I know you're forcused here on the Gulf Coast, but I'm a bit surprised that you aren't on a first-name basis with Glen Maxey.

For many years I had a been a great fan of Glen. I'm a UT alum, and any young Austin progressive knows Glen. In fact, his strength has always been to effectively organize grassroots volunteers, especially young activists.

He was a big part of Democracy Fest in Austin last year, and his strategies / methods are right in line with DFA's Tom Hughes and Steve Ybbara. He also has a pack of young tech turks and number's nerds in his corp of disciples. He has the experience, the knowledge, the ethusiasm, and the following to make an effective party chair.

That being said, I cannot paint an entirely rosy picture of Glen. As members of the true Left, my fiancee and I were heavily involved in Maxey's "No Nonsense in November", the grassroots movement to defeat the marriage discrimination act. I cannot say I was entirely pleased with Glen's strategy, including the sketchy Rovian tactic of scaring bigots and homophobes into thinking the HJR language would actually lead to a "liberal judge" outlawing all marriage. And bizarre tactics aside, we simply got killed in that election. Killed.

I think Glen is an amazingly talented organizer and a courageous politician. But I am not completelty sure he is the right choice for chair. On the other hand, I am totally unfamiliar with the other candidates. So I guess I would take the devil I know, because 90% of the time, he is an angel.

Who among the candidates will work to return evidence back to elections and fight these non-evidentiary systems put in place by Abramoff, Ney, Diebold, Hart, others?

Non-evidentiary E-voting for all of Texas...what do you think will happen? Really? What will you do?

from:

Jake Rollow
El Paso Times
Friday, January 20, 2006

Secretary of state's project teaches electronic voting

Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams was in El Paso on Thursday during his kickoff tour of a statewide, yearlong campaign to educate Texans on the use of electronic voting machines.

Except for those voting by mail, all El Paso County voters will cast ballots electronically this year, as they have done since the county converted from paper voting after the 2002 elections.

Other counties are making the change more slowly, and the VOTEXAS campaign aims to ease apprehensions. The campaign will run radio and television announcements and will post information at www.votexas.org.

The campaign will also take voting machines and educational materials to 40 cities through the year.

"We are giving all Texans the opportunity to see, touch and become comfortable with electronic voting before Election Day," Williams said. "We want 100 percent of Texans to vote."

..........

Abramoff's Diebold -> Ney's HAVA

From:
Blogged by Brad
on 1/10/2006 @ 11:21am PT...
http://www.bradblog.com/...

The Soon-to-be-Indicted Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio's Connection To Electoral Fraud

The Dots Connect Between Abramoff, Ohio 2004 Election Smokescreen and Ney's Former Staffer Revealed to be on Diebold's Payroll While Working for White House Law Firm

All the While as HAVA -- America's 'Election Reform' Bill -- is Used for Political Payoff in the Bargain...

There's been a great deal of speculation over the last several days, particularly in the light of Jack Abramoff's recent guilty pleas, concerning the connection of Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) to Election Fraud in Ohio, vis a vis his stewardship and authoring of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) back in 2001 and 2002. The heavy-handed tactics he has taken since, in order to keep the flawed act from being changed in any way over the years, along with going to great lengths to keep the nation's eyes off of massive electile dysfunction in Ohio and elsewhere since 2004, may finally get the attention it all properly deserves.

A large version of this map should cheer Democrats and their Party Chair.

See this map turn so blue, even here in Texas.

Time for DeLay to give back what he redistricted.

The only way we could not win is if...

http://www.radicalruss.net/blog/images/bushmap-new.gif

The Democratic Party Chair is going to have to tell the truth about global warming and try to do something to help us all, everyone save ourselves and turn this around, if still even possible. We have to try even at this late date. It is too depressing otherwise. What do you tell your kids? Why did we allow the silencing of experts in science and the insurance industry who could have been helping all along?

Forecast for this upcoming Hurricane season: the same or worse than last year. Brace yourselves people, this is the biggest thing to fear, not terrorism, not Bush.

But, because Bush is part of the problem for avoiding the problem and solutions, this upcoming Hurricane season with him is very scary. Bush has the power to take us all down with him with global warming.

But, Bush can't be having much fun anymore. I sometimes wonder if he would consider stepping down before this upcoming Hurricane season--to step down before Hurricane season and the Ohio trial in September (?) brought by Libertarians and Greens that would count the paper ballots that will show the manipulations that occured in 2004.

What will Bush do then? Is that what the 4 million capacity Haliburton prison building is all about? Is funding a private company, Blackwater, to own and operate by this December surveillance blimps with payloads here in the U.S. part of his plan to save who?

Can't we ask him to step down now, before Hurricane season, to save ourselves.

Or, would paying him money to leave actually work? George HW Bush talk to your son. Any better ideas from Good Steward Republicans to save us all?

..................

http://www.buzzflash.com/reviews/06/03/rev06037.html

The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

by Tim Flannery

Terrorists, as we noted last week, aren't likely to do nearly the harm to the inhabitants of earth -- us -- as our destruction of the environment will.

Jared Diamond, who knows a thing or two about how external factors can cause the downfall of civilizations, says of "The Weather Makers," "At last, here is a clear and readable account of the most controversial issues facing everyone in the world today." No, he isn't speaking of the Bush/Cheney diversionary "war on terror"; Diamond is talking about something far more potentially destructive -- the lethal payback an environment gone awry is likely to give us.

This is why we should be setting up a crisis world task force, if there is still time. But, if you have non-reality-based Republicans (George Bush, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison all deny global warming) running the only superpower on earth, our descent into ecological destruction is accelerating, not increasing.

A recent newspaper review noted: "Last month, Canadian scientists reported some scary news from the Arctic. Each year, sea ice cover is shrinking by nearly 30,000 square miles -- an area larger than Lake Michigan. Within 15 years, the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer for the first time in more than 1 million years....

In a nation where fear mongers have played us like a fiddle, the "Weather Makers" details that they -- the global reality deniers -- are exacerbating the problem that could devastate not just America, but the entire earth.

At one time, championing the environment was as American as apple pie in the United States. But due to a combination of Armageddon "It's All Going to End" right-wing religious fanaticism and "K Street" lobbying success with both parties, we find ourselves facing a ruinous future that few on Capitol Hill want to talk about. The White House is in deep, greedy denial -- and doing everything possible to prevent the likely catastrophe from becoming the subject of political debate.

.............................

Which Democratic Party Chair Candidates will problem solve to mitigate global warming? For their kids, and for ours. Say something...now...

.............................

A great new resource for information:

http://www.protectingamerica.org/?

with:

JAMES LEE WITT, National Co-Chair
Former Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency
Chief Executive Officer, International Code Council

ADMIRAL JAMES M. LOY, National Co-Chair
Former Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)

Their mission is to raise awareness, educate the public and policymakers, and offer solutions that will better prepare and protect America from major catastrophe in a sensible, cost-effective fashion.