Sunday Funnies

Matt Angle sticks up for David Alameel

The Lone Star Project defends the dentist's contributions... by not mentioning his large checks to Republicans.

As many people know, David Alameel, who is currently running for the Democratic nomination to oppose US Senator John Cornyn, has been a generous contributor to the Lone Star Project. As a result, a number of people have asked us questions about his political contribution history.

The Lone Star Project reviewed the Alameel contributions to Democrats since 2008. As you can see from the chart below, Dr. Alameel has been very supportive and generous to Democratic candidates and organizations and certainly ranks as one of the largest Democratic donors in Texas.

We hope this information is helpful to individuals and members of the press as they follow the Alameel campaign.

Thank you, Matt.  That thick layer of gloss was helpful.  But Maxey Scherr's e-mail, detailing Dr. Alameel's contributions to John Cornyn -- and David Dewhurst and Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch and the National Republican Senatorial Committee and about a hundred other Republican politicians and organizations for several years prior to 2008 -- was more helpful.

Normally I would be supportive of any Republican who came to their senses and abandoned the party, especially one who has done so since Barack Obama was first elected.  That is a trend line -- particularly in Texas -- which has creeped in the opposite direction, as both polling and election results over the past five years have revealed.  And David Alameel's campaign donations since 2008 have been large, frequent, and to Democrats everywhere.  But in 2012 he decided that he wanted not to just own the team, but play quarterback.  (Not even Jerry Jones, Alameel's Dallas neighbor, is that stupid.)  Angle is hoping for a repeat of the last cycle, where the good doctor spends lots of money trying to secure the Democratic nomination, and after he fails, continues to sign lots of big checks to many other Democrats.  Alameel has bragged about his magnanimity to the foe who vanquished him in the Congressional race two years ago, Marc Veazey.

And while an e-mail from Alameel's campaign sent recently to the TDP database of of potential D voters contains a strong declaration of support for Roe v. Wade, Dr. Alameel 's actions suggest a conflict with full support for a woman's right to choose.  I am much more concerned with Alameel's involvement with "pro-life" (sic) organizations and state representatives than I am with how many months Wendy Davis lived in a trailer park, or whether she was 19 or 21 when her first divorce was finalized.  Perhaps someone working for Texas media can write a penetrating expose' about that. (Watch the ten-minute video at that link, please.)

But the bigger problem is that the Texas Democratic Party has affixed their blinders so that they see "mo' money", and not the issues and their policies, as key to victory in 2014.  I disagree with that.  I'm not a big fan of Dr. Alameel's lingering duplicity on abortion, but I'm even less fond of oligarchs, no matter which of the two major political parties they belong to.

The money needs to be removed from our political system.  Full stop.  But like crack to an addict, getting the junkies to voluntarily kick the habit is the hardest part.  The best way -- the only way, for the immediate future -- that I see to move the needle is not to vote for the rich people, or the people the rich people write checks to.

Yes, there will be lots of sulking consultants and pouting politicos.  To paraphrase Mayor Annise Parker, they can get over it.

A furiously busy week to be a political pundit

And not only if you're trying to keep up with all the bilge being spewed at Wendy Davis by Republicans.  But since nobody in Texas wants to hear anything about Chris Christie and his Texas prison deal, or Bob McDonnell, or Mike Huckabee, or even Dinesh D'Souza, then let's go with the (septic tank's) flow.

Peggy Fikac swallows the same GOP hook, line, and sinker that Wayne Slater bit on, and now she's flailing around in the bottom of the bucket with him.

Sen. Wendy Davis was back on defense Thursday after a conservative group released a video purportedly showing her supporters making disrespectful comments about her expected general-election foe, Attorney General Greg Abbott, using a wheelchair.

Davis, D-Fort Worth, quickly released a statement condemning as "abhorrent" the language in the video distributed by controversial conservative activist James O'Keefe, known for selective editing of videos critics call deceptive. The footage appeared to include a meeting of volunteers for Battleground Texas, a group closely tied to the Davis campaign.

It was another day of Davis responding to criticism in a week that started with intense scrutiny of her background, which she has described in shorthand fashion as a journey from a 19-year-old single mother in a trailer park to graduation from Harvard law school.

You would also have expected the Texas Tribune to take this bait.  And the pushback is under way.  It's a pity that anybody is willing to believe anything on a video submitted by James O'Keefe at this point,  but hey, the corporate media hates being called 'librul' just as much as conservatives enjoy calling them that, so whaddya gonna do?

I'll say it again: this right-wing bullshit avalanche is not doing much of anything to sway independents to vote Republican.  It is meant to plant seeds of doubt in the mushy minds of low-information voters.  It may succeed in that endeavor.  What we once assumed about vile personal attacks depressing voter turnout turns out not to be the case.  But if Republicans can fling everything they can think of at the wall, and have some of it stick, thus keeping Texas voter turnout at abysmally low levels... they can prevail.  As they have in Texas for a generation.

