Wendy Davis introduces herself

In this campaign video, also released today.

Annise Parker isn't counter-punching any longer

She went on offense yesterday with the spot embedded below, airing it several times during the Sunday morning blabfest.



It's not a new ad; it was posted to Youtube a week ago. But her press conference at lunchtime today -- happening as this post goes live -- is the second of two punches she's landing against her leading challenger.

Mayor Annise Parker will be available to the media to discuss today’s Houston Chronicle story revealing that Ben Hall again has had to pay back taxes and penalties to the IRS. Hall agreed to pay $680,000 in January 2013.

Here's the Chron with the details on that.

Top mayoral challenger Ben Hall agreed to pay the IRS more than $680,000 in back taxes and penalties earlier this year, court documents show.

On Jan. 16, less than a week before Hall made his first campaign expenditures as a mayoral candidate, the challenger and his wife signed a document in U.S. Tax Court agreeing to pay $520,782 in back taxes and about $160,350 in penalties to cover four years of deficiencies, from 2005 through 2008. The amount was a little more than half of the $1.28 million the IRS claimed the Halls owed when it issued a formal "notice of deficiency" in June 2011.

Hall is going to pick up a few extra Republican votes with this response.

"It's clear there's no intent to hide or misrepresent revenue," Hall said. "The way I look at this is, I won because I sued them and I reduced their amounts and justified my conduct. I'm willing to live on that record. I'm going to pay exactly what I'm supposed to pay in taxes and I'm not going to let anybody bully me, especially not an IRS that's out of control."

The IRS did not respond to requests for comment due to the federal government shutdown.

Every one of the usual insider suspects the newspaper calls for reaction to these stories managed to curb-stomp Hall while he was down.

Democratic political consultant Mustafa Tameez said the case raises questions about Hall's ability to manage details, undercutting the challenger's criticism of Parker as a manager who lacks a grander vision.

"One way to look at it would be that many of the issues that Ben Hall has had regarding his taxes can individually be explained, and some of it is unfair to him," Tameez said. "The challenge he faces is that he has so many of these issues that now it looks like a pattern. There's a sense of carelessness on his personal finances that will make voters question his ability to manage the details of a city the size of Houston."

Republican communications consultant Jim McGrath said, "People understand accountants getting things wrong. You trust accountants to handle these matters because the tax code is such a monster. I'm sympathetic there, but when you put it in the broader fact pattern, it just raises that many more questions. One thing you don't need as a challenger coming up against an incumbent with a strong economy are doubts as to whether your own financial house is in order."

Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said the case either is a business lapse or an ethical one, neither of which helps Hall.

"In the best case, he did not do a particularly good job managing his business affairs, which is not a good attribute for a mayor, particularly in a strong mayor system, because the mayor is a chief executive and one of the mayor's jobs is to hire the right people and to manage those people," Jones said. "From the worst light, he was trying to avoid his fair share of taxes."

The odds for Parker clearing the field and avoiding a runoff just got a lot shorter.

An ACA showdown, a Cornyn fail, a D for Comptroller, and the Texas Libertarian slate

-- It's high noon here between the Poop Cruzers and the Affordable Healthcare Act supporters.

The ground war over Obamacare — the one that will determine whether people sign up — will be won and lost in places like Texas.

If Obamacare fails in the Lone Star State — that is, if a significant portion of the 6.1 million uninsured Texans don’t or can’t enroll — then the White House could miss its national enrollment targets, the new health insurance exchanges could falter and insurance rates could spike.

[...]

Advocates are banking on the idea that a grass-roots push in more liberal, urban areas of Texas, plus the demand among the uninsured to get health coverage, will overcome the state’s institutional opposition and deliver on the promise of Obamacare.

“Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle are doing as much as they can to make it difficult for this program to work,” state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Democrat from Houston and prominent supporter of the law, said as enrollment began a few days ago. He thinks the Republican strategy will backfire. “One more election cycle and all of this is going to go away,” he predicted.

I'm going to keep shouting out to my state senator to run against John "RINO" Cornyn next year.  Go read the whole article as always.  Here's more to tease you.

The best hope of Obamacare backers is to support the efforts of local allies in regions such as Houston, Dallas and Austin, the bluest areas of a deeply red state. That’s because these areas lean liberal and also have an existing network of progressive activists. The Obama administration sent Texas nearly $11 million — more federal grant money than any other state — to fund “navigators” who are trained and tasked with helping people through the sign-up process.

