownie -- and now parachuting in to a Perry campaign that may or may not be swirling the drain. If things go well he gets the credit, if they don't Rick Perry still gets the blame.

The house-cleaning comes just before Perry’s major policy rollout Tuesday, and to a large extent, will dominate political coverage. Why release the news now? Well, given a choice between being overshadowed by a staff shakeup and having the press focus on Perry’s bizarre interview on birtherism and secession, I suppose the former seems preferable. Interestingly, the shakeup follows Perry’s meetings with K Street lobbyists, an effort to staunch concern about his campaign. It may have been essential for Perry to demonstrate swiftly that he understands the campaign’s dire straits and is willing to shove aside even longtime aides to get his campaign on track.

Warfield was Bob Dole’s press secretary in his 1996 presidential campaign, and he acquired a reputation for a sharp tongue and pointed humor. Interestingly, in that capacity Warfield led the attack on Steve Forbes’s flat tax. Forbes is now a Perry adviser, and a flat tax will be part of Perry’s policy initiative unveiled Tuesday. Back in 1996, the Dole campaign criticized a flat tax as a “soak the middle class” plan that would increase the deficit. Presumably, that experience will help Warfield fend off attacks on the flat tax plan Forbes developed for Perry.

Warfield also spent time on the ill-fated Fred Thompson 2008 presidential campaign. He joined in June 2007 and jumped off the sinking ship in October. More recently, Warfield worked on Rick Scott’s successful Florida gubernatorial campaign, during which the candidate used the illegal immigration issue to savage primary opponent Bill McCullough. ...

Let's finish with Burka again.

The first thing Allbaugh ought to do is send Perry to Dallas to apologize for badmouthing W. all over the country.

Yeah, that oughta fix things right up.

Weekly Early Voting Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance provides you with all the information you need to cast your ballot early -- beginning today -- in the Houston municipal and educational elections. There are also ten Texas constitutional amendments on your ballot. Rep. Scott Hochberg provides in-depth background on each.

Here are early voting locations and hours for those voting in Houston (.pdf, 1 page).

Here's the League of Women Voters guide to all candidates on the ballot in Houston (.pdf, 51 pages).

As previously posted here, your progressive voter's guide for Houston municipal candidates is here (Jolanda Jones ... or Bob Ryan, but only if you just have to vote for a Republican), here (Annise Parker, Don Cook, and Karen Derr), here (Kristi Thibaut or Jenifer Rene Pool, and Amy Price and Larry Green), here (Melissa Noriega, Bob Schoellkopf, Wanda Adams, Peter Rene'), and here (Ronald Green, Ed Gonzalez, James Rodriguez, and Mike Laster).

Here is more on the status of the mayor's race, and more on the developments in District C.

And here is the roundup of TPA blog posts, the best from last week.

Off the Kuff has information about the interim redistricting maps that the federal court in San Antonio will be considering.

Letters From Texas discusses Republicans not understanding basic biology, which is why some candidates might not even realize that they're advocating banning birth control. Much worse, others do understand it.

Several Houston city council candidates earned the coveted PDiddie endorsement. Pick up your progressive voting guide at Brains and Eggs.

As early voting for the November constitutional amendment election gets started, WCNews at Eye On Williamson says Vote No on Prop 4 - the latest transportation scheme.

Libby Shaw says it best in Rick Perry: A Right Wing Wrecking Machine . She compares the degrees of diaster that separate Perry from Romney. The result is a "how low can you go" contest that America can't afford, not when one of these mean-spirited clowns could be the next American President. See her post at TexasKaos.

Neil at Texas Liberal continues to blog about and to support Occupy Houston and Occupy Wall Street.

Early Voting Sunday Funnies

The spotlight on Mayor Parker's prospects

Again, as many have already pointed out, not so much for 2011 as for 2013.

Political analysts predict Mayor Annise Parker has a virtual lock on a second term, but she still has a lot at stake in next month's election.

Winning isn't enough, the experts say. She needs to win big to head off a challenge in 2013 and to give her a stronger hand with the City Council. [...]

(P)oll numbers released last week suggest the mayor faces a dissatisfied electorate. Less than a month before the election, more than half of respondents said they were undecided. Thirty-seven percent said they would vote for Parker.

"Had she had a serious opponent she would have been at least in a runoff, and possibly defeated," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein, who ran the poll for radio station KUHF and KHOU-TV.

Parker's approval rating was just 47 percent.

"It's the lowest job approval I've seen of a (Houston) mayor, ever," said Stein, who has been polling for decades.

Too slim a majority in November, some observers say, could encourage a stronger challenge two years from now.

Clue: The mayor's low approval numbers do NOT have anything to do with the national economy.

Parker and political analysts say most of the damage to her approval ratings is due to the sputtering national economy.

"If you look at what's on the minds of Americans all over the country, it's jobs and the economy," Parker said.

The "jobs" part, yes. But the mayor's jobs plan, as you can find in the article yourself and at her website,  appears to consist of 'instructing city departments to hire local firms and hoping that spurs job creation'. In the wake of the city's budget cuts that saw thousands of municipal employees lose their jobs, I have to say that is a pretty sad plan.

Aside from that, the mayor has been slammed by events mostly outside of her control that are well beyond the national economy: the red-light camera issue -- yes, mostly outside her control, and that includes poorly-worded vendor contracts and a ballot referendum voided by a judge and all the rest of the mess -- the Rebuild Houston emerging scandal, the George Greanias affair.

And while she has consistently earned low marks for style, it's also fair to suggest that she merited a bit of arrogance in besting her political opponents in the last cycle, and in grappling with the city's many challenges.

Annise Parker gets my (albeit tepid) support for re-election. Just like President Obama, in fact. In many ways she has done a good job, and in many others she has done the best she could with what she has had to work with. And yes, in some ways she's done a lousy job. She's still far and away the best -- indeed, the only -- choice for mayor in this cycle.

I hope, based on her forthcoming performance in office and a little better luck outside of it, that I can say the same two years from now.