This once again demonstrates the steep hill Battleground Texas must climb.  And while there are some Republicans who understand where this is leading their party, they're deep in the closeted minority.

As far as Wendy Davis supporters saying mean things about Greg Abbott being confined to a wheelchair goes, I've got all you could ever want.  I'm just disappointed that little douchenozzle O'Keefe can't find the stones to link to me.  But then doctored video seems to be his fairly exclusive thing.  Poor dumb Greg has tried to draw attention to those posts, but nobody pays him any mind.  (Greg: try #tcot. I understand that helps sometimes.)

And I'm going to keep plugging away at the despicable sociopath and modern-day fascist that is Wheelchair Ken (or Coathanger Ken, if you prefer) just as long as RWNJs keep saying things like "AB", "golddigger", and "liar".  And I doubt that the legacy media is ever going to write a story about all the nasty shit the right-wing freaks have already said and written about Wendy Davis, and I doubt that Davis will have to disavow my support, since I'm kind of a Greenie anyway.  And if there are any Democrats who think it's mean to say that Greg Abbott's conscience and empathy are as withered and useless as his two legs, then they don't remember the lessons Lloyd Bentsen taught them.

If there are any cringing liberals who don't want to play politics the way conservatives play it, then they can go play Candy Crush.  I'll punch back for them.

Update: Nobody does it like Wonkette does it.  And Socratic Gadfly has more on the week in Texas politics that was.

Keystone XL lets it flow

It was declared dead, it came back to life.  Let's call it Zombie Pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline runs under Julia Trigg Crawford’s North Texas farm. It’s been carrying crude for over a month. But (this past Wednesday) business is scheduled to open in earnest on the controversial pipeline, with oil flowing from Cushing, Oklahoma to refineries in Texas. That’s why she’s worried about an “unusual flurry of activity” she noticed over the weekend.

“Track hoes, skids, water trucks, electrical trucks and construction crews showed up,” Crawford tells StateImpact Texas. “They unearthed the pipeline, attached wires and sensors, wrapped it in something and then covered it up.”

She says TransCanada  — the company that owns the pipeline — later told her it was installing heat sensors. (Representatives from TransCanada did not respond to an interview request by deadline). ...

[...]

At peak capacity, the pipeline will deliver 830,000 barrels of oil per day to Gulf Coast refineries. Supporters of the project argue that pipelines are the safest means of transporting oil, and say it will provide a boost to the economy. Opponents have fought it over concerns for the environment and land rights issues among other things.

Now, as the Obama administration continues to consider whether to allow the northern leg of the project, which crosses an international border and is subject to presidential approval, the perception of how the southern pipeline operates may be of even greater importance. Crawford hopes the president is now looking at “data” on the pipeline and saying, “‘Wait a minute, there aren’t as many jobs that are being generated, this is an export pipeline, there are threats to our waterways,’” Crawford says. “You know, we need to see what significant impacts to our environment it has.”

Despite the stalling by he Obama administration, the filthy dirty tars sands oil has been coming anyway to the Texas refineries, the only ones that can process it into marketable petroleum products.  It's been coming by rail from Canada -- along with highly volatile Bakken shale oil from North Dakota -- then offloaded at Cushing's vast storage facilities, and now it's moving into the pipeline, oozing its way south and then out of it in Houston and Port Arthur.

The dangers associated with the rail shipments, which have made a lot of headlines recently, is ironically brightening KXL's future.  If you're inclined to believe a bought-and-paid-for US Senator, that is.

A government warning about the dangers of increased use of trains to transport crude oil is giving a boost to supporters of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline.

U.S. and Canadian accident investigators urged their governments Thursday to impose new safety rules on so-called oil trains, warning that a "major loss of life" could result from an accident involving the increasing use of trains to transport large amounts of crude oil.

Pipeline supporters said the unusual joint warning by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada highlights the need for Keystone XL, which would carry oil derived from tar sands in western Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Oil started flowing Wednesday through a southern leg of the pipeline from Oklahoma to the Houston region.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said the yearslong review of Keystone has forced oil companies to look for alternatives to transport oil from the booming Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana to refineries in the U.S. and Canada. A planned spur connecting Keystone to the Bakken region would carry as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

"Clearly because this project has been held up, that is creating more (oil) traffic by rail," Hoeven said Thursday. "Those companies are being forced to deliver their product by rail because they don't have the pipelines."

Clearly not, Senator.