In Houston, with 1.4 million uninsured residents, city officials are modeling their efforts on hurricane-force emergency response to counter the adamant state opposition, said Stephen Williams, director of the Houston Department of Health and Human Services.

“We believe this effort is so critical that we have created an incident command structure,” Williams said. “This is the same structure that we use to respond to hurricanes and to respond to public health disasters.”

The city of Houston has provided free office space to Enroll America, a nonprofit group closely associated with the former Obama campaign that is now spreading the word about the health law. The city has provided at least 55 people to help residents enroll and created space for a phone bank. It has ordered public library computers to have links to enroll access and it’s even printing Obamacare information on local water bills “so the broader population can all be informed,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Ed Gonzalez, a Democrat.

-- Speaking of Corndog, he was humiliated by Bob Schieffer on Facepalm the Nation yesterday, and appeared to be completely oblivious to it.  There's video of the exchange at the link.  It's just laughably absurd to watch Cornyn parrot his talking points as Schieffer compared Republicans to colicky babies, and then gangsters.

Update: Cornyn's TV spot joined the flurry of campaign ads breaking today -- trumpeting his "Conservative" bonafides -- but the senior senator from Texas has already lost the race; Glenn Beck has informed Louie Gohmert that God wants him to run for the US Senate.

-- Mike Collier makes official his bid to be the state's Comptroller of Public Accounts.



Please, somebody tell the man how to pronounce the name of the office he's running for.

-- Texas Libertarians are once again fielding a full slate of candidates next year.

Saying that the current federal government shutdown and tensions between Republicans and Democrats have made Texans ready for a change in leadership, Libertarian Kathie Glass on Wednesday officially announced her candidacy in the 2014 governor’s race.

"We’re going to be active in every aspect of this race,” said Glass, a Houston lawyer who also ran for governor in 2010. “We are getting out there a lot sooner.”

Glass said she plans to visit every county in Texas during her campaign and will talk to Texans about their frustrations with the current state of affairs.

That's a page out of the David Van Os playbook.

“This shutdown is just a glimpse of what might happen,” Glass said at her Austin news conference, at which several other Texas Libertarian hopefuls also announced their candidacies. “Voters know that what they want they are not going to get from the two other parties, so we are looking forward to offering them this alternative from the Libertarian Party.”

Glass said her campaign would focus on the idea of nullification, a legal theory that a state can invalidate federal laws it finds unconstitutional. [...]

She said she would nullify the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and federal regulations on companies that lead them to ship jobs overseas to nations with laxer regulations.

More on the Libs down the ballot.

Her husband, Tom Glass, the vice chairman of the Texas Libertarian Party, announced at Wednesday’s news conference that he will be running for attorney general in 2014. He said he is running to battle unnecessary restrictions from the federal government.

“I will use the force of the office to stop unconstitutional federal acts in Texas,” Glass said, citing Obamacare, privacy laws, prison regulations and spending.

[...]

Other Libertarians who announced their candidacies Wednesday include journalist Brandon de Hoyos and Allen businessman Ed Kless, who are running for lieutenant governor; Lago Vista City Council member Ed Tidwell, who’s running for land commissioner; rancher Rocky Palmquist, who’s seeking to become agriculture commissioner; and Austin businessman Mark Miller, who’s running for railroad commissioner.

The Libertarians are always entertaining, and if Texans who vote in the GOP primary actually paid attention to them, they'd see that the Libs come closest to representing their isolationist, xenophobic views.

I simply don't think those voters are intelligent enough to figure that out, though.

Will Mostyn fund Medina?

Robert Miller.

An ancient Arabian proverb says the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The concept is that two parties, opposed in most respects, unite against a common opponent. In Texas, it has aligned Steve Mostyn, a passionate liberal and prolific contributor to Democrats, with Debra Medina, a libertarian Republican now contemplating a run for governor as an independent in 2014.

Mostyn began supporting Medina because she opposed Gov. Rick Perry in the 2010 Republican primary. Mostyn also created the Back to Basics PAC and contributed almost $4 million in 2010 to attack Gov. Perry.

