Headline, money graf

And my bold emphasis.

The Future of the Astrodome Finally Has Some Direction:

"If there's no private interest that has a reasonable financial backing, then on June 25th, the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation is to present their best idea of public use of the Dome to Harris County Commissioners Court and our capital improvements planning session. From that point, it will be in the hands of County Commissioners Court. It's very likely to require a bond election. That would be  presented to the voters, but I'm told we're not allowed to put options, so it will be a real clear, this is the best idea of what to do with the Dome. If you're not agreeable to this, then the Dome comes down. And all of that will be occurring in the next year or two years."

A Newspaper Monopoly That Lost Its Grip:

The much ballyhooed unmaking of daily newspapering seems to be unmaking itself, and there’s a reason for that. Most newspapers have hung onto the ancient practice of embedding prose on a page and throwing it in people’s yards because that’s where the money and the customers are for the time being. 

The industry tried chasing clicks for a while to win back fleeing advertisers, decided it was a fool’s errand and is now turning to customers for revenue. But in order to charge people for news, you have to prosecute journalism. 

 [...]

Newspaper publishing will never return to the 30 percent plus margins it once had, but some people believe there is a business model. Warren E. Buffett thinks that a 10 percent return is reasonable, now that sale prices have sunk.

No deaths reported in Washington state bridge collapse:

The collapse will require a detour, making travel between Seattle and Vancouver more difficult. But as we know from experience, it's unlikely to make Republicans in Congress say anything much more about infrastructure investment than "we can't afford it."

Why A Houston Leukemia Doctor Is Calling Out Drug Companies:

Q: Why is chronic myeloid leukemia a good example of a disease that could really benefit from affordable drugs?

A: Chronic myeloid leukemia was a fatal disease in the past. The average survival of patients was about three years. With these new drugs, chronic myeloid leukemia changed into an indolent disease, similar to diabetes. If the patients take the oral medicine on a daily basis, they could live their normal life. The problem is they have to spend $100,000 a year to stay alive.

Q: What should be done?

A: I think what we need to do is start a national discussion on this issue. Drug prices and cancer drug prices are the big elephant in the medical room. If cancer research is paid 80 percent by taxpayers’ money, and if most of the discoveries in cancer drugs are made in the United States, why is it that the U.S. patient pays almost twice the price of a cancer drug as they pay in Europe?

Voting is Not a Right:

Not according to the Supreme Court. In Bush v. Gore (2000), the Court ruled that “[t]he individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.” That’s right. Under federal law, according to the Supreme Court, if you are a citizen of the United States, you have a right to own a firearm that might conceivably be used in overthrowing the government. But you have no right to wield a vote that might be used to change the government by peaceful means.

Atlas Shrugged Off Taxes:

In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled.

In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years. The greater part of basic research, especially for technology and health care, has been conducted with government money. Even today 60 percent of university research is government-supported. Corporations use highways and shipping lanes and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business.

Yet as corporate profits surge and taxes plummet, our infrastructure is deteriorating. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $3.63 trillion is needed over the next seven years to make the necessary repairs.

States that rejected Medicaid also have most uninsured, poorest health:

Sadly, the states that have the greatest need to expand Medicaid also have the Republican leaders who are refusing to participate. ...

The residents of many of those states, those in the Deep South, would dearly love to see Medicaid expansion, a new survey suggests. Families USA polled in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina—all states where Republicans governors and legislatures have rejected the expansion—and found that 62 percent of respondents in those states support Medicaid expansion.

Nineteen House Democrats vote to take authority over Keystone XL decision away from the president:

Here are the Democrats who voted for pulling the president's authority to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

John Barrow (GA-12) Blue Dog
Sanford Bishop (GA-02) Blue Dog
Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
Jim Cooper (TN-05) Blue Dog
Jim Costa (CA-16) Blue Dog
Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Blue Dog
William Enyart (IL-12)
Al Green (TX-09)
Gene Green (TX-29)
Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15)
Sean Maloney (NY-12)
Sean Matheson (UT-04) Blue Dog
Mike McIntyre (NC-07) Blue Dog
Patrick Murphy (FL-18)
William Owens (NY-21)
Colin Peterson (MN-07) Blue Dog
Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Filemon Vela (TX-34)
John Yarmuth (KY-03)

Time for Holder to go

Attorney General Eric Holder personally signed off on the warrant that allowed the Justice Department to search Fox News reporter James Rosen's personal email, NBC News' Michael Isikoff reported Thursday.