"It's disingenuous for supporters of Keystone XL to suggest that if we (open) Keystone, we won't have safety risks posed by crude-by-rail, and if we don't built the pipeline we will" have those risks, said Anthony Swift, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council who has studied the Canadian tar sands.

Shipment of oil by train is likely to continue, whether or not Keystone XL is approved, Swift and others said, as companies seek to capitalize on an oil boom that has pushed North Dakota to become the second-largest oil producing state after Texas.

So there you have it. "Fuck you America, we got money to make selling gasoline to China, so we're jamming this pipeline through, and your kids can just get leukemia and die.  Oh, and fuck Al Gore and his climate change, too."

"We don't care about your protests, we don't care about no laws, and we damn sure don't care about no stinking environment.  We got quarterly projections to meet and bonuses to make and stockholders to be accountable to, and besides the price of politicians is going up.  So there's all that.  Now GTF out of our way; we're the oil bidness.  Nobody jacks with us.  Nobody."

Maxey Scherr vs. David Alameel *updated*

This remains the top fight on the card in the US Senate Democratic tilt.  It was just ten days ago (!) that Wendy Davis waded into a quiet primary and endorsed Alameel, surprising and disappointing a few of us pundits.

Davis did not mention abortion rights, the issue that was the focus of her 13-hour filibuster in 2013. That, and past contributions that Alameel has made to Republican candidates, has prompted some activists to question his commitment to abortion rights.

Not just that.  There was no mention of Alameel's position on women's reproductive freedom on his Senate website, either.  And his 2012 Congressional website had been taken down, and there were mumblings about an anti-choice YouTube from that campaign.

Then a week ago, Scherr pushed back.  Then, day before yesterday, and in the midst of the Republican eruption over Wendy Davis' life story, Alameel revised and extended his remarks on several issues, including women's right to choose.  Then yesterday...

On Wednesday, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade ... Alameel sent out a letter highlighting his support for a woman's access to abortion and decrying "the continued Republican attacks on choice."

And Scherr pushed back again.

Scherr added in a phone interview that she is skeptical of Alameel's current commitment to abortion rights.

“If he’s for these things, how come he’s given $1.6 million to the candidates and causes that have fought to block choice for women?" she said.

When asked about Scherr's claim, the campaign released the following statement:

“David Alameel is a longtime, proud pro-choice Democrat and strong supporter of Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court set as the law of the land decades ago. It’s unfortunate that some politicians feel the need to fling baseless accusations at fellow Democrats to score political points instead of working together to highlight Senator John Cornyn’s extreme, anti-choice record in Washington.”

The other candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination are getting drowned out in this wave of earned media by Scherr and Alameel.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in one case.

Along with Alameel and Scherr, three other Democrats are running for U.S. Senate: businessman Michael Fjetland, Odessa physician Harry Kim and Kesha Rogers of Houston, a LaRouche candidate who favors the impeachment of President Obama.

While it would certainly be a smorgasbord of schadenfreude for the media, not to mention a boon for the third party candidates on the November ballot -- which include the Green, Emily Sanchez, one of three Libertarians, and the four independents -- if Steve Stockman and Kesha Rogers were the duopoly nominees, that would be a pretty horrifying development for Texans generally.

As mentioned at the end of this, Scherr and Fjetland appear to be the two most qualified Democrats to move on to a runoff.  And Dr. Alameel is welcome to continue making his generous contributions from the sidelines of the arena, and not from the playing field.

Update: Via Socratic Gadfly, Dr. Alameel is a member of the Catholic Foundation's Advisory Board.  The board gave a significant grant last year (.pdf) to the Catholic Crisis Pregnancy Centers/Birthchoice.  That organization -- the one in Dallas, where the foundation is also headquartered -- is quite obviously not a women's clinic where pregnancy termination is an option.

Crisis pregnancy centers generally are not known for their pro-choice initiatives.  I suppose if I were an enterprising journalist, my first question of Dr. Alameel might be: is there any internal conflict between the advisory board's awarding of this grant and your pro-choice views?

Update II: Alameel also lists the two most pro-life Democratic state representatives in the Texas House, Ryan Guillen and Joe Pickett, as endorsees.  If Alameel is so strongly pro-choice... then that must have something to do with money.  What do you think?

The last words

Oh, there will be more sewage flushed out by the conservative slime machine, but it will soon flow into the gutter and on out to the Gulf.  The infrastructure built to quickly lance the right-wing boils and clean out the pus and infection from the body politic has improved significantly since the days of the Swift Boat attacks, and even since the birth certificate bullshit morphed into l'affaire Bengazee'.

Just short excerpts.

Peggy Fikac of the San Antonio Express-News suggested Tuesday that Team Abbott has pitched reporters on a version of the story. “Abbott’s campaign has questioned details and pointed out discrepancies in the story she tells of her life,” Fikac wrote.

