I was trying to come up with a clever way to describe this USA Today poll which shows that single women are more likely to vote Democratic while married women trend Republican, and the reaction to it by Focus on the Family, but I don't think I can do any better than Jonathan did. In case you've ever wondered why the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world are called Ladies Against Women, this ought to help you understand.
Former Enron Broadband Services executive Kevin Hannon pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, becoming the 14th former executive to strike a plea bargain with prosecutors.Originally indicted on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and insider trading, the former chief operating officer of Enron's Internet business avoided an Oct. 4 trial by entering the plea this afternoon before Judge Vanessa Gilmore. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 penalty, but he remains free on a $1 million bond, and his sentencing will come later.
As part of the plea bargain with prosecutors, Hannon agreed to forfeit $2.2 million in assets, pay a $1 million civil penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commison, and drop a claim for $8 million in back pay from Enron.
His plea could further complicate the standing of the five remaining defendants in the broadband case. In July, former EBS Chief Executive Officer Ken Rice pleaded guilty to making misleading statements during a Jan. 20, 2000, meeting with analysts where he and others at the company touted the capabilities of Enron's broadband network.
The remaining defendants are Joe Hirko, EBS' former chief executive officer; F. Scott Yeager, former senior vice president of business development; Rex Shelby, former senior vice president of engineering and operations; Kevin Howard, former vice president of finance; and Michael Krautz, former senior accounting director.
The five still headed to trial are scheduled for a hearing before Judge Gilmore on Wednesday. They are expected to discuss motions to move the trial out of Houston and to argue that the government allowed key evidence to be destroyed when Enron auctioned off much of the computer hardware and software that was part of the broadband business.
The prosecutors are certainly earning their money.
There must be a mighty big hat rack in State Rep. Ray Allen's office, because his staffers sure do wear a lot of hats.
When state Rep. Ray Allen was passing bills in the Legislature last year, he relied on government employees for help. For political work, it was campaign staff. And for his prison-lobbying business, he taps private-sector workers.Nothing remarkable there, except that they're all the same people -- Allen's Austin-based state employees -- records and interviews show.
Allen's top aide, Scott Gilmore, has even continued to draw a state salary while traveling outside Texas to consult and lobby -- for pay -- for the prison factory industry, Allen said.
The arrangement has drawn criticism from two government-watchdog groups, but the Grand Prairie Republican sees no problem with it. Allen said his employees are putting in more than enough time with the House of Representatives to justify their full-time salaries from taxpayers.
And he said they have almost always used private computers and phones -- even when working out of his taxpayer-provided office in the Capitol. Any use of state equipment has been incidental and unintended, he said. Records also show that Allen has periodically reimbursed the costs of private long-distance calls.
Allen acknowledged that it might be unusual to have employees assigned to three different jobs, but he said it is ethical and legal.
"It's probably more unusual for somebody to use state staff in a private industry business, but campaign work would be very common," Allen said. "The question is not, Is it wrong to do it? The question is, How do you keep it separate?"
But two watchdog groups question the multitasking use of state employees, particularly when they work at the Capitol.
"They need to get everything that is not directly related to the business of being a state representative out of the state Capitol," said Suzy Woodford, director of Common Cause of Texas. "I do not believe that you can keep everything that segmented."
Fred Lewis, director of Campaigns for People, said Allen should require a full written account of the precise hours his employees put in for the state, for the campaign and for Allen's lobby practice, known as Service House.
I'm sorry, but I have a real hard time believing that every one of the time-splicers in Rep. Allen's office is always able to separate one of their jobs from the others. I have a hard time believing that none of them has ever done work for one of their private sector or campaign gigs while on the state's dime. And I have a real hard time believing that Rep. Allen really thinks the arrangement is hunky dory.
There's an easy answer. Pay campaign staff to do campaign work only, and tell regular staff they can't moonlight. I have sympathy for any legislative aide who says he or she can't get by on the salary they get paid, but this isn't the way to fix that problem.
Rep. Allen, by the way, is facing Katy Hubener, another one of our fine Democratic State House candidates, in November. Hubener was on our list of People To Profile For Texas Tuesdays, but we never quite connected with her, though I hear we may get a late entry for her eventually. She was recently named a Dean Dozen candidate, and I expect her to give Rep. Allen a good race this fall. Check her out, and give some thought to giving her a hand.
(Thanks to KF for the reminder on this story.)
Like Seth, I can't say I'm surprised by this.
Mr. Sinus, an Austin sketch-comedy group that skewers movies at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is under attack.Best Brains Inc., the company that owns the TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000," has sued the Mr. Sinus group, alleging that it is infringing on the "Mystery Science" trademark by using its format. Mr. Sinus comedians Jeremy Pollet, Owen Egerton and John Erler, and Alamo South Lamar LP have been named in the lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court.
[...]
The problem, according to Best Brains, is that Mr. Sinus takes its format from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," also known as MST3K or MST 3000 -- abbreviations the lawsuit says can also apply to Mr. Sinus Theater.
The TV show, which ran from 1988 through 1999 but was shown in reruns until January, features the silhouettes of three figures who sit at the front of a theater and interject satirical comments during movies.
The TV show is appropriate for viewers of all ages, the lawsuit states, unlike Mr. Sinus, which the lawsuit describes as vulgar. One Mr. Sinus performance skewered "Nude on the Moon," which featured nudity. The comedians have also targeted commercially successful movies such as "Dirty Dancing" and "Top Gun."
Best Brains says the trouble began when it asked Alamo representatives to show episodes "Mystery Science Theater 3000."
"Alamo then approached Pollet with the idea to create a comedic group in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000," according to the lawsuit. "Pollet, Egerton and Erler then formed Mr. Sinus and premiered in September 2000."
The lawsuit notes that the Alamo group continues to stage Mr. Sinus shows even after Best Brains refused to provide them with a license. The company also says that it asked the comedians to stop using Mr. Sinus Theater 3000 or any similar name.
Unlike Star Bock Beer, this is a case where I can pretty easily see people being legitimately confused. I hope both sides can come to a resolution before the depositions start flying, but I think the plaintiff has a pretty decent argument, and I say that as a Mr. Sinus fan.
UPDATE: Liz thinks that Best Brains is wrong to sue the Mr. Sinus folks.
Listen to Ginger. Hot dogs and chianti? These things simply are not done.
Remember Oaks at Rio Bend and Celebrations for Children? The Chron gives us an update now that the GOP convention is here.
Would-be donors to a charity benefiting the subdivision, Oaks at Rio Bend, originally were invited to a New York golf tournament, late-night party, convention VIP room and yacht cruise with DeLay, who has been a foster parent of at least three children.With donation packages from $10,000 to $500,000, potential contributors were offered a special suite at the convention for President Bush's nomination acceptance speech. At the most expensive level, donor perks would include dinner with DeLay before and after the convention, according to event promotions. A 13-page brochure had exactly one sentence mentioning abused and neglected children.
The brochure was more expansive on such things as Broadway tickets and a golf tournament at the Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y.
But the events were dropped in May after criticism from groups that monitor political fund-raising. The organizations, such as Common Cause, said the events wrongly were being used to sell access to DeLay, and the GOP convention, to various interest groups.
"This so-called 'charity' is set up to divide its contributions between helping poor children and electing the very politicians whose policies help keep these children improverished," the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy said last year when the convention fund-raising plan was unveiled.
[...]
In Fort Bend County, Oaks at Rio Bend administrator Margaret Gow said the project could have used the donations.
"Certainly it would have made our lives easier," Gow said.
The project sits on 50 acres donated by the George Foundation and has received at least $6 million with the help of the DeLay Foundation for Kids. Last year, organizers said at least $4 million more was needed for completion of the first phase of the community.
The vision of DeLay and his wife, Christine, who has served on the project's board of directors, Oaks at Rio Bend intends to provide stability and support services that may be lacking in the normal foster care system.
When the project broke ground last September, officials predicted the first families would move in 12 months later. Instead, only site preparation is visible now. There are no residents.
Gow said the problem is not funding, but drainage.
Oaks at Rio Bend did not submit its plans to the Fort Bend County Drainage District, part of the construction approval process, until Jan. 20, officials said. Approval did not come until June because the plans originally lacked information on a required pond for flood control.
Gow hopes house construction will start in October.
From the GOP's perspective, given all of the negative news about DeLay over the past few months, it's just as well that a big fat-cat fundraiser with a tangential charitable purpose got cancelled. I'd bet this would have been quite the distraction.
We wind up our tour through the State House today with a look at Stephen Frost, running to replace the retiring Killer D Barry Telford in HD1. This is a seat that the Democrats should hold, but just as we get excited about possibly picking up open Republican seats, they get excited about maybe picking up some of our open seats, and we all know they have the resources to give it their best shot. HD1 is also one of the areas that Max Sandlin will need to do well in to win, so helping Frost is a twofer. Check out the intro and the interview, and as always, if you like what you see, you know what to do.
Next week, we start again on Congress. You can find links to our earlier coverage of Congress, as well as a convenient way to make donations, here on our ActBlue page.
There's a fine line between "persistent" and "delusional". You tell me which side of that line Governor Perry is on.
Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday that he would not rule out a special, lame-duck legislative session – perhaps after the November elections – on school finance reform."There is always the possibility, if we can find the consensus and get the House and Senate to sign off on a plan," Mr. Perry told reporters after speaking to a gathering of GOP women at the Republican National Convention.
"I've told no one to disregard the fact that if we're into the fall, that's a reason not to be prepared to come into Austin with a week's notice."
Mr. Perry called lawmakers to a special session this spring, but lawmakers were unable to agree on a solution.
It's unclear how the dynamics of a November special session would affect the ability to get a bill passed. Elections earlier in the month could leave a number of lame ducks in the Legislature.
Having a bunch of lawmakers who won't have to answer to voters making vast changes to the tax code - there's a capital idea.
Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, who has been involved in the talks, said the Nov. 2 elections, along with the time off many officials take after campaigning and with Thanksgiving, would complicate returning to Austin."If the governor wants to be hard-core and call a special session, I'll be there," said Mr. Branch, whose district includes the property rich Highland Park school district.
I'll take "Lukewarm endorsements" for $100, Alex.
Not much more to say here. I don't see any reason to take this pronouncement more seriously than any of the others. Via Lasso.
TAPPED brings us this Roll Call article on Ralph Reed and the millions he's been given to pimp casino gambling by a disgraced lobbyist.
Reed was paid more than $3.8 million during a yearlong period in 2001 and 2002 by Michael Scanlon, a former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), according to documents obtained by Roll Call.The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has scheduled a public hearing for Sept. 14 to begin reviewing the activities of Scanlon and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who together were paid in excess of $45 million by four American Indian tribes for lobbying, public relations and grassroots organizing from 2001 to 2003. Congressional and federal investigators, as well as some members of the tribes themselves, are now asking what the two did to merit such exorbitant fees.
[...]
The payments to Reed from Scanlon were made to two Georgia-based companies that Reed operates, Century Strategies and Capitol Media, and covered a mix of grassroots organizing and media buys. Reed kept his involvement in these efforts private and has never registered as a lobbyist for any of the four tribes or any other clients.
Reed, now a corporate consultant, was chairman of the Georgia Republican Party from May 2001 until February 2003 and served as executive director of the Christian Coalition from 1989 to 1997. Reed is currently the chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign for the Southeast region.
In the past, Reed, who has called gambling “a cancer on the American body politic,” has said he has done no work for casino clients.
In an interview last week, Reed reiterated that he has never been employed by any casino operator, including Indian tribes.
“I’ve worked for decades to oppose the expansion of casino gambling, and the work Century Strategies did on these projects was consistent with that longstanding opposition,” said Reed. “The work that we did was part of a broad coalition that included anti-gambling groups, churches and nonprofit organizations. And at no time did my firm have a relationship with nor were we retained by any casino or any casino company.”
Scanlon, however, was working for four different Indian tribes with casinos, and Reed was brought in on a number of projects to gin up opposition to increasing the number of casinos from conservative Christian groups, including sites proposed by rival tribes in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as a video poker initiative in Alabama. Reed’s efforts specifically benefited two of Scanlon’s tribal clients, the Louisiana Coushattas and the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, in their bids to protect their casino interests.
[...]
Reed’s involvement with Scanlon began in early 2001 as the Louisiana Coushattas sought to prevent state officials from granting more licenses for riverboat casinos in the Lake Charles region, seeing it as a threat to the Grand Casino Coushatta, the largest casino in the area.
Reed also took part in a later effort by the Louisiana Coushattas to shut down a casino outside Houston opened by the Alabama-Coushattas, a rival tribe. Texans are a big part of the customer base for Bayou State casinos.
While anti-gambling forces launched a widespread campaign in the Lone Star State, Reed worked to build support for a lawsuit filed by then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (R) against the Alabama Coushattas and another tribe that had opened their own casino. A federal judge eventually closed both casinos in July 2002.
In addition, Reed sought to block legislation allowing video poker machines with unlimited cash payouts at four Alabama dog tracks in 2001. The proposal was rejected by the state legislature, thanks in part to political pressure from religious groups like the Christian Coalition of Alabama.
So Scanlon paid Reed to organize grassroots opposition to certain casinos on behalf of their rivals. It's like being paid by Anheuser-Busch to rabblerouse against the evils of alcohol for the purpose of torpedoing a Miller brewery. And all to a man who calls gambling a "cancer" on society.
"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." -- Luke, Chapter 16, Verse 13.
You can find some more background on the Abramoff/Scanlon story here, here, here, here, here, and here.
UPDATE: Via Julia, Reed has confirmed taking money from Greenberg Traurig, the consulting firm for whom Scanlon and Abramoff worked, but claims he had no idea that he was representing gambling interests with one hand while agitating against gambling with the other.
Ralph Reed, Southeast regional chairman of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign and former executive director of the Christian Coalition, confirmed on Sunday that he accepted more than $1 million in fees from a lobbyist and a public relations specialist whose work on behalf of American Indian casinos prompted a federal investigation.[...]
Scanlon's company paid Reed $1.23 million, according to sources familiar with the transactions. The two law firms Abramoff worked for, Greenberg Traurig LLP and Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, paid fees to Reed and Century Strategies, but the amounts were not immediately available.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Reed said: "I have worked for decades to oppose the expansion of casino gambling, and as a result of that, Century Strategies has worked with broad coalitions to oppose casino expansion. We are proud of the work we have done. It is consistent not only with my beliefs but with the beliefs of the grassroots citizens that we mobilized. And at no time was Century Strategy ever retained by, or worked on behalf of, any casino or casino company."
Asked if he had been aware of the clients paying Abramoff and Scanlon, Reed said, "While we were clearly aware that Greenberg Traurig had certain tribal clients, we were not aware of every specific client or interest."
Wow, that's weak. Stay tuned.
Tiffany is a big fan of dark chocolate. News like this makes her happy.
Eating dark chocolate can improve healthy blood flow and prevent clots forming in the veins, an international heart congress has heard.But the same benefits might not be gained from eating milk chocolate.
[...]
Blood clots, depending on where they form can lead to thrombosis, embolism, stroke, heart attack and angina.
Dr Charalambos Vlachopoulos, of the Hippokratian Hospital at the University of Athens, who presented the research, said that eating 100 grams of dark chocolate improved function in healthy young adults for at least three hours.
The study involved 17 volunteers who ate either 100 grams of dark chocolate or a non-chocolate substitute. On another day the groups were swapped over.
The results showed that functioning of the endothelium, a thin layer covering the innermost surface of blood vessels, was improved in the dark chocolate group but not in the group that ate the chocolate substitute.
How does one get to be a volunteer for this kind of study? Luck, or connections?
Later this week, the Internet moves to a higher age bracket.
Stephen Crocker and Vinton Cerf were among the graduate students who joined UCLA professor Len Kleinrock in an engineering lab on Sept. 2, 1969, as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers. By January, three other "nodes" joined the fledgling network.Then came e-mail a few years later, a core communications protocol called TCP/IP in the late 70s, the domain name system in the 80s and the World Wide Web -- now the second most popular application behind e-mail -- in 1990. The Internet expanded beyond its initial military and educational domain into businesses and homes around the world.
Today, Crocker continues work on the Internet, designing better tools for collaboration. And as security chairman for the Internet's key oversight body, he is trying to defend the core addressing system from outside threats, including an attempt last year by a private search engine to grab Web surfers who mistype addresses.
He acknowledges the Internet he helped build is far from finished, and changes are in store to meet growing demands for multimedia. Network providers now make only "best efforts" at delivering data packets, and Crocker said better guarantees are needed to prevent the skips and stutters now common with video.
Cerf, now at MCI Inc., said he wished he could have designed the Internet with security built-in. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., among others, are currently trying to retrofit the network so e-mail senders can be authenticated -- a way to cut down on junk messages sent using spoofed addresses.
Among Cerf's other projects: a next-generation numbering system called IPv6 to accommodate the ever-growing armies of Internet-ready wireless devices, game consoles, even dog collars. Working with NASA, Cerf is also trying to extend the network into outer space to better communicate with spacecraft.
But many features being developed today wouldn't have been possible at birth given the slower computing speeds and narrower Internet pipes, or bandwidth, Cerf said.
"With the tools we had then, we did as much as we could reasonably have done," he said.
By the way, here's what Vint Cerf had to say about another inventor of the Internet.
The GOP may be putting on its best moderate face at the convention, but apparently someone forgot to tell that to Sheri Dew, the woman who will be giving the opening invocation and who apparently believes that people who don't oppose gay marriage are just like the people who didn't oppose Hitler back in the day. Wouldn't it be nice if, as Atrios suggests, someone in the media were to ask a few questions about this? You know, to see which of these nice, soccer-mom-friendly moderates might agree with that sentiment?
Bob Perry, that is. Byron has the scoop. Check out the pictures.
Here's a nice little plug for Morris Meyer, spotted in the Dallas Morning News editorial blog:
The editorial board interviewed Morris Meyer, the Democratic candidate for Congressional District 6, this afternoon. The incumbent, Republican Joe Barton, declined our invitation to be interviewed alongside Mr. Meyer.If I were Mr. Barton, I'd be worried. Mr. Meyer is the real deal -- a smart, passionate, well-informed citizen-politician who appears to be riding the crest of constituent unhappiness with Smokey Joe's defense of industrial polluters at the expense of vulnerable children and elders. I'd enourage people in the heavily Republican district -- which includes Ellis County and Arlington -- to give Mr. Meyer a serious and open look.
posted by Timothy O'Leary @ Aug 27, 6:45 PM
There are no permalinks in the DMN EdBlog, so this will shortly disappear. The Meyer campaign blog flagged it for future reference. Look for another appearance by Morris Meyer on Texas Tuesdays soon, and if you can't wait that long, help him out now.
U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, one of the Democratic incumbents targeted in the Republican redistricting effort, faces a tough challenge from Republican Ted Poe, who became nationally known for creative sentencing during two decades as a Houston felony court judge."For the casual outside viewer, this is a Republican district. And it's a Republican year," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein. "But this is a much closer race than people realize."
Amy Walters, editor of the Cook Political Report, which analyzes races, said Lampson is forcing this race toward local issues such as flood control and pressuring Poe to address those issues. "Lampson could win by detaching himself from the national party label and running as an independent moderate," she said.
Poe is campaigning partly on his record from his 22 years on the Houston bench.
He has several factors working in his favor — name recognition, a reputation in Houston and a district created to elect him or someone like him — but he can't rely on those alone to win, analysts said.
Lampson acknowledged he was initially apprehensive about running in the district, which extends from Beaumont to northwest Harris County. Fifty-six percent of that is territory in Harris County that he does not represent now.