The report places Holder at the center of one of the most controversial clashes between the press and the government in recent memory. The warrant he approved named Rosen as a "co-conspirator" in a leak investigation, causing many to warn that the Justice Department was potentially criminalizing journalism. The warrant also approved the tracking of Rosen's movements in and out of the State Department, as well as his communications with his source, Stephen Kim.

The Justice Department later said that it did not intend to press any charges against Rosen.

The attorney general is usually required to approve requests to search journalists' materials, but that rule does not extend to email records.

(Holder recused himself from the investigation into the Associated Press, meaning that he absolved himself of that responsibility.) Holder has previously said that he was not sure how many times he had authorized the search of journalists' records.

Fox still isn't 'news', but that's not the point. The DOJ has been spying on critics of all political persuasions for some time now.

As the Obama administration faces criticism for the Justice Department’s spying on journalists and the IRS targeting of right-wing organizations, newly released documents show how the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and local police forces partnered with corporations to spy on Occupy protesters in 2011 and 2012.

Detailed in thousands of pages of records from counter terrorism and law enforcement agencies, the spying monitored the activists’ online usage and led to infiltration of their meetings. One document shows an undercover officer was dispatched in Arizona to infiltrate activists organizing protests around the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),  the secretive group that helps corporate America propose and draft legislation for states across the country.

So as it happens, Eric Holder's Justice Department is an equal opportunity organization. If you're a-protestin', we're infiltratin'.

The mainstreamers are irate at the administration for this business and justifiably so. They are turning on Obama as a result. The long-awaited (by conservatives) end of the honeymoon is nigh. The fact that Medea Benjamin's protest during his drone clarification speech -- an attempt to distract from the week's bad headlines -- has been extensively covered is but one example.

I still encounter far too many Democrats who meet this description, but their fealty makes a difference to no one except them any longer.

The worst of the "scandals" swirling around the president goes away as soon as Eric Holder does. His departure is past due.

And the longer they wait, the worse it's going to get.

Update:

The left and the right now basically agree that Holder should go. The only reason I am not enthusiastically joining the chorus calling for Holder’s job is that I’m 90 percent certain that whomever replaces Eric Holder will be worse, both because of President Obama’s full support for Holder’s Justice Department thus far and because of the confirmation process. Obama isn’t going to nominate someone from the ACLU. Republicans (and hawkish Democrats) would block anyone who shows signs of being even slightly less awful on civil liberties.

Obama will still probably stand by his AG, who, let’s remember, was already held in contempt by the Republican House in a previous bit of GOP overreach that left Holder “zen-like” in his response to all criticism. The president has stood by Holder this long. We’ve seen how Barack Obama’s Good Liberal respect for the sacred craft of journalism left him once he had to deal with journalists. The president seems to value loyalty and discipline (including the discipline not to leak shit to the press) more than journalism. I wouldn’t mind being wrong, but Holder’s job is probably safe, as long as he wants to keep it.

A redistricting special session

Being on vacation for a week -- and now tending to a death in the family -- has left me unprepared to comment on current events. This post yesterday afternoon, however, by Harvey Kronberg is worth mentioning.

COULD IMMEDIATE REDISTRICTING SPECIAL SESSION LEAD TO MORE PROLONGED LITIGATION?

Abbott argues interim maps judicially approved; minority plaintiffs say process confirms intentional discrimination

It is an increasingly common article of faith that Governor Perry will call the Legislature back into a redistricting special session on May 29, two days after sine die.  Any number of other issues could be added to the call but Attorney General Greg Abbott’s clear message for months has been that the Legislature needs to endorse the interim maps, preferably before the Supreme Court rules on the Shelby case (expected in late June) which could determine whether or not Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act survives.

May 29 also happens to be the day the three judge federal panel in San Antonio has ordered a status hearing on Texas redistricting maps in order to prepare for the 2014 elections.  They have instructed lawyers to be prepared to argue whether or not evidence from the DC case should be admitted into evidence in the San Antonio case and whether the record should be supplemented with more current demographic and election data.
  

The three judge panel in DC unanimously concluded that Texas had intentionally discriminated against minorities in drawing the 2011 maps.

Apparently Greg Abbott is putting in a little extra work.

The linchpin of Republican control of the US House of Representatives is their dominance of state legislatures --- and the maps they draw -- which is one of the great algae blooms from the GOP's Red Tea Tide in 2010. Without the most odious gerrymandering, legislatures (and governors) in blue states like Wisconsin and Michigan wouldn't be able to accomplish what they have. What Abbott understands better than nearly everyone on his team is that the GOP is the besieged at the Alamo in terms of electoral inexorability. His lawsuits against the federal government only delay the day that the Republican party falls down in Texas, and fails to get up nationally for a generation or more.

But, as with the weekly Congressional vote to overturn Obamacare, he must keep fighting the good fight.