The ex- is not going there.

Wendy Davis' second ex-husband, Jeff Davis, says he doesn't want to talk any more about his ex-wife, adding he wasn't pleased with the explosive debate that originated from his recent comments about the Texas gubernatorial candidate.

"Despite our differences, Wendy would make a very capable governor," he said Tuesday in an email response, in which he declined a request for an on-camera interview with CNN.

"Certain comments seem to always be taken out of context and the firestorm of Facebook/hashtag stuff is not useful for forming opinions," he added.

And the truth is winning out.

Reframe it around a man. And here's the interpretation: Can you believe the sacrifices he made for his family, to get his degree, and lift them out of their situation? Lived in a mobile home a few months, lived with his mother, lived in a small, cheap apartment, went into debt, paid off his loans, endured long weekends to make sure he was involved in the raising of his children while reading the law, and managed to eventually become a Texas State Senator and run for governor. The marriage didn't survive but the couple separated amicably and continued to raise their children together and still have mutual respect. Who is this great man?

You would think that if Wendy Davis were actually were a liar, then conservatives would not just overlook it but praise it, as they did when Nixon lied about being a crook, when Reagan lied about not knowing anything about Iran/contra, when W lied about WMD, when Christie lied about not knowing about GWB lane closures...

When have conservatives ever had a problem with lying?

That hypocrisy just won't fly either.  But maybe we can convince it to crawl back down into the sewer, where it lives.

Update: The Inanity of Sanity has more. And also Jack.

Nobody likes Barry Smitherman

It's not just the residents of Azle and elsewhere in Frackland, but also the media and even a few Republicans.  Let's see what's troubling the Texas Railroad Commissioner who wants to be Attorney General now.

The North Texas citizens at the Texas Railroad Commission hearing (yesterday) morning tried to make it as simple as possible: For as long as anyone could remember, there hadn’t been earthquakes in Azle and surrounding areas. Then the fracking boom took off and the wastewater injection wells went in. Soon the earthquakes started, more than 30 in just the past few months, rattling homes and nerves. A considerable amount of research, including work by SMU scientists, links wastewater injection wells to earthquakes.

“No disrespect, but this isn’t rocket science here,” said Linda Stokes, the mayor of Reno, a small town 20 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth. “Common sense tells you the wells are playing a big role in this.”

[...]

People in the Azle area have grown increasingly angry at the Texas Railroad Commission, which has pledged to hire a seismologist to study the issue, but has refused to shut down the suspect injection wells. Almost 1,000 people attended a raucous Jan. 2 meeting in Azle, organized by Railroad Commissioner David Porter. Residents asked the commission for a 90-day moratorium on wastewater injections in the Azle area—a call reiterated today.

[...]

But commissioners, including Republican Chairman Barry Smitherman, who is running for Texas attorney general, made it clear that they have no plans to do so. Smitherman mentioned several times today that two of the suspect injection wells closest to the quake epicenter in Azle have seen reductions in the amount of fluids injected even as earthquake activity continues.

“If it had ramped up and continued to ramp up, then that might’ve been the culprit,” Smitherman said. Smitherman seemed to be suggesting that the frequency of earthquakes is linked to the rate of fluid injection. However, as NPR-StateImpact Texas has reported, the more important factor may be the cumulative total of wastewater injected.

While touting the benefits of fracking—and standing behind a weirdly technical definition of fracking to avoid making a connection between the hydraulic fracturing process and the disposal of the wastewater that results—Smitherman would promise only to study the issue more.

“We are still investigating the connection, we want to find out what the connection is, if any,” he said. “Once we find out, then we can hope to take additional steps.”

That's not going to fly in rural Texas in GOP primary season, Bare.  Nobody cares how whipped the frackers have you with their big checks; you're going to have to do something besides stall.

Here's video of him fending off a press corps that smelled bullshit yesterday.



Our pal TXSharon at BlueDaze covers fracking as her exclusive beat, and her posts are worth reading, reviewing, and referencing.

This is a plenty hot enough fire for him, but as it turns out Smitherman has a few resume' issues of his own.  For that, we go to Big Jolly.  Read the whole thing; this is an excerpt from the end.

So when Smitherman says he put “bad people in jail”, he isn’t lying. Because five men did spend a few days in jail after Smitherman prosecuted them for Misdemeanor crimes.

But Johnny Holmes he ain’t (for those not familiar with Holmes, he is a legend at the HCDAO). Smitherman never prosecuted a single felony in his short time at the HCDAO.

Why is Smitherman exaggerating his split-second as a prosecutor and refusing to talk about his 17 years as a banker? That’s a question for another day.

Look, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t know any of the candidates. Smitherman lives in Austin and his two opponents in North Texas. I just knew something wasn’t right about Smitherman’s statements, so I went looking for the truth.

