Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Greg Abbott's Scandal O' Week, shared with Rick Perry

It's an old scandal, but as new details emerge, the boil continues to fester and ooze.  Wayne Slater, tying all the latest strings together.  (My emphasis below.)

A political group allied with Wendy Davis opened an attack Monday using cancer survivors to highlight allegations Republicans Greg Abbott and Rick Perry benefited from money designed for cancer research.



The Progress Texas political committee began airing an online video accusing the state leaders of complicity in the scandal. One cancer agency official has been indicted, the agency board has been replaced and a grand jury is investigating. Perry, who is considering another race for president, was instrumental in creation of the state cancer research agency. Agency grants have gone to political donors. As attorney general, Abbott was on the oversight board that failed to take action to avoid questionable grants, including at least one to an Abbott campaign donor.

After The Dallas Morning News first broke stories raising questions about funding problems, Abbott’s office announced it would investigate what went wrong at the Cancer Prevention and Research Fund. That announcement put Abbott in the position of investigating an agency over which his office already had oversight. That means the attorney general potentially is looking into the behavior of board members who are his campaign donors. Abbott says he sees no problems with these arrangements.

A grand jury investigation of Rick Perry is now under way for his threatening to withhold state funding for the Travis County District Attorney – while she was investigating activities at the cancer research fund. Perry has denied any wrongdoing.

More from Jonathan Tilove at the Statesman.

“When I found out the money had been misspent, at first I was angry, extremely angry. I mean, these are people’s lives. You go through anger, disbelief, shock, then you want to get even,” Becky Arreaga, an Austin business owner, says in the ad, in which she is joined by Austinites Kerry Tate, a homebuilder, and Berry Crowley, an attorney, and Pat Pangburn, a Dallas homemaker.

[...]

The gist of the attack on Abbott is that campaign donors were also investors in companies that received grants from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas — known as CPRIT — that had not been properly vetted, and that Abbott, who was part of the oversight board for the agency, turned a blind eye, not even attending the board meetings.

This is the same old cancer cronyism we've known about for a couple of years now.

In another time, place, or state, this would be a bombshell.  The presumptive governor-in-waiting would be forced to publicly address the accusations of corruption, and would be then held to account for his unethical conduct by the voters.  Of all political persuasions.

But this is Texas, and this is Rick Perry and Greg Abbott.  And they are Republicans.  And that's how Texas Republicans roll.  Abbott will go into hiding from the media for a week or two, while Perry will adjust his glasses, fly to Iowa with his state-paid Texas Rangers security team in tow (the tab is almost $3 million now), says "aw-shucks" and "second chances", and Republican primary voters will snort and say it's all just another liberal media conspiracy.

Facts cannot frack any understanding into their skulls.

We'd all like to think that it will be different this time around, but I'm not confident it will.

Update: Like cockroaches, built to last.

In the case of Perry and Abbott, it's as if both are trying to out-cockroach each other. Rick Perry's entire time in office has been one of bribery, slush-funds, under-the-table-payments for appointments and a million other gubernatorial transgressions. Maybe that's why he chose to be re-baptized recently. Nothing less than the Pacific Ocean will wash his political sins away.

And what of Greg Abbott? He wants to sacrifice four-year-olds to Pearson, the omnipotent gods of testing, but only for informational purposes. He hangs out with pedophiles and misogynists and worst of all, while he served as watchdog, on the Oversight Board of Cancer Research Institute, his donors' companies received $42 million of Texas' taxpayer money.

[...]

In spite of all the proof, the publicity, the news stories, and all the examples of backroom deals, illegal grant writing, and garden variety political theft, voters will continue their present state of passivity and continue to vote for the political profiteers based solely upon the single letter beside the candidate's name.

Monday, May 05, 2014

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is already wishing it would rain as it brings you the week's roundup of the best Texas lefty blog posts.

Off the Kuff cheers two wins against voter ID.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says a picture is worth a thousand Dewhurst/Patrick debates.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos learns the truth about Rick Perry's Texas miracle. The fact of the matter is Rick Perry's Texas is a mess.

Horwitz at Texpatriate notes that Chris Bell has finally buried the hatchet in endorsing Kinky Friedman, thus forgiving all from 2006. You should too. Really.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad that colleges, including ones in south Texas, are being held responsible for handing rape cases.

In the wake of the Bundy/Sterling eruptions, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs came to the conclusion that racial bigotry is more generational than it is partisan. On the other hand, that blog post was written when everybody was still under the impression that the Clippers owner was a Democrat.

Neil at All People Have Value made note of the state-mandated rape of the forced sonogram law here in Texas that was strongly backed by Texas state Senator Dan Patrick and supported by three Texas state Senate Democrats. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

The Makeshift Academic provides a historical perspective on Medicaid expansion.

Elaine White helped the Religious Right take over the Republican Party in the 1990s, and lived to tell about it.

Keep Austin Wonky reviews Austin's rail options.

The Texas Green Report and Texas Clean Air Matters analyze the Supreme Court decision upholding the cross-state air pollution Rule.

LGBTQ Insider calls on Texans to support their transgender teachers.

Beyond Bones presents five ways to combat light pollution.

Texas Watch rounds up some news stories of interest in Texas.

Newsdesk showcases another fine example of Ted Cruz's ignorance of history and international relations.

Friday, May 02, 2014

What'd I miss?

While I was gone?