If the SCOTUS upholds VRA, then it's just back to the drawing board for everybody. But if they bag it, then the GOP can dig their little claws into the landscape for the rest of the decade.

If you think about it, it's really the only chance they have left to avoid going extinct on a national level.

Update: Kuffner with more.

Taosmosis

n. - An altered state of consciousness derived from high elevations, crisp pine-scented air, jaw-dropping vistas, and a laptop that hasn't been opened in a week.*

When we last visited New Mexico (at almost exactly this time five years ago) it was difficult to return home to foul humid air, crowded freeways, and the rat race. It was even harder this time, because now we know we're going to retire there, not too many years from now.

My brother's vacation home in Red River afforded us the opportunity to get away and so we took it. It's a quick two-hour flight to Albuquerque and about three and half more driving north, through Santa Fe, Espanola, Taos, and Questa before arriving in the little Swiss-themed ski hamlet in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, foothills to the Rockies. Having spent much time in Santa Fe on previous trips, we decided to focus on exploring Taos, and weren't disappointed.

First, the little slice a' heaven in RR.

Temperatures during our time dipped into the high 20's at night and nosed up over 70 during the day. Humidity ranged between 5-15%.

The deer, who come down from the mountains in-between houses to forage and graze at dusk.




A drive around the Enchanted Circle, and a stop at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Angel Fire.

In Taos, the Gov. John Bent house and museum and the Kit Carson home and museum. And then the cemetery where the famed mountain man/tormenter of the Navajo is buried, beside his wife Josepha.

This short snip of video from the museum has one of the man's great-great-great- grandsons portraying him.

The Rio Grande River Gorge bridge (where our friend Bob Wells had his ashes scattered a couple of years ago). This is a good video. My acrophobia kept me from venturing too far out onto the bridge.

A few shops, a few galleries.

Posole and blue corn enchiladas smothered in green chile at Doc Martin's inside the Taos Inn. A Moroccan shrimp salad at Graham's Grille. A pulled brisket burrito at Orlando's.

A little gambling -- slots and Preakness -- at Buffalo Thunder.

Some other interesting Taos sightings.



A last night on the Old Town Square in Albuquerque, at the famous Bottger Mansion bed and breakfast.

Can't wait until we can go back to stay.

*Yes, this is plagiarized and revised advertising copy.

Eric Dick, Republican, running for mayor

Charles has the official campaign announcement. Oh, what fun it is to be a blogger now.

There will be plenty of opportunities for crude double entendre' later. My first (serious) reaction was, "Annise Parker might find herself in a runoff". Probably not against Eric Dick any more than she would Don Cook, but possibly Ben Hall.

This seems to set up as a perfect redux of 2009. I just can't tell if it is Cook or Dick that's playing the role of Peter Brown. The best news, however, is that I will have plenty to blog about without ever having to mention this race.

The only thing that could make the mayoral contest more comically bad is if Dick hired Marc Campos to run his "campaign". If that should happen, I have a slogan all ready, and I offer it at no charge: "Two for the Price of One!"

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is counting down the minutes until sine die as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff comments on another Battleground Texas story, and what it says about how the organization is doing so far.

The state has plenty of money and the GOP is still gutting government. That's why WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that this is a golden opportunity for them, in The oath or a pledge.

McBlogger asks if it's a good idea to ask the 'rich' to forego Social Security.

Angelina Jolie's killer boobs, the walking dead in the Texas Lege, and Ted Cruz killing off the Republican party. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wonders if Dia de los Muertos came early this year.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw gives us the big picture on Texas and national party politics. Check out: Texas is One BF Deal.

====================

And here are some more posts of interest from Texas blogs.

Open The Taps explains what they did not get accomplished this session with the craft beer bills, and which they plan to address again next session.

Letters from Texas says we need less judgment and more truth in the matters that are now dominating the news headlines.

Texas Clean Air Matters warns that it is too soon to remove Texas City from the air pollution watch list.

Juanita Jean at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon laments that some political endorsements just aren't worth what you'd think.

Nonsequitesue has some role models for charity.

Texas Leftist reconsiders Houston Mayor Annise Parker as a role model for GLBT rights.

Texpatriate looks forward to Rick Perry peeing in a cup.

Amy Valentine discovers that Amazon has a strange definition of "erotica".

Jason Stanford connects the dots between high-stakes testing and cheating scandals.

BOR writes that Big Tobacco is on the verge of snuffing out its smaller competitors in Texas.

The Bloggess reminds us that we don't need a giant corporation to teach our kids what strong women look like.

Sunday Funnies

Regular posting resumes in short order.