And the truth is that if we as Republicans are going to dissect Wendy Davis’ life story and find exaggerations and omissions here and there, and make them into campaign issues to try and disqualify her in the minds of voters, we’d probably better look at our own candidates. And Barry Smitherman can’t pass that test. And yes, I’ve tried to contact that mysterious woman that supposedly looked Smitherman in the eye and silently thanked him for convicting her boyfriend – I haven’t been successful yet but I’ll keep trying. Because something about that doesn’t feel right either.

Dave, Wikipedia says Smitherman got fired from his job as a banker... which is probably why he doesn't like to talk about it.

Smitherman began a career in banking, and rose to become the head of Bank One's national municipal finance group before he was fired in April 2002. Bank One's stated reason for the termination was that Smitherman had failed to get company approval before he co-authored an opinion column in the Houston Chronicle with two Houston city council members, in which the authors discussed how the city could improve its credit rating. In January 2003, Smitherman became a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s office, and in May 2003 Perry named him to the board of the Texas Public Finance Authority.

Barry Smitherman is by far the worst of another terrible lot of Republicans running for statewide office in 2014, so I won't be sad if he doesn't clear the primary.  Then again, maybe he's the perfect conservative for Sam Houston to run against in the fall, in a Ken Cuccinelli sort of way.  You never can tell.

Pics or it didn't happen, General Abbott

AG @GregAbbott_TX stands up against lesbian Houston Mayor in briefs http://t.co/ePBYDtFmEB #txlege #marriage #txcot #onemanonewoman

— Texas Values (@txvalues) January 21, 2014

Update: Joe the Pleb at Burnt Orange Report started it.

You want vile?

Texas Republicans have it for you.  I don't think it's convincing anyone to vote for Greg Abbott, and the Davis campaign will use it to focus their efforts in voter registration and fundraising.

More importantly, I don't think the smears will result in Davis losing support, either.  It's just another Swift Boat/birth certificate/"soshulism" screech that is all the opposition can muster any longer.

Here's some assembled reading that is more on target than anything conservatives are saying...

-- Jonathan Tilove at the Austin Statesman spends a little time whining about being scooped by Wayne Slater.  Once you get past that, he has a good aggregate of how the press has reacted to the story this week.  Here's the right question (almost at the very end):

Will all of this have any longterm impact -  positive or negative (because it appears to be energizing both supporters and detractors) - on Davis' chances of becoming governor?

He has a few clues before and after that.

-- Patti Kilday Hart dangit, Lisa Falkenberg at the Chron, also with the right perspective.

A few confessions today.

I'm not a fifth-generation Texan, as I've long claimed. My paternal grandmother informed me awhile back that she believes I'm sixth-generation on her side.

I didn't correct the record because I didn't want dueling claims out there. I regret the error.
When doctors' forms ask the dates of my various surgical procedures, I sometimes just guess. I regret the error.

In a June 2009 column, I wrote that, after my father got laid off when I was a girl, we "lost our house." My mother later explained we sold the house to avoid losing it. Figuratively, the claim was still true from my perspective. One day, we had our own house with a big backyard. Next, we were squeezed into an apartment. Still, I regret the error.

Coming from me, a humble newspaper columnist, you might accept all of the above as innocent inaccuracies that have caused no harm.

Coming from a politician running for, say, governor, they'd be fodder for attack ads and angry blog posts, proof at long last that I was a lying, scheming, spineless climber who would stop at nothing to win higher office. Conflicting genealogical claims would lead some to doubt my Texan heritage altogether. False dates on medical reports would show a plot to deceive voters about my health and physical ability to carry out the job. Wrongly implying that my family had endured foreclosure would be a biographical embellishment shamefully devised to appeal to working-class Texans.

I've had the same thing happen, and so has everybody else, particularly if you have ever done any genealogy.  Turns out my grandmother's favorite breakfast wasn't brains and eggs, like I thought, though she enjoyed it often.  And I grew up believing that my maternal grandfather was a train conductor, when he actually was a fireman on the caboose.

You know, 'lost in translation' stuff.  I guess we're all liars (especially conservatives).

-- It's a good thing Wendy Davis' consultant, Karin Johanson, has a handle on this kind of thing.  No more "oops" moments would be necessary for the next nine months, though.  Davis has to run a perfect campaign from here on out to pull off the upset.  And I do mean perfect.

Updates from Wendy Davis, Jerry Patterson and more

-- I agree with Pall Burka that Wendy Davis' "problems" -- or "resume' issues", as Chris Cilliza at the Washington Post put it -- can be easily fixed.  But she's going to have to fire Matt Angle and a few other people and hire some DC professionals to fix it.  Meanwhile, there is at least one conservative who questions the value of the smearing that is going on.