-- The fallout from last week's tirade by soon-to-be-former Cippers' owner Donald Sterling continues.

  • He's been treated for prostate cancer for some extended period of time.
  • The head of the LA NAACP resigns over the furor.
  • Even the Houston Clippers changed their name (to Cyclones).

-- Cliven Bundy's neighbors are worn out from his antics.

Travelers from around the country are calling, wondering if it's safe to pass on Interstate 15, where Bundy and his supporters, some armed with military-style weapons, faced down federal officials in an April 12 standoff over his cattle grazing on federal land.

Police Chief Troy Tanner tells callers it's safe. But local authorities and Bundy's neighbors are growing weary of the attention and the unresolved dispute. Since the standoff, Bundy went from being proclaimed a patriot by some for his resistance to a racist for comments he made about blacks being better off under slavery.

"Most of our neighbors have about the same opinions we have. They don't like it," said John Booth, a resident of nearby Bunkerville who drove this week with his wife, Peggie, past the State Route 170 encampments. "But they're not really going to say anything about it."

As triple-digit temperatures of a Mojave Desert summer approach, militia members vow to stay and protect Bundy and his family from government police, though it's unclear what the immediate threat is.

[...]

"We haven't been told by the Bundys that they're ready for us to go," said Jerry DeLemus, a former U.S. Marine from New Hampshire.

DeLemus heads a self-styled militia protection force of perhaps 30 people who sleep in tents, clean their military-style AR-15 and AK-47 weapons, and form work crews to help build watering bins for cattle on and around the Bundy ranch.

[...]

Bundy acknowledged creating a stir when he and his family showed up at the Mormon church with armed bodyguards for Easter Sunday services.

"The militia have been going with me everywhere," Bundy said Tuesday. "When I got to church, I said, 'Leave your weapons in the car.' They did. I guess there could have been weapons in the parking lot, but there were no weapons in the church house."

That sentiment officially puts Bundy to the left of Greg Abbott.  And Wendy Davis, for that matter.  But not Leticia Van de Putte or the Texas Democratic Party.

-- I say again to Democrats: RUN ON OBAMACARE.

Here’s another unexpected way the politics of Obamacare are going to get scrambled in the days ahead – and not necessarily in the GOP’s favor — as the reality of mounting sign-ups sinks in.

It turns out that several of the states with some of the hardest fought races of the cycle are also boasting some of the highest Obamacare sign-up numbers in the country.

[...]

In Florida, some 983,000 people are now signed up for private insurance through the federal exchange — up from 442,000 at the end of February. This is in a state where the Dem candidate for Governor — Charlie Crist — happens to be running on a very pro-Obamacare message. Crist is already seizing on the new data to attack GOP incumbent Governor Rick Scott for opposing the law — and over the consequences of repeal.

[...]

In North Carolina, some 357,000 people have now signed up for coverage through the federal exchange — up from 200,000 at the end of February. This could become more of an issue in the days ahead: Senator Kay Hagan has previously attacked likely GOP foe Thom Tillis for opposing setting up a state exchange and opposing the Medicaid expansion as state House speaker. Now the new numbers will provide fodder for Dems in the state to argue that North Carolinians wanted access to expanded health coverage — despite Tillis’ efforts to block it – underscoring the Dem message that Tillis’ state policies have been hostile to the middle class.

In Georgia, the sign-ups are now at around 316,000, and in Louisiana they’re at around 101,000.

In Texas the numbers are 734,000. Courtesy Philip Martin at Progress Texas...

  • 55% are women
  • 30% are age 18-34 -- slightly higher than the 28% national rate
  • 439k signed up after March 1. 295k had signed up prior to March 1
  • 84% used financial assistance

The target number from the White House was in the 650K range.  Medicaid enrollees also showed a small increase.  Expanding this program -- and accepting the billions of dollars of federal funding to do so -- would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, particularly in places like the Texas Medical Center in Houston.

Last year, Texas took $17 billion in federal money for its $28 billion Medicaid program. It currently covers 3.6 million children, pregnant women, seniors and disabled Texans.

More than 1 million poor adults of working age would be added to the program by 2016 if Texas changed course and embraced expansion, according to the state Health and Human Services Commission.

Texas would receive $9 billion to fund the program in the first year alone, spending a bit over $1 billion more than we do now.  The state budget  is projected to have a surplus approaching $11 billion by the beginning of the next legislative session (in January of 2015).  And yes, we need increased spending on infrastructure (particularly water, with continuing drought concerns), and education -- not tax cuts, goddammit.

Democrats will press this political advantage over the next six months -- if they want to win, that is.  Update: Kuff with a whole lot more.

-- The ineptitude of the Houston Astros reaches a new lowUpdate: A serious question is asked as to whether their fan base is vanishing.  I say yes -- since I consider myself part of the erosion.  Now that the Rockets have been eliminated from the playoffs, I suspect all eyes and ears locally will turn to the NFL draft.

-- May Day was celebrated around the world, but in the United States, they always try to drown it out with something else.  Yesterday it was the obnoxious National Day of Prayer, and locally they co-opted it for disaster preparation.  That didn't work out so well in downtown Houston.

This nation -- hell, this planet, since wage slavery has been outsourced around the globe -- is in dire need of a significant workers' uprising.  Maybe the US can catch up a little next year.

Update: Well lookie here.  A Seattle confrontation all but unmentioned by US media.  Thanks to Brian H for this.