"It was intended for me not to win. But I got my confidence back," Lampson said. "Fund-raising is a key indicator of whether people truly support you, whether they want to invest in you."
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to Congress, is concentrating on Lampson and four other races in the state where Democratic incumbents are vulnerable because of the redistricting plan passed by the state's Republican-dominated Legislature last year.
Poe has received support from national GOP stars, including Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who have headlined fund-raisers on his behalf. Lampson has raised $1.5 million to Poe's $725,000, according to the latest campaign finance reports compiled by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.
There's more where that came from. This is easily the best article I've seen in the Chron on any of the competitive or potentially competitive local races this year. It even overcomes my usual objection for this kind of article by who the candidates are and what they stand for instead of focusing on what they say about the other guy. Kudos to Kristen Mack and Justin Gest for the excellent work. Now let's see some more articles like this about every other race of interest in the area.
As we approach Labor Day and get down into the acknowledged campaign season, I'm going to be pushing for donations to candidates and groups more often. I feel very strongly that the Democrats have a shot at taking the House this year, but whatever the odds of that actually are, there are plenty of individual races where a few bucks can help make a difference. Nick Lampson, to whom you can donate here, is a great Congressman, and back in 1996 when he was gearing up to knock off the evil Steve Stockman, he became the very first political candidate I ever gave money to. He can win, and you can help. We'll be featuring him again on Texas Tuesdays in the coming weeks - you can review all of the original TT posts on Congressional candidates as well as make a donation via the Texas Tuesdays Act Blue page. Finally, you can help the DCCC help Lampson and others by contributing to them as well. You'll be glad you did.
Rick Casey keeps on the Talmadge Heflin beat by taking a look at Heflin's opponent, Hubert Vo.
Candidate Hubert Vo, who has been active in the community and is on the Super Neighborhood Council, is smarter than the state party chairman.He is making no statements on Heflin's ability to get a judge to send a constable to take the baby away from its mother or his spectacularly clumsy argument on the stand that "we all know the terrible problem that black male children have growing up into manhood without being in prison."
Nor did Vo take the campaign slogan suggestion of one volunteer: "Vote for Vo: He won't steal your baby."
Vo knows the media have already alerted voters to the Heflin baby controversy. He is sticking to issues that could play well in a district that looks nothing like the population that first elected Heflin 22 years ago. District 149 is mostly in Alief and stretches up above Westheimer to Memorial west of Dairy Ashford. What used to be a standard American suburb is now suburbia Houston-style.
The 2000 census put it at 36 percent white, 21 percent Hispanic, 20 percent black, 18 percent Asian and 5 percent other.
Among the minorities, Vo, who speaks Spanish as well as Vietnamese, expects Heflin to be hurt by his record of using his appropriations chairmanship to cut state school funding and children's health insurance. In addition, Vo is playing up Heflin's proposal of raising sales taxes and expanding them to such things as car repairs.
University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray estimates the district's 71,300 registered voters trend to 52 percent Democrat. But fewer of the lower-income voters counted as Democrats make it to the polls.
Two years ago, Heflin beat a poorly funded opponent 56 percent-44 percent. But turnout was only 34 percent in that nonpresidential election, giving Heflin a margin of just 2,600 votes.
What's more, Gov. Rick Perry is believed to have turned out his vote effectively, while Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez didn't.
A normal presidential-year turnout could be 50 percent higher, and most of those additional voters would likely vote Democrat.
Vo is running a well-funded, professionally staffed campaign. He expects to spend $300,000, and he has been personally knocking on doors since the beginning of June.
The conventional wisdom among the pros is that Heflin will win, though not by much. But then, the conventional wisdom was that Bill White wouldn't make a mayoral runoff.
Of course, we covered quite a bit of that ground on Texas Tuesdays before the Heflin custody case made the news. Nice to see it get a wider dispersal, though.
Meanwhile, Heflin's minister presents a fairly strong defense for him on yesterday's op-ed page.
What would you have done if you had been in the shoes of state Rep. Talmadge Heflin and his wife, Janice?A single pregnant woman you barely know comes to you asking for help.
Most of us would have simply told the woman that we could not get involved, but not the Heflins. Instead, they offered to support the mother and her child.
The baby was born prematurely and had health problems. The mother had no place to stay, so the Heflins gave her one.
Would you have done the same?
The mother took a job, leaving the child with the Heflins, and for over a year, she rarely spent any time with the baby.
The Heflins did.
Would you have made the same sacrifices to care for this baby?
What would you do when you tried to take that baby in for medical care, the mother nowhere to be found, and the doctor tells you he cannot administer care without a parental signature?
What if you then came to find out that this was not the mother's first child to be raised by others?
In fact, and to your shock, you find out from police affidavits, while the mother is being investigated for fraud by Houston police in 2003, that she has five children — one left behind in Europe, three in Africa and now one in the United States.
How would you react to that?
I think the Heflins acted in what they thought was the best interest of the child, and if what is said here is true, their actions were honorable. That said, the dismissal of their lawsuit and the remaining questions of how they got custody in the first place still speak for themselves. However honorable and well-intentioned they may have been, they overstepped their bounds. And yes, Talmadge Heflin's statement about black children and jail, at best an awkward phrasing, still casts doubt on their motivations. Sooner of later, Talmadge Heflin and not his lawyer or his minister, is going to have to explain himself more fully.
Politicians today are easy targets, but Talmadge has an honorable record in his public and his private life.Talmadge helped add 356 Texas Child Protective Services caseworkers during the last session of the Legislature.
Heflin added $1.9 billion to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), even in a year in which Texas already had a $10 billion deficit. And, he did it all without raising taxes.
Thanks to his work, there are now 110,000 more needy young Texans a month who receive medical care. Make that 110,001 counting Fidel Jr.
To say the least, these figures are debatable. How they square with 147,000 children dropped from CHIP's rolls, I couldn't say. But at least here we're on ground that I think we can all agree is fair game for vigorous debate, which brings us back to Hubert Vo. Let these two have it out, and may the best man win.
H-Town Blogs points to Metroblogging, which appears to be a group blog about events and happenings in different cities by the people in those cities. As yet, Houston is not represented, but that will be rectified when enough people have signed up. If that interests you, send in an application. Here's their FAQ if you want to know more.
Tim Dunlop catches an unfortunate turn of phrase during one of the womens' diving events. His commenters supply a bunch more, all of which are amusing.
I'm reminded of a story from the late 1960s, when the New York Yankees' empire had crumbled and the team was really bad, and usually played in front of many empty seats. One day, the radio broadcasters, one of whom was the immortal Dizzy Dean, spotted a couple making out in the far reaches of the upper deck.
"Look at that, Diz," said the first announcer. "He's kissing her on the strikes."
"Yeah," replied Dean. "And she's kissing him on the balls."
[short pause]
"Oh."
Don't know if that's actually true or not, but it ought to be.
Oliver Kitzman, the Waller County DA who tried to keep Prairie View A&M students from voting in that county, will resign his post in September.
Oliver Kitzman announced his plans to resign during a monthly Republican party meeting Thursday night, said Ann Davis, chairwoman of the Waller County Republican party."He said he would be sending a letter to the governor and would be resigning on Sept. 16. He said it was for personal reasons," Davis said.
Kitzman could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Last November, Kitzman sent a letter to the Waller County election administrator saying students at Prairie View, a historically black university, were not automatically eligible to vote locally.
His comments ignited a flury of debate that led to protest marches, complaints to state and federal officials and a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Kitzman later apologized for his "threatening" behavior toward students seeking to register to vote in Waller County.
Waller County Justice of the Peace Dewayne Charleston said Friday he was pleased that Kitzman planned on resigning. He said Kitzman's actions went beyond the students at Prairie View.
Charleston accused Kitzman of operating a "reign of terror" that targeted black ministers, municipal officials, judges and election officials.
Charleston and other community members filed a federal lawsuit against Kitzman earlier this month.
Charleston said members of the black community were rejoicing in his plans to resign.
"It's like an emancipation proclamation on a much smaller scale," he said. "Everyone is upbeat and cautiously optimistic."
Good riddance. There's only one small fly in the ointment:
Because Kitzman plans on resigning close to the coming election, the governor will appoint a new district attorney, said Charleston. He said he wished Kitzman's plans to resign would have come earlier, allowing residents to choose a new district attorney in a special election.
I nominate Cliff Vacek. It's not like he'll have anything else to do between now and November, after all.
By now, you've probably heard of the Ben Barnes story.
Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, in a video posted on the Internet, says he is ashamed that he got President Bush and other young men from important families into the Texas Air National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam.Barnes, a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, in the past has not personally discussed his role in getting Bush into the Guard. He previously said in a statement that he recommended Bush for a pilot's position at the request of a Bush family friend.
Bush has denied entering the Guard in 1968 to avoid Vietnam service.
[...]
The Barnes video was shot at a May 27 meeting of Kerry supporters in Austin.
"I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas, and I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I did it," Barnes said. Barnes actually was Texas House speaker when Bush entered the Guard.
Bush's father at the time was a congressman from Houston.
"I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that's what people should do when you're in office: You help a lot of rich people."
Barnes told the crowd he came to seriously regret his actions recently after visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and seeing the names of men and women who died in the Southeast Asian conflict.
There are two things that I'd like to see come out of this. One is a more widespread acknowledgement of the fact that that of the two major candidates for President, one of them benefitted from family connections to avoid combat duty, and the other volunteered for it. Two is a more widespread acknowledgement that for all his affectations of being "down-home" and "folksy", George W. Bush is a man of wealth and privilege, and he would not be where he is now without those assets.
Now of course, Republicans will counter that Barnes' statement is politically motivated and conveniently timed. They're right on both counts, but that doesn't matter. Nobody seems to be disputing the fundamental truthfulness of Barnes' statement, just the motivation behind it. Josh Marshall reminds us of the first time this issue was raised, and how then-Gubernatorial Candidate Bush responded, from a story by Jim Moore.