I trust Miller's hunches and sources and instincts and whatever else he uses to blog with when it comes to Republicans. I have to question virtually everything he writes when it comes to Democrats; his track record is poor in that regard. He's actually trying to follow money that hasn't been donated (yet).

(A)ccording to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Medina “has received millions of dollars in pledges on the condition that she instead run for governor as an independent.” It doesn’t take a Rice graduate to figure out the source of those pledges. Steve Mostyn and his wife, Amber, are fervent backers of Sen. Wendy Davis and her gubernatorial campaign. It is a time-honored political tactic to entice other candidates into a race to siphon votes from the frontrunner, in this case Attorney General Greg Abbott.

I beat Miller to the punch on this last week, and the news first appeared over two weeks ago in the TexTrib, which credited Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report for breaking it.  Miller, then, is spitballing here by throwing the Mostyns' name in; they have a ton of money set aside for political causes, but they also have a lot of folks in line with funding requests in 2014 besides Davis.  There's BGTX and there will soon be LVDP and other Democrats on the statewide ballot in due time.  I don't think even Steve and Amber are made of that much green.

Speaking of Green, Miller's scolding of Medina rings extremely hollow considering that Republicans have ALWAYS played this "muck with the other primary" business, and his morality appears to have been misplaced during those times.  If you read those links you'll pick up on my own disgust with the tactic; I wasn't much of a Green at all until well after then.

I'm still convinced, as I wrote previously, that Medina wants Greg Abbott to tell his benefactors to cut her a fat check to keep her in the comptroller's race.

It would make a great deal of sense for the Mostyns to pledge money to Medina, if for nothing else than it seems to piss off Republicans.  So I actually hope I'm wrong and Miller is right (I mean correct).

Update: Miller has appended his post with an unequivocal denial from the Mostyns' representative.

I want to state unambiguously to you that your post claiming the Mostyns have committed financial or political support to Debra Medina -- should she choose to run for Governor in 2014 -- is incorrect.

To be clear, the Mostyns have not spoken with Ms. Medina about any campaign for any office in 2014. Neither they, nor I on their behalf, have suggested that they would provide any kind of financial or political support to Ms. Medina in a 2014 gubernatorial run.

The Weekly Wrangle

With the kickoff of the Wendy Davis for Governor campaign last week, a Houston mayoral debate coming this week, and a nice fall cool snap, the Texas Progressive Alliance is feeling pretty damn good about now as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff shared a personal story from a friend about how Obamacare and the insurance exchanges will make a big difference in his life.

In the Houston suburbs live some of the absolute worst conservatives in the United States, and the Associated Press found one and told his miserable story. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs knows that when Republicans can't tell the difference between soil and dirt, ignorance is the biggest hurdle to Wendy Davis' chances of being elected governor of Texas.

Texas Leftist knows that blame for the current government shutdown rests ENTIRELY on the GOP's shoulders. But just in case anyone is unsure, Rachel Maddow has an epic takedown as proof positive. Do today's Republicans even believe in government??

Neil Aquino wrote about militarized police at his new blog, All People Have Value. All People Have Value is part of Neil's new website, NeilAquino.com.

Noah Horwitz at Texpatriate began a series of intermittent updates on the state of the Texas governor's race. He published three this week, the first of which appeared last Wednesday.

David Dewhurst tries to obfuscate about the racist DPS checkpoints in the Valley. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme and every other sentient being in the Valley knows he spews BS.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw names names. It is on you, Ted . Give it a read.

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

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

John Coby invites Ted Cruz to join his new club.

Concerned Citizens wants to know what the 2014 election is going to be about.

Juanita introduces us to the next Republican member of Congress from Texas to make a fool of himself on TV.

New Media Texas posts video conversations with three Houston mayoral candidates.

Nonsequiteuse reminds us that there are many ways to volunteer for a campaign.

BOR analyzed Proposition 6, the water infrastructure amendment, as part of a series of analyses of the nine constitutional amendments on the ballot this year.

And finally, Blog con Queso published a recipe for Dr. Pepper sheet cake. Because you can't get any more Texas than that.

The difference between soil and dirt, explained for House Republicans

The thirty-two Republican Congress critters who have joined the kamikaze mission of Tail Gunner Ted Cruz in taking down the United States government include the following Texans:

John Carter, John Culberson, Louie Gohmert, Randy Neugebauer, Steve Stockman, and Randy Weber.