I signed Davis' letter and gave her more money today.

-- Jerry Patterson is the only Republican LG candidate not running on a "Kill the Ill Eagles" plank.  Strangely enough, in his TV commercial with an appeal to Latino tolerance, he calls them Tejanos.  It should be interesting to see how both this strategy and this particular tactic work out for him. 

-- Better Texas Blog has the day one play-by-play from the school finance lawsuit.

Last year the Texas school finance system was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it is inadequate, inequitable, and inefficient. This week, State District Judge John Dietz has reopened evidence in the case to determine if actions made by the 2013 Texas Legislature resulted in any substantial changes to the school finance system.

The primary plaintiffs in the case argued that though the Texas Legislature took a step in the right direction, with a partial restoration of funding, it was too small a step and huge funding disparities still exist between property poor and property wealthy districts. As the Equity Center’s lawyer Rick Gray, who Texas Tribune reporter Morgan Smith quotes in her story, said, “Any and all funding changes are temporary at best. There is absolutely no requirement they be in existence beyond the year 2015…It was an exceedingly small step in the right direction.”

The plaintiffs were also quick to point out that the legislature made a conscious to not study the costs of its education requirements. The House version of the 2014-15 budget contained a rider (provision) that required a re-examination of the cost-of-education index and the weights and allotments within the current school finance formulas. This rider was stripped from the budget before finale passage.

As our post-legislative session analysis of public education funding in the 2014-15 budget explains, the Legislature failed to undo the harm caused by the unprecedented 2011 cuts, which disproportionately affect economically disadvantaged public school students. These cuts, among other inequities, led Judge Dietz to originally rule Texas’ school finance system unconstitutional early last year. (Reread our statement on Judge Dietz’s original ruling here).

The State is sticking by its original argument that the school finance system is and has been constitutional.

As Charles posted this morning, the case will eventually return to the Supremes, and nothing is likely to get resolved before the next legislative session convening in January, 2015.  With a new governor, and perhaps a new lieutenant governor, and more known about how funding public education might occur than we know today.

Update: David Alameel is finally out of the closet on women's reproductive freedom.  From my inbox this afternoon...

As your senator, I’ll wake up every day fighting to restore economic fairness and reform our government by:

Withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan and redirecting the hundreds of billions we are spending there to rebuild America by investing in good jobs, good schools and protecting Social Security and Medicare.

Investing in a quality education for all Texas’ children, not just the privileged few.

Growing our economy by creating good paying jobs in Texas, raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay for equal work and protecting the rights of union workers;

Standing up to Wall Street corporations and millionaires by making them pay their fair share, closing unfair tax loopholes and ending offshore tax shelters.

Stopping any attempts to privatize or cut Social Security and Medicare.

Protecting Roe v. Wade from right wing extremists who want government to interfere in women’s health care decisions.

Passing comprehensive immigration reform that is humane, respectful of our laws and provides a responsible roadmap to citizenship.

Fighting for marriage equality.

These policy positions are all good enough for me, but I will still be supporting either Maxey Scherr or Michael Fjetland in the primary.

The non-Wendy Davis Wrangle

I'm confident there will be more conservative poutrage in their full-court press to try and stretch out the not-so-much-a-story for another day.  The rest of us can move on.

-- Dewhurst: Texas teachers are paid "a very fair salary".

"At the end of the day, we're paying our school teachers — when you count in cost of living — a very fair salary," Dewhurst said. "We need to have better results. We need to make sure that we're not just paying more money and we need to look at more choice for parents."

Texas consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in average teacher pay according to many groups that track classroom salaries, including teacher unions. One expert testified in the state's pivotal school finance trial last year that Texas' average teacher pay was about $47,300 in 2009-10 dollars — lower than the national average of nearly $55,000, and less than what 32 other states pay educators.

That trial ended with a state judge determining that the system Texas uses to finance public education is unconstitutional. New testimony is set to resume in Austin on Tuesday.

For a guy who grew up in River Oaks and likely sent his children to private school, this is rich.  It never ceases to amaze me how clueless the 1% can be.  And in a Tea Party stronghold like Texas, this dude is still leading the polling for lite guv.

And guess who's defending the most recent multi-billion dollar cutback of Texas public education in court?  Greg Abbott.  Thank goodness he's such a shitty lawyer.

Update: Charles digs deeper into the public school finance trial.

-- Todd Staples and Dan Patrick have hitched their wagon to the Ill Eagles.

(Patrick) pounded the need for border security by citing "hardened criminals we arrested from 2008 to 2012 -- not illegals who were here for a job, who got four speeding tickets, but hardened criminals -- 141,000 we put in our jails just in four years in Texas."