During the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race between Ann Richards and George W. Bush, I was a panelist on the only televised debate between the two candidates. The question I chose to ask Bush first was about the National Guard. I had lost friends in Vietnam, and many of them had tried to get into the Guard. We were all told that there was a waiting list of up to five years. The Guard was the best method for getting out of combat in Vietnam. You needed connections. George W. Bush had them."Mr. Bush," I said. "How did you get into the Guard so easily? One hundred thousand guys our age were on the waiting list, and you say you walked in and signed up to become a pilot. Did your congressman father exercise any influence on your behalf?"
"Not that I know of, Jim," the future president told me. "I certainly didn't ask for any. And I'm sure my father didn't either. They just had an opening for a pilot and I was there at the right time."
Maybe. But it's more likely he was there at the right time with the right name. Col. Buck Staudt, who ran the air wing in which Bush served, had filled his "champagne unit" with the politically connected and wealthy. The sons of U.S. Sens. Lloyd Bentsen and John Tower of Texas were in that unit, along with the son of Texas Gov. John Connally and the two sons of Sidney Adger, George H.W. Bush's closest friend in Houston. I should have let that speak for itself.
Will President Bush now categorically deny Ben Barnes' version of this story? I'd like to see someone ask him.
The video of Barnes making his statement is here. More coverage is here (via Drive Democracy), and here.
UPDATE: Sarah reminds me that Barnes brought down the house at an Austin for Kerry rally back in June.
UPDATE: The WaPo fills in some blanks.
[Barnes] intervened on Bush's behalf sometime in late 1967 or early 1968 at the request of a good friend of Bush's father, then a Republican congressman from Houston, the sources said. The friend, Sidney A. Adger, was a prominent Houston business executive who died in 1996. The Guard official contacted at his behest, Brig. Gen. James M. Rose, died in 1993.Both Bush, now governor of Texas and front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, and his father, the former president, say they did not ask for any help with Guard officials and have no knowledge of any assistance from Adger or anyone else.
"Gov. Bush did not need and did not ask anybody for help," said a Bush campaign spokesman, Scott McClellan. "President Bush has said he did not seek any help for his son in getting into the National Guard."
Jean Becker, a spokeswoman for former president Bush, confirmed that the senior Bush and Adger were good friends, but she said Bush firmly denies talking to Adger about helping his son get into the Guard.
So let's suppose that Barnes acted on behalf of someone who was acting on his own initiative. It doesn't change the narrative of Bush as a man of privilege. One could argue that this shows him to be extra specially privileged, since his wish to avoid combat was magically fulfilled without his direct knowledge or involvement. Good things just happen to George W. Bush. Always have, always will.
This was bound to happen sooner or later - KenLayInfo.com is online. The only info there so far is a picture of Kenny Boy and a personal note in which he states his innocence "of all charges that Andrew Weissmann and the President's Task Force allege in their July 7, 2004 indictment", but if they put up a blog with an RSS feed, I'm so there.
Elsewhere in Enronarama, Skilling and Causey are claiming discovery difficulties.
A federal judge has already shown an interest in forcing the issue. And this week, prosecutors wrote letters to attorneys for ex-Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling and former chief accountant Rick Causey to clarify what they will or won't do to help the defendants.Ever since 1963, federal law has required that prosecutors provide defendants with collected evidence that would tend to exonerate those accused of crimes. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court gave a new punishment trial to Maryland death row inmate John Brady because prosecutors hid his co-defendant's confession to a slaying committed during a robbery.
Attorneys for Skilling and Causey complain that they've been pointed to no exonerating information, even though the government has compiled at least 50 million — maybe 80 million or more — documents.
The defense lawyers have pointed to several documents they found themselves that they say help their case. One is ane-mail from an Enron lawyer saying Skilling would have stopped a side deal if he knew how much money then-Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow was making.
Enron Task Force prosecutors counter that the e-mail at issue was provided to Skilling by the government; it just wasn't highlighted. They say they've been unusually open, providing a room where lawyers can look at and copy the documents. Prosecutors say the government has more than met its burden by opening these files.
In court, prosecutors have said they found no information that would fall under the exonerating evidence rule.
In letters, they promise to try to point up any such information.
A defense motion has been invited by the judge and should be forthcoming in October. Stay tuned.
Interesting - an unpublished opinion by the Texas Ethics Commission in 1998 suggests that yes, corporate donations to PACs for political purposes are banned by state law.
Fred Lewis, executive director of Campaigns for People, said the unpublished opinion shows that the Ethics Commission did nothing despite believing that corporate contributions to PACs, which now amounts to millions a year, are prohibited under Texas law."I believe if the Ethics Commission knows something is illegal and it is occurring, they have a duty to enforce the laws of Texas," said Mr. Lewis, who obtained the opinion draft through the Texas Public Information Act.
"They do not fulfill their duties by doing nothing," he said.
Sarah Woelk, the commission's acting executive director and the author of the unpublished opinion, said the draft was a cautious reading of a law that contains ambiguity. She said it would not have served as an ultimate authority on what is legal.
"I think it's an open question. It's not one of these easy opinions," she said.
[...]
State and federal law prohibit corporations from using their wealth and shareholder's money to make political contributions, but there is an exception: They can pay for "administrative expenses."
The draft shows that initially Texas law copied federal law, which only allows a corporation to cover the administrative costs of its own PAC.
But the wording of the Texas statute was changed in 1975 so that one or more corporations could "finance the establishment or administration of a general-purpose political committee."
Some lawyers now interpret that to mean that corporate donations to third-party PACs are allowed.
To Terry Scarborough, the attorney for TRMPAC, there's no question about it.
"It is the black-letter wording of the law," he said. "God only knows why the Ethics Commission didn't issue that opinion, but had they issued it, it would have flied in the face of the statute."
Ms. Woelk said still at issue is what is an "administrative expense," which TRMPAC has interpreted as expenditures that pay for the political work at the essence of a PAC, but that don't promote a specific candidate.
But if administrative expense comes to mean only rent and utilities, PACs wouldn't be interested in corporate funding because they could only use those donations in a very limited way, she said.
Lawyer Scarborough's assertion that "administrative expense" has a very broad meaning was examined in more detail in the AusChron piece I linked to yesterday.
In the courtroom and on the PR trail, attorney Scarborough has taken the novel position that the longtime Texas political understanding of "administrative expenses" is in fact a mass delusion. Instead, he insists, the relevant Texas law (and Ethics Commission opinions) only forbids the use of corporate funds for "express advocacy" – urging voters to vote for or against a particular candidate. "It may be that the TAB pushed the envelope a little further [in their advertising]," Scarborough told me, "but what TRMPAC did, didn't even come close to the line." Asked if he thought the court would share his interpretation, he continued, "My case is going to turn on that [express advocacy], and I'm going to win because of it."
As noted above, Scarborough thinks that unpublished opinion is inconsistent with the law. I suppose we'd have had a court decision over that interpretation well before now had that opinion seen the light of day back in 98. We'll get one now, for what it'll be worth.
The Houston Press (scroll down to "Benchwarmer") takes note of the judicial bait and switch in Fort Bend. Nothing new there - "Hairballs" is not and was never intended to be a replacement for Tim Fleck - but at least it got mentioned in a newspaper with a citywide circulation. The Fort Bend Sun also reported the story. Not a peep from the Chron, of course.
According to the state demographer, "non-Hispanic whites" are now officially a minority in the state of Texas.
Buried within a new Census Bureau report, "Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," was an estimate that 49.5 percent of Texans in 2003 were "non-Hispanic whites."Texas State Demographer Steve Murdock said demographic trends had long shown that the milestone would inevitably be passed, just not quite so soon. "Recent projections suggested 2004 or 2005," he said.
Anglos already made up far less than half of the population in Houston, Harris County and the Houston metro area.
The 2003 state population estimate showed Hispanics at 35.4 percent and blacks 11.4 percent. Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in Houston, by 40.1 percent to 29.2 percent Anglos, and have edged past blacks as the largest U.S. minority.
More here.
Estimates show Texas was 49.5 percent white in 2003, down 1.5 percentage points from 2002 but still a large plurality. Almost all the loss was made up by Hispanics, who made up about 35.3 percent of the populace."The future of Latinos is the future of Texas, as the population numbers show," said Luis Figueroa, legislative staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The black population remained basically flat at around 10.8 percent. Asian-Americans now accounted for about 3 percent of Texas.
The dip of whites below the 50 percent mark was inevitable, although its occurrence in 2003 was at the early end of the predicted scale, Murdock said.
"We thought it probably would happen this year or next, so it's only a year different," Murdock said. "It does indicate that Hispanic growth is occurring more rapidly than we anticipated it would."
Murdock said Texas' continued explosion in Hispanic growth, fueled largely by international immigration that made up 36 percent of the state's growth from April 2000 to July 2003, helps explain the socio-economic numbers.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad news to go with this.
Most states did not report a significant change in income or poverty from 2001-02 to 2002-03, according to the Census Bureau. Not Texas, which had an estimated 3.8 percent decline in median household income to about $41,000 along with a 1 percent hike in the poverty rate.The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the household.
There was little change in the percentage of Texans without health insurance, which was basically flat at 24.7 percent. But with nearly a quarter of its residents uninsured, Texas still easily leads the nation in that unwanted statistic.
Figueroa pointed to a recent report that immigrant teens with sterling academic records are having trouble getting into college because of a lack of citizenship.
"If you keep putting up barriers to obtaining success, a lot of times the result is going to be a cycle of no insurance and lower incomes," he said from his San Antonio office.
Not all the numbers paint such a grim socio-economic picture for Texas. The percentage of Texans at least 25 years old with a high school diploma grew slightly to 77.8 percent while those with college degrees was flat at 24.5 percent.