Their names come from the list James Fallows references.

Two more quick instances of the wanton damage that 30-odd legislators (named here) are doing to Americans at two levels: those running small businesses, and those working in the large research institutions on which so much of our long-term wealth and well-being depend.

And from there, Scott Slesinger of the National Resources Defense Council has this account from a virologist at an East Coast university.

Just don't get the flu next year and you will be OK. I happen to be vetted for a Federal committee that decides on which influenza antigens to use in next year's vaccine.  It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how fast this is going during The Shutdown.

[This researcher's lab is internationally recognized for having discovered two different viral causes of cancer, and yet] our research funding has been cut, a moving target, but somewhere between 10 and 25%.

I just received an email from one of my more talented post-docs who took a job at FDA as a scientist several years ago.  They couldn't hire him on as permanent science staff because of temporary hiring blocks, "The Sequester", and so forth.

Since they are no longer giving him a paycheck, he says to hell with it and he is looking for a job in private biotechnology.

The problem with Congressional Republicans is that they do not know the difference between soil and dirt.  If you put soil in your oven and bake it at 450 C for an hour, it turns into dirt.  It doesn't matter how much manure you throw on dirt, it won't become soil again.   It's dirt with shit on it.

Fallows, back with the moneyshot and the action item.

Like Robert Costa of National Review, whose reporting on the Republican hard-line faction has clarified why they are willing to wreak so much damage on so many fellow citizens, McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed has been very well sourced among Republicans. Read his account "Where Ted Cruz Is Coming From" for an understanding of how irrelevant any normal concept of "compromise," "leverage," or "public opinion" is with the hard-line faction. And also how contemptible John Boehner* is for protecting his own job, by catering to these people, at the costs of hundreds of thousands of jobs around the country. Coppins writes:

From its genesis in 2009, the Tea Party movement has been fueled by the rhetoric of revolution.... While Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle outraged mainstream political observers when she suggested people may start looking for “Second Amendment remedies” to the country’s problems, one recent survey showed that nearly half of Republicans believe armed insurrection might be necessary “in the next few years.”

Data points like those have long been Democrats’ bread and butter as they work to cast the Tea Party as “extreme.” But they also show just how extreme conservatives consider America’s current peril to be. To believe an armed revolution could realistically be on the horizon is to live with the genuine suspicion that your government could, at any point, be overtaken by tyranny. In that context, some temporary furloughs seem like a small price to pay....

[M]any Tea Party lawmakers view Obamacare as such a catastrophic threat to the country’s healthcare system and long-term economic health that it’s worth the high-stakes legislative brinksmanship to try to slow it down.

At least, that’s what they hear when they return to their districts.

* Why do I single out the affable-seeming Boehner for contempt? He obviously is not a Tea Party hardliner himself. And it is within his power to end this damage in a minute, simply by allowing the House to vote on a "clean" budget measure (which would pass). That would probably cost him his job as Speaker — but his failure to do so is costing many other people their jobs, not to mention longer-term effects.

Here's the list of Republicans in Congress who are willing to vote right now in favor of a clean CR.  (Note that no Texans appear on that list.)

This has gone beyond ludicrous and straight to Insane.

If the only constituents the Congressional conservative sociopaths are hearing from are themselves exclusively motivated by revolution at this point, then that is quite obviously at the crux of our national problem.  So you know all those e-mail appeals you're getting about telling Boehner to take a vote?  The ones that say 'Call your Congressman'?   Maybe it's time to do those things.  Again.  And tomorrow also.  Maybe the day after that, if this shutdown continues.

Besides the real physical danger Americans are facing, the economic ramifications are also swelling.  Republicans are supposed to be the party of business, and even the 1% are figuring out they're getting screwed... along with all the rest of us.

There needs to be a cost to the terrorists responsible (once more, their names are at the top of this post) for the damage being done -- indeed, the lives that will be lost -- due to their wanton irresponsibility.  That cost needs to be extracted now, and again in 2014.

We cannot continue to let the Dale Hulses of Harris County and Texas elect the kooks who run this great state and nation.

Updates (this morning):

Boehner says "not enough votes" for clean CR

GOP in grave danger of losing House in 2014, polls say