"They threaten your family. They threaten your life. They threaten your business. They threaten our state," he said, adding that they were charged with 447,000 crimes including 2,000 murders and 5,000 rapes.

(Staples') office in 2010 launched the website ProtectYourTexasBorder.com, which features first-hand accounts of confrontations with violent drug traffickers in videotaped interviews. When a message board on the state-run website quickly filled with postings calling for vigilante justice and killing immigrants entering the country illegally, Staples removed the posts and condemned the remarks, but that episode remains one of the biggest embarrassments of his tenure.

But Staples persisted. He published the book "Broken Borders, Broken Promises" in 2012 and continues to reject federal crime data that show decreasing levels of violent crime and Democrats who accuse Republicans of wildly exaggerating the danger for the sake of politics.

Staples said his office hasn't put a financial number on the losses that encroaching violence has cost Texas crop owners.

"I haven't tried to quantify the cash losses," Staples said. "What we have done though is shown that the violence is real, that we have a failed immigration system that is aiding the drug cartels and giving them cover to come into our nation."

What did I say about fear being a primary motivator of human behavior?  Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or independent... are you scared yet?

Update: Charles Kuffner calls Patrick a liar.

-- Speaking of the Libs, they lost a gubernatorial candidate over the weekend.

R. Lee Wrights has ended his campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of Texas. From the former candidate’s website:

We would like to thank the donors who gave when they honestly didn’t have the spare income to justify investing in Lee and his message of Peace and Prosperity. They will always be our beloved friends and family.

[...]

No candidate can persevere unless he has the support of those who wish him/her to run. Unfortunately, I found I had far more broken promises than I had genuine support. Thomas Hill, and Cindi Lewis Maidens before him, are absolutely correct. As nice as they all are I, nor any candidate, can run a campaign on “likes” and “shares” on Facebook. It takes “dollars” and”cents”. Again unfortunately, I had far more of the former than I did the latter.

There are some highly entertaining comments there if you are so inclined. The ones I took note of were those disparaging 2010 nominee and presumptive 2014 front-runner Kathie Glass.

I'll update this post with whatever sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity erupts later today from the mind and mouth of some conservative.  Sure hope they don't keep me busy.

Update: Jerry Patterson, being the least dumb among the four RLGs.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, one of four contenders for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination, Tuesday reiterated his support for creation of an immigrant guest worker program, allowing students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses and policies to promote "smarter building" on the state's barrier islands.

Patterson, a former state senator who has been land commissioner since 2003, dismissed immigration hardliners' calls to "build fences, no amnesty, deport 12 million people."

While Patterson opposes amnesty for undocumented workers and supports border barriers "where tactically called for," Patterson told the Houston Chronicle editorial board "it's stupid" to implement mass deportations. "I don't want to live in a country with that kind of police power, especially at the federal level," he said.

[...]

Patterson will face incumbent three-term Lt. David Dewhurst, Texas Sen. Dan Patrick and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples in the Republican primary.

"There are three good choices ‑ anyone but Patrick," he said. Asked how he would function as speaker of the House, Patterson replied, "Like (former Democratic) Lt. Bob Bullock without the tantrums."

See?  He's only crazy, not stupid.  (Except for the guns part, of course. That's crazy AND stupid.)

Not quite a molehill

Much less anything bigger.

Wendy Davis has made her personal story of struggle and success a centerpiece of her campaign to become the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in almost a quarter-century.

While her state Senate filibuster last year captured national attention, it is her biography — a divorced teenage mother living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard and political achievement — that her team is using to attract voters and boost fundraising.

The basic elements of the narrative are true, but the full story of Davis’ life is more complicated, as often happens when public figures aim to define themselves. In the shorthand version that has developed, some facts have been blurred.

Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.

A single mother working two jobs, she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston. When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.
In an extensive interview last week, Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life.

“My language should be tighter,” she said. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”

There's more at the link, including this.

A former colleague and political supporter who worked closely with Davis when she was on the council said the body’s work was very time-consuming.

“Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” he said, speaking only on condition of anonymity in order to give what he called an honest assessment. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”

He said: “She’s going to find a way, and she’s going to figure out a way to spin herself in a way that grabs at the heart strings. A lot of it isn’t true about her, but that’s just us who knew her. But she’d be a good governor.”

Frankly, that person should have been willing to go on the record, or that quote should have been left out of the story.  I think that back-handed slap is garbage, and just short of a smear.

I first took note of a discussion of the article from RG Ratcliffe's Facebook wall. There are a few good journos weighing in there on the nature of the reporting itself.