However, the rate of Texas adults who didn't even make it to high school also rose slightly, to 10.8 percent.
There are charts with data in this story. Note the across-the-board decline in Median Household Income from 2000 to 2003. Any bets on how much attention that gets in the media?
Could Monday Night Football be in danger? It's apparently a big money-loser for ABC, but their affiliates love it, and there are plenty of suitors out there if Big Mouse asks for a divorce. Read this LA Times article for the scoop. Via Tom Kirkendall.
Today Tiffany put away all of Olivia's 0-3 month clothing, as she's now officially too big for all of them. She's somewhere north of 12 pounds as she nears turning 12 weeks old on Sunday, and she's almost too long to bathe in the kitchen sink. She's getting very close to turning herself over - if she could just figure out what to do with the arm that gets pinned underneath, she'd be there. She can already scoot around a bit on her back by pushing off with her legs. The deadline for babyproofing the house is bearing down on us.
Occasionally, Olivia helps me blog. Only thing is, she likes being in motion more than she likes sitting still, so I have to bounce on the chair (we have one of these, which at least makes it easy enough to accomodate her) to keep her from squirming. Let me tell you, your words-per-minute really takes a hit when you type while bouncing.
The AusChron brings us some news in the TAB/TRM investigation/lawsuit front (which The Stakeholder has already commented on). The bottom line here is that all of these cases are stuck in molasses - the original lawsuit against TAB was filed three weeks after the 2002 election, for Pete's sake - and I for one have no idea how much longer things will take.
To [Fred Lewis of Campaigns for People], the prolongation of the civil cases against TRMPAC and TAB, like the institutional feebleness of the Ethics Commission, has increasingly become a mockery of the law. "We're entering another election cycle," he points out, "and I hope the lesson is not: We might as well continue doing it [raising corporate cash] because we're going to get away with it."Lewis is not the only one beginning to wonder whether and when the ongoing investigations of possible criminal violations by TRMPAC, TAB, Speaker Tom Craddick, the state GOP, and the various players leading back to DeLay – are going to bear fruit. Travis Co. Attorney David Escamilla just announced an indefinite delay in the misdemeanor investigation, apparently punting to the Lege itself (good luck). District Attorney Ronnie Earle – who some weeks ago declared the case to be about "corporate greed" – has shifted to more gnomic utterances: "We are searching for the truth, and the truth has no deadline."
Reassuring, isn't it? Read it and weep. If you've forgotten the details since the last update, you can read the original "Tomstown" story, this "Tomstown Suit Goes Forward" piece, and this piece about why the criminal investigation has dragged out. This Texas Observer story was the original catalyst for the criminal investigation.
Beer technology marches ever forward.
PITTSBURGH - How much would you pay for a bottle of beer that stays cold nearly an hour longer?Pittsburgh Brewing, maker of Iron City Beer, is asking an additional $1 per case.
The brewery has partnered with Alcoa to produce aluminum bottles that keep beer colder for as much as 50 minutes longer than a glass bottle, Alcoa officials said.
About 20,000 cases of the new aluminum bottle beer are en route to as many as 28 states and should be on shelves this week, Alcoa and Pittsburgh Brewing said Tuesday.
The bottles have three times the aluminum of a typical beer can. That gives them superior insulation, Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery said.
It's not the first time Alcoa has teamed up with the local brewery to put out a new product. In 1962, the two put the first pull tab on beer cans.
"We think it's much better than a can and as good or better than glass," said Joe Piccirilli, vice chairman for Pittsburgh Brewing.
Iron City wants to expand sales. But the aluminum bottle may be more important to Alcoa. The aluminum giant wants to win back a share of the market it lost to beer bottles, both glass and the plastic ones now common at sporting events nationwide.
I certainly favor cold beer. The problem I have is that in my experience, beer doesn't taste as good when it comes in a can. That may be a function of the kind of beer which has a can option, of course. And it goes without saying that putting beer in a plastic bottle is a crime against nature. In any event, I don't see any aluminum bottles in my future.
State Democratic Party Chair Charles Soechting has requested an investigation of State Rep. Talmadge Heflin, whom Soechting said may have perjured himself during the recent custody fight.
In a letter to Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal on Wednesday, Charles Soechting cited discrepancies in state Rep. Talmadge Heflin's account of the mother's role while she and the child lived in his Houston home for more than a year.During a court hearing last week, Heflin called Mariam Katamba a house guest, but she maintained she was employed as a maid by Heflin and his wife, Janice. Soechting alleges that Heflin also has referred to Katamba as an employee.
Heflin spokesman Craig Murphy denied the allegations.
"Representative Heflin has been consistent on this, and everyone who has seen (Katamba) has seen her as nothing but a guest," Murphy said.
Rosenthal confirmed that he received the request and said he would look into the matter, as he would any such allegation, after a transcript of the court proceedings is complete.
He added that any investigation would wait until after the November election in which Heflin is seeking a new term.
"It has been a long-standing policy of this office not to influence the outcome of elections," Rosenthal said.
I wonder what the deadline is for the DA's office for a matter like this to be close enough to an election to affect it. June? March? The year before? Immediately after the last election? Just curious. Let's all hope they take faster action on this than they did with the allegations against Texans for True Mobility.
Soechting's press release is here. Somehow I managed to miss this Chron editorial from yesterday, which raises some familiar questions:
Heflin and his wife say their only motive was love for the 20-month-old child and concern for his welfare. However, they presented in court no corroborated evidence that the child's parents were unfit. Heflin's testimony was unpersuasive and based on notions of social superiority and noblesse oblige that went out of fashion a century ago.Had Talmadge not been the powerful Republican chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, residing in a county where Republicans dominate the courthouse, he probably would not have been able to get an associate judge and a judge of a family district court here to sign an order granting him temporary custody.
The representative's lawyer asserted in court that Heflin deserves the child because the parents cannot afford health insurance, and because Medicaid patients have to wait for exams and treatment. A leader in the Legislature, Heflin was instrumental in cutting children's eligibility for subsidized health insurance. Now he makes the grotesque claim that parents who can't insure their children are unfit.
The case offers another incongruity: Heflin belongs to the party most frequently associated with law and order and opposition to illegal immigration. Yet Heflin admits he sheltered an immigrant who had overstayed her visa.
I certainly hope the editorial board doesn't forget these words when it comes time to making an endorsement in this race.
Finally, the judges who were responsible for assigning temporary custody to the Heflins are named here.
The Heflins, who said they were worried about the child, sought an emergency order July 27 granting them temporary custody. Family District Judge Linda Motheral, who was presiding over the custody case, was out of town. Her associate judge, David D. Farr, reviewed the Heflins' filings, including allegations of abuse.Katamba, who is from Uganda, and Fidel Odimara Sr., who is from Nigeria, denied those allegations.
Farr approved the Heflins' motion, and Family District Judge Frank Rynd signed an order. Farr could not sign it because he is an associate judge appointed by Motheral to assist her.
I would very much like it if someone were to ask Judge Farr and Judge Rynd what exactly they were thinking.
There were many reasons why Clayton Williams lost the 1990 Texas Governor's race to Ann Richards despite the large lead he held in the polls through most of the campaign. The turning point for him was probably when he refused to shake hands with Richards before a televised debate. Williams, a political novice who'd ridden his personal fortune and a load of folksy charm to the Republican nomination and favored status in the general election, was perceived as boorish and rude for this stunt, and his poll numbers, already slipping due to a number of other gaffes, slid further downward.
I thought about that when I saw this picture of Max Cleland outside George Bush's Presidential compound in Crawford. I think Kos' assessment is accurate.
So Bush ignores Cleland, and looks like a boorish classless ass by snubbing a war hero triple amputee. If Bush comes out and accepts the letter, he looks weak and outclassed.The best course of action would've been to send a rep to invite Cleland, and only Cleland (no entourage or media) for a private meeting in the ranch. If Cleland declines, it is he who appears without class. If he accepts, Bush appears gracious, even with the opposition. Thankfully, Bush blew it.
I like Josh Marshall's take on this, too.
On a related matter, check out this piece on Bob Dole (via TalkLeft).
There will be three city propositions on the ballot this November, two of which are intended to restrict how much the city can spend in a given year.
[Mayor Bill] White's proposed charter amendment, Proposition 1, would limit annual increases in property tax revenue and water and sewer rates to the combined increases of population and inflation for Houston or 4.5 percent, whichever is lower.Proposition 2 would cap annual increases on all city revenues to the combined increases of population and inflation for Houston. Even if council members had not agreed Wednesday to place this on the ballot, the city would have been required to do so because the group Let the People Vote collected more than 20,000 signatures for the initiative.
Under both proposals, exceptions to the caps can be made with voter approval. If both propositions get more than 50 percent approval from voters, the one with the most votes will become law because they propose conflicting policies.
White proposed his amendment Aug. 11 as an alternative to Proposition 2, saying the grass-roots initiative could force the city to cut basic services such as police and fire protection. White said Proposition 2 does not distinguish between general revenue funds and enterprise funds.
Enterprise funds — such as aviation, water and sewer, and hotel and rental car taxes — must by law be used in their respective areas. White maintains that under a revenue cap, any significant increases in enterprise funds would force the city to cut general revenue and thereby reduce basic services.
I plan on voting against both of these propositions, but if polling shows that they're both going to pass, I'll vote for Prop 1 since I think it's not as bad as Prop 2. Prop 3 has to do with allowing the city comptroller to audit various city departments, offices, and programs, which seems innocuous enough on its face. I don't know anything more about it at this time.
Mike Toomey, Rick Perry's chief of staff, is set to leave soon, according to Dave McNeely.
Rumors continue to fly around the Capitol that are not about whether Mike Toomey will be leaving as Gov. Rick Perry’s chief of staff, but when. And who his replacement might be.Toomey, an old buddy and ideological gyroscope for Perry during their days in the Texas House of Representatives, had been thought ready to leave in August. But then that got pushed back to September.
