Nine Eleven Wrangle

On the 11th anniversary of the national tragedy, The Texas Progressive Alliance stands in solemn remembrance of the fateful events of that fall day in lower Manhattan. Here is a selection of photographs and a panaromic slideshow that display the area we call Ground Zero, as its transformation into a open-air shrine to those who were lost is nearly complete.

Here is this week's roundup of blog posts from the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff says that the state of Texas has clearly demonstrated the ongoing need for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees this election year faced with critical health issues hurting working class people, when bubonic plague and Legionnaire's disease and hantavirus still occur in America: are we Unprepared, Careless and Incapable In 2012?

The GOP's plan may have backfired; by intentionally discriminating they may have actually saved the Voting Rights Act. Because, as WCNews at Eye on Williamson shows, The Voting Rights Act is still working as designed.

Neil at Texas Liberal saw Mitt Romney's jet plane in Cincinnati last week. Neil offered up his view of what the letters on the tail of the plane were meant to convey.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos reminds us that it is easy to throw the low-level supervisors to the wolves when scandal strikes, but we should not forget where the fundamental problem lies. Are you listening, Rick Perry and Republican legislators? Check out Behind the Drug and Rape Kit Scandals.

Rick Perry wants Texas women to get pap smears at colonoscopy clinics.  CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme didn't think that even Rick Perry was that stupid.

Update: Here's my post from last year, on the tenth anniversary. It does seem as if the raw sensations have ebbed since then.

2012 Candidates Cafe' Dialogue Tuesday, Sept. 11

ACR Houston, the American Leadership Forum, and The Institute for Sustainable Peace will host the second Candidates Cafe' Dialogue at the United Way of Greater Houston, 50 Waugh Drive, on Tuesday September 11 from 6-8 p.m.

The first Candidates Café Dialogue was held October 19, 2008, with 17 candidates for public office and 100 citizens participating. This second Dialogue aspires to host as many as 50 candidates and 250 citizens. This is an opportunity for candidates to converse with fellow citizens -- speaking and listening to each other -- about big issues that our region faces, such as water supply and quality; air quality; parks, trails & trees; mass transit; education for a dependable work force and green building.

Several of the Green and Democratic candidates on the Harris County ballot will be in attendance. This is a facilitated forum of candidates and citizens; there will be four rounds and each facilitator will manage a table of 4 or 5 people in a structured non-partisan format to discuss pre-determined questions. The facilitator will guide everyone at the table to speak, to listen and to share positive ideas on the issues. A more detailed description of the evening's events can be found here. A summary...

Our country is becoming increasingly polarized and unable to bridge our divisions to find real world, non-partisan solutions for the very complex problems we face.  Houston’s leaders have a history of coming together across political and ethnic divisions to build a thriving community.  That ability to work together is very much a part of the “can do” spirit that has built Houston.

The intense polarization and absence of civil discourse becomes even more evident during the campaign season preceding an election.   What if it were possible for political campaigns to elevate civil discourse? That question led to the idea of convening the first Candidate Café Dialogue, and continues to inspire us.

You are invited to join the discussion. RSVP at this link.

Republican Just Us in Harris County

Whether the charge is robbery, shoplifting or drug use, most people arrested in Harris County stay in jail because they can't afford to post bail.

That's largely because this conservative county and its judges have been reluctant to grant no-cost personal bonds that are increasingly popular in other large metropolitan areas in Texas, say attorneys, judges and those in the bail bond industry.

 "There's no good reason for it,'' said Mark Hochglaube, the trial division chief of the Harris County Public Defenders Office. "I can't speak for what they do in other counties, but I can tell you the general sense of the culture here is one that is opposed to pretrial release. I wish it weren't, but it's as basic as that."

Last year, just 5.2 percent of slightly more than 94,000 people arrested by Harris County police agencies got out of jail on no-cost personal recognizance bonds, according to a report by the Harris County Pretrial Services office. In July, 65 percent of the county's 9,133 inmates were pretrial detainees rather than convicted criminals serving sentences, according to the Office of Criminal Justice Coordination.

"That's disgustingly high," said Chris Tritico, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. "A lot of those people could be out working, supporting their families and awaiting their day in court. Just because you can't afford a lawyer and a bond, that doesn't make you guilty."

The best comment from that article follows.

We must have people committing crimes and being in jail. If we cut back on any of it, we would have thousands of lawyers, prosecutors, judges, bail bondsmen, police, jailers, prison guards, prison and jail management people, probation workers, parole supervisors and jail and prison suppliers out of work...the economy would be devastated. The Criminal Justice System is big business and fast growing.

More from the article.

(B)ond practices in Harris County force some innocent defendants to plead guilty because they'd rather accept a plea deal and a short sentence than spend months in jail waiting for a trial. In a few cases, he said, defendants have been held awaiting trial longer than the maximum sentence they could have received.

"It's not just a failure of the judges, the district attorney - it's everybody. It's a failure of the defense bar. Even good attorneys don't ask for a personal bond. Everyone is indoctrinated with the idea that if you are charged with a felony you're not going to get a PR bond," said Hochglaube.

That would even be true in the case of people charged with felonies who were framed by undercover police officers. Yes, some of those port protestors are still in county lockup, and have been since December.

Keep in mind that all of this results in overcrowded jails, which sends the Harris County Sheriff to Commissioners Court to request construction of additional detention facilities. Usually the voters are disinclined to approve bond issues for jail construction, as former city councilwoman Melissa Noriega noted here, so the problem persists. But when the bonds do get approved and the construction bids awarded, the pals of the commissioners with construction companies get real happy.

So it's a win for everybody involved in the criminal justice "industry"... except for, you know, justice.

Let's not overlook the fact that this is only the beginning. After the bonding (or not) and the trial come the convictions and the sentencing. The private prison system we have in Texas depends on corporations that have quarterly profit projections -- and stockholder demands -- to meet. This requires a steadily increasing flow of new "customers".

And the corporations running our prisons -- just like the bail bondsmen named Kubosh in the article -- must, in turn, keep contributing to the Republicans running for judgeships and sheriff and district attorney on a "tuff on crime" agenda to keep sending them those customers... by conning a gullible, poorly-informed, slow-witted base into voting for them. Over and over again.

There's a way to break this cycle. It starts by not voting for any Republicans.

I have already identified a few judges and a sheriff candidate whom you should vote for. I will present more qualified names in the coming days and weeks. And there will be plenty of Libertarians on your ballot if you simply can't bring yourself to vote for a Democrat.

Kuff and Grits have been on this case a lot longer than I have.