Should Wendy Davis have been certain about her age, particularly in her public references to it, with regard to when she was divorced from her first husband?  Yes. This is an (albeit minor) unforced error.  Is her response about using "tighter language" adequate?  No.  She was first in her class at Harvard Law. She's been a successful attorney and politician for some time since then.  I have a bigger problem with this explanation than I do the actual mistake.

But this is still the smallest of potatoes. If this is the best that the media (and Abbott's oppo research folks) can do... Davis has nothing to worry about.

I'm a little more concerned about the investigation into her personal life that isn't prompted by anything even remotely salacious.  Women are judged more critically in this regard, by far, than men.  And that's sexist and wrong.

What I will wait for is the same kind of journalistic scrutiny applied to an attorney general of Texas who collected millions of dollars after a tree fell on him, then advocated for tort reform.  What was the reasoning behind that?  It's sort of like banning the lottery after you hit all six numbers. Or outlawing marriage between Latinas and white men after you married one.  Jay Root at the TexTrib came closest to getting a straight answer about this than anybody else has.

“If there were someone jogging today, got hit by a tree today, suffered the same kind of accident today, they would have access to the very same remedies I had access to,” (Abbott) said.

“Our legal system was abused in this state,” he continued. “There were many invalid claims that were filed in court, that clogged up the courts,  that either denied or delayed access for people who had valid claims.”

Not accurate at best, and a flat-out lie at worst. The very next paragraph...

Tort laws have changed drastically since Abbott’s accident, adding hurdles for people who sue for personal injuries and making it harder for them to win large sums. But there is disagreement about whether Abbott could receive a similar settlement today.

[...]

Not long after Abbott’s accident, sentiment against trial lawyers and large jury verdicts swept through Texas politics, which helped propel Republicans into dominance and laid the groundwork for new lawsuit restrictions.

In 1995, the Legislature capped punitive damages stemming from noneconomic losses at $750,000. Lawmakers also erected hurdles for plaintiffs who try to collect from multiple defendants.

Meanwhile, the conservative Texas Supreme Court, on which Abbott served from 1996 to 2001, began adopting tighter standards for losses that involved pain and suffering and mental anguish.

Too much spinning here from Abbott.  His specific personal motivations for advocating change in a law he richly benefited from -- something that gets at the deep, dark hypocrisy that Greg Abbott lives with every day -- would be an excellent debate question, one more difficult for him to dodge in a public, televised forum.  I just don't think he can answer it without exposing his true nature.

Update: Adding this exchange between the HousChron's  Lisa Falkenberg and Abbott, regarding the circumstance of Herlinda Garcia.

"So," I said, returning to Garcia's case, "if you were this woman, would you feel like justice had been served?"

"Well, having been a victim myself, on the one hand, you never feel that justice is served because you have to live with it the rest of your life, but also as a victim, I realize that victimology or being a victim doesn't get you anywhere in life. You just gotta move on."

"But," I asked, "what if they had told you that - after your accident, after you were paralyzed? 'You've just got to move on. And this is all you're going to get. Your award is limited.' "

"That's the reality that I face," he said. "I'm never walking again, Lisa."

"But what if they had limited your award and said 'move on?' "

This was the only part in the interview when Abbott stumbled.

"Uh, I mean …" he said. "I wasn't given a limitless award. I was given what the insurance policies had. That was the way it worked for me."

Yes, that was the way it worked out for you, General Abbott. You received a multimillion-dollar settlement that helped you support your family while you got your life back on track. You received what seems fair compensation for the harm you suffered.

The question is why Herlinda Garcia isn't entitled to the same.

As regards the piece on Davis, Socratic Gadfly is harsher in his judgment than I am, and Egberto Willies is much kinder (to Davis but not TexTrib publisher Evan Smith, in response to that Today show/Maria Shriver piece last week).  Update: And Carl Lindemann has a few questions about Abbott's own biography.

The pressure is increasing for both gubernatorial candidates, and they will need to get away from their spin and manufactured stories and speak truthfully and accurately about themselves and their vision for Texas as its potential leader.  I'm looking forward to reading those articles.

Developments Update:  As you may be aware, Republicans have flown into a tizzy trying to make the non-molehill into a mountain.  Senator Davis felt compelled to issue a statement, and it is here, clarifying the timeline of some of the events of her life.

The misogyny so prevalent among the right shifted into overdrive this afternoon, and it's been an ugly thing to see.  But it's their pattern.  They are losing control of everything in their lives, and they have to blame it on a black president, a strong woman running for governor, gays, Ill Eagles, godless liberals and what have you.

Not exactly the party of personal responsibility after all.

I feel confident that the caterwauling hasn't moved the needle in either direction.  Women and minorities will see these vile attacks as something familiar, and everybody else will tut-tut, call it politics, and wait for the next piece of crap from conservatives to float to the surface.

We shouldn't have to wait more than a few days.