The latest version is that Toomey, who is credited with having huge influence over Perry, particularly on budget matters, will hang around until at least November to see if a special session might be in the offing.
When Toomey leaves, there is talk that his deputy, Deirdre Delisi, who ran Perry’s 2002 campaign, will move up. But it’s also thought that someone like former senator and representative Dan Shelley could come on board to handle dealings with the Legislature. Shelley is currently a lobbyist.
Toomey became Perry’s chief of staff after the 2002 election. The governor’s office is mum on whether or when Toomey might leave.
The presumption is that if and when he does, in the revolving-door Texas tradition between government and the private sector, Toomey will go back to his lucrative lobbying practice, perhaps picking back up some of the clients like the anti-plaintiff’s lawyer group Texans for Lawsuit Reform and others.
Toomey is to Perry as Rove is to Bush, at least according to a subscriber-only-online article in Texas Monthly a year or so ago. Toomey is credited with the push from the last legislative session to consolidate more power in the Governor's office, and he's supposedly quite the whip when it comes to enforcing party discipline.
Sarah speculates that Toomey's departure could be related to one of the ongoing grand jury investigations, which include a peek at Toomey's role in the 2002 elections when he was involved with TRM. That's a logical connection to make, and I'm a bit surprised McNeely didn't at least address it.
Anyone keeping count here? I've lost track.
Mark Koenig, the former head of Enron's investor relations section, pleaded guilty this afternoon to a charge of aiding and abetting securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with the government.U.S. Judge Ewing Werlein asked Koenig if he was "just shaving it" when he misrepresented the financial health of several Enron divisions to investors and analysts.
"I was making an untrue statement of material fact that was misleading investors," said Koenig as he stood before the judge in a dark navy suit, flanked by his two Washington, D.C. lawyers.
Koenig, a 49-year-old Kingwood man who joined Enron in 1985, could be sentenced by Werlein to a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. The sentencing date is set for February but will likely be postponed since Koenig will likely be a trial witness at least against ex-Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling.
Koenig's plea papers noted that he several times heard Skilling misrepresent facts to analysts. He also mentions being prodded to answer questions falsely by Skilling. Skilling and ex-chief accountant Rick Causey are charged together an a wide-ranging indictment that also includes several charges against ex-Chairman Ken Lay. All three of those executives have pleaded not guilty.
[...]
Koenig admitted that he was aware that Enron's publicly reported financial results and filings with the SEC did not truthfully present Enron's financial position, results from operations, and cash flow of the company and omitted facts necessary to make the disclosures and statements truthful and not misleading.
He admitted that statements made by him and others relating to the performance of two of Enron's core businesses, Enron Broadband Services and Enron Energy Services were false and misleading.
Because Koenig and his staff drafted earning releases and scripts for conference calls with analysts and he accompanied other executives when talking publicly about the stock, he could be an important witness for prosecutors.
Paula Rieker, who worked under Koenig, has already pleaded guilty to an insider trading charge and is cooperating with the Enron Task Force and is expected to be a witness is several trials.
Koenig was not indicted by the Enron grand jury, but rather prosecutors filed the charge independently. The charge accuses Koenig of involvement in concealing failures at the Enron Energy Services unit through a rigged reorganization. The charge said Koenig knew Skilling misrepresented this in a first quarter 2001 call to analysts.
The charge said Koenig himself misled analysts about the source on the Internet broadband division's earnings in the same phone call.
And the beat goes on.
And Comptroller Strayhorn piles on Governor Perry regarding the continued underfunding of CHIP.
In a letter addressed to the governor and in a speech at the Austin Hilton, Strayhorn accused him of shifting the cost of, rather than cutting altogether, kitchen staff at the Governor's Mansion. And in a bit of political maneuvering, she linked the staffing costs with the Children's Health Insurance Program, for which new state rules took effect Tuesday. She called the changes a "mean-spirited means test" which will "literally jeopardize the health of countless children of the working poor.""If you can magically manage to keep two maids, a cook and a porter on your staff at the Governor's Mansion while claiming that they are not part of your budget, certainly you can figure out a way to continue insuring the health of these children," she wrote.
"By shifting your personal Mansion staff and salaries of five other staffers to another agency, you claimed a $300,000 budget cut. Had that cut been real, the state could have used those dollars to draw down an additional $771,000 in federal money. This would have provided health insurance to an estimated 930 children for a year." "Governor, your maids and cook and porter, I am certain, are vital to your quality of life," she continued. "Please understand the insurance you are denying children with this new means test is vital to their life, period."
"It's hypocrisy," she told reporters after a speech delivered Wednesday morning before the Texas Association for Home Care. "I guess the porter is still portering."
I always thought porters ported, but if so, does that mean that butlers butle? It's all very confusing.
With the nimble quickness of a charging bull, however, she narrowly avoided committing herself to the election."I am strongly delivering the message: It's time to put children first," she told reporters after her speech.
When she finally does announce her candidacy, what percentage of news stories do you think will refer to it as the "worst-kept secret in Austin"? I'm guessing at least half.
UPDATE: It's a twofer! Strayhorn bashes Perry over toll roads!
The protesters were out in force at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, where Tom DeLay was scheduled to speak yesterday.
Signs proclaiming "Dump DeLay" and "Exterminate DeLay" showed the theme for some who gathered at the University of Houston Clear Lake to protest House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's presence on campusWhile trying to be heard over cries of protest, DeLay spoke at the UH-CL alumni reception held Tuesday at 6 p.m.
As DeLay entered the building before the reception began, he waved and smiled to about 100 protesters who chanted, "No way Tom DeLay."
"UHCL is spending money on partisan events," alleged Karl Silverman, who joined protesters.
Silverman and other protesters were given permission to gather in designated areas outside the Bayou Building because they believe the reception was a violation of UH's ethics policy.
"The reception is an implied endorsement of Tom DeLay," said Tom Gederberg, alumnus and protest organizer.
Protesters couldn't be held back by the glass doors of the building, and some of them paraded into the reception.
"You are a crook, you dirty schnook," sang Elizabeth Nash and Chris Landry during DeLay's speech to alumni.
Much as I enjoy the spectacle of DeLay being heckled, I do not condone interrupting a speech like that. Shouting someone down is not right. You made your point, and since UH-CL showed respect for the First Amendment by not shunting you off to some bogus "free speech zone", you should show an equal amount of respect for the First Amendment by letting DeLay speak when it was his turn.
Some university officials were shocked by the protesters."I've worked here 12 years and (we've had politicians in and out), but I've never seen this before," said Theresa Presswood, director of communications for UHCL.
Well, maybe you've never had a politician who's inspired such strong feelings as Mr. DeLay before.
Taking on Tom DeLay has a first-person report from a protester.
After sending 7500 invitations paid for by the University of Houston, for a reception honoring Tom DeLay, less than 100 attended, 50 of which were staff or worked at the university.Outside in the hot sun were 150 enthusiastic protestors chanting "Don't DeLay. Indict today!" and "Tom DeLay has got to go". Three times as many protested Delay than those that honored him.
Also, only 2 elected officials from the city of Houston attended, no NASA employees or management, or any other type of dignitary.
There's more, so check it out.
Finally, another entry in the DeLay Must Be Worried files:
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay threatened Tuesday to block congressional passage of a six-year transportation funding authorization unless the bill sends more highway dollars to Texas."I am working on the conference committee to guarantee that bill will not go on the floor of the House until we guarantee every state gets at least 95 cents of every dollar back that they put into the highway fund," the U.S. House majority leader told a lunch meeting in Houston of the Alliance for Interstate 69 Texas. "It's high time Texas highway dollars stayed here to create Texas jobs."
Nothing says "I need help with my re-election effort" quite like a little pork-barrelling.
UPDATE: Here's another picture from the protest, courtesy of Juanita.
UPDATE: Still more pictures from Sarah.
Transcript here (via Julia via Susie). Naturally, I forgot to program the TiVo for it. I'll see about catching the rerun today. Anyone out there actually watch it?
And here's an AP wire report. Note something interesting here:
"I watch a lot of the cable news shows, so I understand that you were never in Vietnam," asked Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show.""That's what I understand, too, but I'm trying to find out what happened," Kerry joked.
[...]
"Are you or have you ever flip-flopped?" Stewart asked.
"I've flip-flopped, flap-flipped," Kerry said, poking fun at the GOP's label.
Stewart also sought answers to another hard-hitting question: "Is it true that every time I use ketchup, your wife gets a nickel?" The candidate's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is heir to the Heinz food fortune.
"Would that it were," Kerry said.
[...]
Many presidential candidates appeared on late-night comedy shows this year. John Edwards, now Kerry's running mate, even announced on "The Daily Show" that he was a candidate for president -- which Kerry said he watched.
"I think that's why he lost," Stewart said.
"No, he won," Kerry insisted, then jokingly offered to hold their inauguration on the show.
Kerry offered an interesting observation on life as a presidential candidate.
"You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room," he said. "It's the most bizarre part of this entire thing."
Joking, poking fun, making wry observations - my God, no wonder people think this guy is stiff and boring.
The Legislative Budget Board has approved more spending, but CHIP is still getting stiffed.
Legislative leaders approved $591 million in state spending Monday to restore health care for the needy but let deep cutbacks in the Children's Health Insurance Program stand.The additional spending, mostly approved last week by Gov. Rick Perry, will result in $1.5 billion more for various health needs once federal funds are added.
"With this action today, we're helping out some of the neediest in our society — children, elderly frail and the disabled," said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, co-chairman of the Legislative Budget Board, which sets spending priorities.
The funding will cut in half an expected shortfall for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, maintain current reimbursement rates for doctors and restore Medicaid benefits for pregnant women and the disabled.
It would nearly end the waiting list for the Children with Special Health Needs program.
[...]
Democrats and advocates for children criticized the board and the governor for shortchanging CHIP, which has cut 147,000 children from the program since September.
"It's very clear today they left out a lot of services that could have been restored. No. 1 on that list was CHIP," said Garnet Coleman, D-Houston.
Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick noted that after Monday's funding approval, $207 million remains that technically could have been spent now. Coleman and others said the LBB had no reason not to spend $91 million — less than half of what remained — now to restore CHIP.
Dewhurst said it would be more prudent to wait to spend the $207 million. He said some of it is already earmarked to help fund an emergency appropriation early next year for educational and other needs.
More here.
A Craddick spokesman said disputes over participation the health programs overlook that "anyone who is eligible for Medicaid gets it if they apply, and anyone who is eligible for CHIP gets it if they apply. ... Who is responsible for that?"Bottom line is that the state's budget situation is not good and we're doing the best we can for the neediest Texans and the taxpayers who are footing the bill for this health insurance."
Is it just me, or does he sound a little touchy? Maybe all that criticism is starting to have an effect.
UT math professor Lorenzo Sadun has taken the next step to getting on the ballot for the CD10 Congressional race in November.
At 2 p.m. today, Lorenzo Sadun, professor of mathematics at the University, will deliver the 500 signatures needed to place him on the November ballot as a write-in candidate for the 10th Congressional District of Texas. To celebrate this success, Sadun held a gathering for supporters Monday at his recently acquired campaign office on Cameron Road.
I sure hope he has more than 500 sigs, since as we know from the Nader experience, some of them won't survive scrutiny. On the other hand, I don't expect anyone to seriously challenge his effort to be included.
Before Sadun began his campaign, Republican Michael McCaul was the only contender for the Congressional seat.Now, Alan Sager, a professor of government at the University and chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, said he thinks the largely rural and suburban demographics of the newly drawn district will be to McCaul's advantage.
"I think it's fine [Sadun] is running," said Sager. "He'll help motivate our own voters."
If that's what you needed, then that's fine by me. I don't know how long it'll take the SecState to certify Sadun, but I'll keep an eye open for the news. Meanwhile, the Sadun for Congress office is having its grand opening tonight from 5-8 PM (8011 Cameron Rd, Suite 102, just north of 183, about half way to Rutherford), so check it out if you're in the neighborhood.
Toll road madness has spread to the Dallas area.
"It's a way to raise money, and the money comes right back here," said Denton County Judge Mary Horn, whose county is considering tolls along State Highway 121. "The bottom line is, there isn't enough money, state or federal, for us to do what we need to do."The McKinney City Council, eager to get money for expansion of U.S. Highway 75, passed a resolution last week supporting the Highway 121 conversion, hoping some of the tolls on that road could cover some of the U.S. 75 work.
[...]
In the last year, state leaders have led the charge for conversion of state highways to toll roads. In Houston, 1,000 people attended a recent meeting to oppose placing tolls on a state highway.
The issue is also dividing other regions of Texas. Officials in El Paso say they are losing out on a share of the newly created $3 billion Texas Mobility Fund because they do not want to convert any highways to toll roads. El Paso's reluctance has led North Texas leaders to seek some of that city's share of the mobility fund.
Not to mention spurring a recall effort in Austin, where the recent approval of a big toll road plan has a lot of people seeing red.
The reason for the toll road plan comes down to how state leaders best believe they can raise more money for transportation. The state collects a tax on gasoline of 20 cents per gallon, and all of that roughly $1.7 billion annual revenue pays for maintaining the highway system. An additional $1.3 billion in highway expansion money comes to Texas from the federal 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax.This year, a Dallas Morning News analysis showed that Texas ranked 42nd in state fuel tax raised per capita and 39th in state fuel tax raised per lane mile of highway. But the political climate has state leaders looking at other ways to raise road construction funds.
"I do share the governor's view that general taxes are bad if you've got an alternative," Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said.
Tolls are preferable to a gas tax increase, Ms. Horn said. [Collin County Judge Ron] Harris had a slightly different opinion.
"All anyone wants to talk about is lowering taxes. In the meantime, our infrastructure is crumbling," said Mr. Harris, a past toll road supporter who said he wants to move expeditiously on the Highway 121 proposal but who also needs more guarantees that toll road revenue collected in Collin County will remain there.
I view the building of toll roads that I'll never use in much the same way that I view the lottery: if you don't want my contribution to the greater good of the state, hey, who am I to complain? I think Judge Harris' comment is dead-on, and I think this is an example of the pernicious effects of monotonic anti-tax rhetoric. We can't even talk about properly funding things that everyone agrees are an appropriate use of government resources because somebody somewhere might see a tax increase of some kind, and tax increases are, as toll road opponent Randy Jenkins says, "almost like selling your soul to the devil".
As a matter of public policy, I don't have any problem with the concept of toll roads, though I'm not convinced that that's any better a financing vehicle than bonds and gasoline taxes are. I'm just amazed that the rhetoric over taxation has gotten sufficiently toxic that toll roads are now considered the default option. What's next?
On a side note, does anyone know if the snazzy new Westpark Tollroad has met its usage projections so far? Seems to me it ought to be pretty easy to figure out how much traffic it's had, but I haven't seen anything in the news on it.
UPDATE: Kevin points to this DMN story about the potential political fallout to all of these toll road proposals, which are now identified with Governor Perry and opposed by both Comptroller Strayhorn and Senator Hutchison. He's excerpted most of it, but I want to highlight this quote:
"Our belief, and Governor Perry's firm belief, is that leaders lead, and ... they have to take chances," said Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission and a longtime Perry political ally. "They can't take the easy way out. ... They suffer the consequences and advance civilization."
See, "leading" to me would include explaining the costs and benefits of all this road construction in a straightforward and understandable manner, and having an actual discussion about the best way to pay those costs. Maybe even, you know, voting on some of these options, like we had to do umpty-um times to get a rail line built in Houston. What's happening in Austin and Dallas and elsewhere that's now causing such a ruckus strikes me as "the easy way out", though it sure looks like it won't be so easy in the end. If toll roads, which appear to be the default option thanks to the prevailing anti-tax orthodoxy, wind up being the political death of Rick Perry, it will truly be poetic justice.
Via Political Wire, we have a new Texas poll done by Survey USA (PDF). It shows Bush leading Kerry by a 58-37 margin, which is very close to what the spread was in 2000, and is slightly better for Bush than the Rasmussen result from early June. It's hard to judge a poll in isolation, and as Texas is a non-swing state we may not see another result for awhile, but there are a few interesting bits to speculate on.
The survey says that Kerry leads Bush by a 58-36 margin in "West Texas". I'm going to step out on a limb here and guess that this is basically El Paso, since I'm pretty sure Midland and Odessa are firmly in the Bush camp. More intriguing is the item that says Bush has a 50-47 lead in "Houston". Bush carried Harris County by a 54-43 margin in 2000, so depending on how they define "Houston", this may be evidence that the Democrats are finally on the verge of regaining some parity here. There's no more data specific to a city, but overall in "Urban" areas the race is a 48-48 tie, while Bush cleans up in the suburbs to a 68-28 tune and carries rural areas 62-33.
Among age brackets, Bush does best with the 35-49 demographic, scoring a 63-32 margin, but he does least well among 18-34 year olds, winning with a 52-44 tally. Will they become more Republican as they pass into the next age group, or is this a sign that the Democrats are making inroads with the new generation? Beats me, but it'll be something to watch.
One last thing - Bush does slightly better among "Non-Military" (60-36) than he does among "Military/Vet" (57-39). It's probably just noise, but I thought it was worth a mention anyway.
I've said before that I believe Kerry needs to beat Al Gore's showing by at least a few points if the redistricted Congressional incumbents are to have a good chance of survival. This result shows there's still a lot of work to be done by the Democrats. They're still raising money for the fall GOTV effort. Help them out if you can.
UPDATE: Byron offers some analysis.
We're getting close to the end of our tour through the State House, but that doesn't mean we're close to running out of good candidates to highlight. Today's special guest star is David Leibowitz, who's running in a very winnable district in San Antonio. Check out the intro to David and the intro to the district, and check back later for a Q&A.
Couple nice mentions of my alma mater and my graduate school in the papers. Here's Trinity making the grade in US News and World Report again.
For the 13th straight year, Trinity was tops among colleges and universities that offer a full range of undergraduate and select master's-level programs in the western United States.Trinity also was No. 1 in the best-value category and for academic reputation. And its engineering science department was ranked 21st among engineering programs at schools whose highest degree is a master's.
Marc Raney, Trinity's vice-president for university advancement, attributes the school's success to quality faculty and a commitment to technology.
"Students here are able to use technology and science equipment that's generally only available at the graduate level," he said.
And here's a nice article on Dr. David Leebron, the new President of Rice University, formerly the dean at Columbia's Law School.
Rice's participation in Division I-A athletics, a sore point for many faculty members, is certain to produce a few headaches for Leebron.A report in April by McKinsey & Co., a consulting firm, concluded that an annual deficit of $10 million in athletics was likely to worsen and that dropping football was a "viable option." The report also revealed an academic gap between athletes and nonathletes. The SAT scores of male nonathletes average 1447 out of a possible 1600, but those of male athletes average 1103. Athletes also tend to cluster in a few majors, such as kinesiology.
Although trustees decided to retain football and Division I-A status, Leebron will have to grapple with the financial and academic issues.
Another challenge will be attracting minority students. Rice has a special incentive because of its history: The school's 1891 charter said that only whites could attend.
That provision, as well as another clause that barred charging tuition, persisted until the 1960s. Blacks currently make up 6.5 percent of the student body, down from a high of 9 percent in 1995.
Broadening Rice's geographic reach is also a priority. Currently, about half of the students hail from Texas.
I'm hearing that Leebron has already caused a bit of a stir due to the unexpected retirement of a popular administrator (Dr. Camacho, for the Owls in my audience). I know precious little about this, but there are a couple of threads on Owlzone that are discussing it: see here and here for more.
Leebron initially balked at Rice's overtures. He and his wife were happy with their life in New York. Their apartment in Manhattan was a gem, with plenty of space and light and a view of the Hudson River. The children were in good schools. Leebron liked his job at Columbia. And Houston isn't exactly in the snowbelt, which meant he wouldn't get to ski as much.But Houston turned out to be more cosmopolitan than Leebron and Sun had expected. Its Chinatown impressed them, and that's saying a lot because Sun was born in Shanghai. In the end, the opportunity to lead a prestigious university was too enticing to pass up.
Even the city's legendary heat and humidity are tolerable, Leebron said, adding: "My only complaint about Houston so far is that Houstonians apologize too much for the weather."
Heh. Tell that to these guys.
A judge today dismissed the case in which state Rep. Talmadge Heflin and his wife were seeking custody of the 20-month-old son of African illegal immigrants.Family District Judge Linda Motheral ordered the boy returned to his mother this afternoon, bringing an end to the high-profile custody battle that appeared as if it could take months to resolve.
"The law is very clear that the best interest of the child will be served if the biological parents bring him up in their own culture, in their own way," said Mathew Nwogu, one of the lawyers who represented the parents. "The mother and the father are very excited and at least they can say there is justice in the U.S. of A."
[...]
"The court, having heard all testimony and relevant issues, finds that (the Heflins) do not have standing, and the court on its own motion, dismisses the case," Motheral wrote.
Establishing standing is the first legal hurdle that must be cleared by someone seeking custody of a child.
In Texas, those who could have a valid claim to a child include the parents, the child himself and, in some cases, a step-parent.
Even grandparents do not automatically have standing under the law.
The Heflins argued that they had a valid claim to the boy under a provision of the law that allows attempts at custody by someone who has care, control and possession of a child for more than six months.
I think I tried reasonably hard to be fair to the possibility that the Heflins' suit could have had merit, but the more I read about this, the harder it got to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm glad that more people are asking questions about this case, but the big question of how the Heflins got into a courtroom with temporary custody in hand - never mind how they came to be living with the child of illegal immigrants in the first place - remains unanswered. I fear now that their case has been dismissed, it will no longer get asked. Which is a shame, given the obviously unusual circumstances.
(Express News link via Drive Democracy.)
UPDATE: There's a little more info in the morning story. Also, I see that state Democratic Party chair Charles Soechting has raised the illegal immigrant question regarding this case:
Soechting said that Heflin may have already left himself open to perjury charges in state district court, criminal violations of federal immigration law, and penalties levied by the Internal Revenue Service.Heflin has claimed to have no knowledge of the mother's immigration status, despite testimony that he gave her money to help arrange her legal papers. Heflin's attorney, Harry Tindall, has been a partner for 25 years in one of Houston's leading law firms specializing in immigration law and has said he believes the mother, who is from Uganda, is in the U.S. illegally, according to court documents and press reports.
"It simply isn't credible that Mr. Heflin had no knowledge of this young couple's legal status," Soechting said.
In addition, Heflin originally told the court that the young mother in the case came to work in his home as a caretaker for an elderly relative. He later revised his story, saying that she worked in his home as a "housekeeper." When questions of whether he may have failed to pay the required Social Security taxes on her were raised, he suddenly claimed she was merely a "house guest."
This is definitely an avenue worth exploring.
The Richard Morrison campaign has produced a TV ad which, if I happen to see it on TV, will be the first such political ad I'll have seen since the primary season (such is life in a non-swing state). It's a pretty straightforward introductory piece, which capitalizes on one of Richard's biggest strengths, his basic likeableness. I love the use of a traffic jam to symbolize the tide he says he's going against, too. (Here's a review from Byron as well.) Check it out, and if you like what you see, you know what to do.
This ought to be fun.
CLEAR LAKE — A reception for House Majority Speaker Tom DeLay at the University of Houston-Clear Lake on Tuesday night is expected to draw protesters.An e-mail circulated last week that encouraged recipients to make signs and show up in force, arguing that DeLay’s appearance amounts to nothing more than a campaign stop.
The campus will become part of DeLay’s district, redrawn last year.
DeLay is hoping to retain representation of District 22 in the November general election.
Those organizing the protest claim the reception is a violation of university policy, which prohibits school resources from being used to affect the outcome of an election. The university contends that the reception isn’t political in nature.
University of Houston spokesman Eric Gerber said the school often invites legislators to its campuses and cited recent visits by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
“I don’t think anyone should be surprised that a university is bringing legislators and lawmakers on campus,” Gerber said. “Tom DeLay is an alum of U of H, and he’s a distinguished alum, a title he was awarded last year.
“He’s the majority leader in Congress. The university is constantly having important people come to the campus.”
Juanita was on this last week. At least as an alum, DeLay didn't complain about UH students having sex in the dorms like they do at those wild and wooly bastions of liberal debauchery Baylor and Texas A&M. So he has that going for him.
I see that Juanita has given her promised report on the judge juggling in Fort Bend, and there's still more to come. I've found exactly one story in the news on this, which at least had the decency to note that there's more to the story than simply Governor-appoints-replacement-judge. Nothing for the Chronicle to see here, nosirree.
This NYT article about a recent trend in newspapers to cull the comics pages as a cost-saving maneuver leaves me shaking my head. Two comments from the story stand out to me:
“I think newspapers need some percentage of attraction to young readers to get them interested, get them hooked, get them off the Internet,” said Scott Adams, the creator of “Dilbert,” the 15-year-old chronicle of cubicle culture that appears in 2,000 papers worldwide. “The comics page is their portal. And right now, they risk having no portal.”
I'm a newspaper junkie, but I have to say that the comics are the one part of the newspaper experience for me that just isn't replicable on the Internet. I bring my newspaper to work with me so I can read the comics at lunch time. Having to click a few dozen links to read what I like just doesn't compare to opening a two-page spread and taking a leisurely stroll through it. And yes, the comics (and the sports pages) were my introduction to newspapers way back when.
The Chron, mentioned earlier in the story as having done some surveying to see what comics they might cut later, has four pages' worth of them, making them in my mind one of the best comic sections around. They picked up all of the strips that were abandoned when the Houston Post was sold for scrap in 1995, and have made only onesy-twosie changes since. To make cuts with cost savings in mind would now mean fairly wholesale slaughter, for if they don't recover at least a full page then I don't see the point. Be afraid, my fellow Houstonians, be very afraid.
Lalo Alcaraz, an editorial cartoonist for the alternative newspaper LA Weekly, who has been drawing “La Cucaracha” for nearly two years, was more blunt about the generational scrimmage for space on the comics page.“If only science had not found a way to revive dead cartoonists and keep them alive, that would be helpful to me and a lot of guys coming up,” he said in a veiled swipe at, among others, “Peanuts,” which remains in syndicated reruns more than four years after the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz.
Much as I love "Peanuts", if they're going to do reruns, could they at least do them from the older days, when it was a hell of a lot better? If you were only ever exposed to this latter stuff, which I note by the recent reappearance of the "Brownie Charles" sequence has cycled through at least twice now, you'd have a hard time figuring out why "Peanuts" is beloved enough to be worth keeping on. I'd rather see it die on the comics pages than wind up being remembered for the strips that run there now. Throw us a bone here, United Media.
The latest Angry Alien production is out, and it's another classic: "Jaws" In 30 Seconds And Reenacted By Bunnies. Well, bunnies and a shark, if you want to be technical. Like their previous re-imaginings such as "The Exorcist" and "Titanic", it's a hoot. Check it out.
Speaking of "Jaws", the next time someone says to you that movie adaptations of books are always worse than the original, ask them if they've ever read the novel "Jaws". It's awful. The main character after the shark is Chief Brody's wife, who frets about her shaky marriage and engages in an affair with the rakish icthyologist Matt Hooper. I'd tell you more but I can't remember a single other interesting bit from the book, something which I think we can all agree is not a statement one would make about the movie. And to tie this all back to bunnies, the book "Who Killed Roger Rabbit?" is not nearly as good as the movie, too.
Three words: Buttock augmentation surgery.
"It's everywhere now," said Yadira Yanez, a 30-year-old mother of three who recently underwent buttock augmentation to get a fuller, rounder tush. "It's on TV where you see people that have done it and made their lives change. Everybody's doing it. It's like carrying a cell phone."
Let me just say that I have discovered the natural way to a fuller, rounder tush. Admittedly, my method does not limit its effects to only the tush, but on the plus side there are no expensive, messy, or painful medical procedures involved. Details available upon request.
I've been critical of Rick Casey in the past, but give the man his due: when he's good, he's good. Today he talks to an unnamed judge, who gives us some color commentary on the strange Heflin custody case. The highlights:
One widely respected judge — let's call him Judge X — says he has handled many cases similar to the efforts by Talmadge Heflin and his wife to get custody of the 20-month-old son of Miriam Katamba, a native of Uganda who lived with the Heflins and accepted their help in taking care of the baby.Judge X said the typical case, though, has two major differences.
One is that the older people trying to get custody are the grandparents of the child.
The other is that these grandparents are not among the most politically powerful in the state — a distinction Talmadge Heflin holds as chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee.
"This situation is very, very common with grandparents," said Judge X. "Their daughter becomes a single mother. She moves back in with her parents, and they help with the baby while she finishes school or gets on her feet.
"After a few years she wants the baby back to go out on her own, and they end up at the courthouse."
[...]
The first thing to note is that after examining the facts of the case, Judge X probably would have thrown it out by denying the Heflins standing.
Only certain people have the right to sue for custody under Texas law, and grandparents are not among them. The way they could get the right is to claim that they "had actual care, control and possession of the child for at least six months ending not more than 90 days preceding the date of the filing of the petition."
That's the provision in the Family Code that the Heflins cited, saying Katamba and her baby had been with them more than six months, and that she was often gone throughout the week for her job and would return on the weekends but not spend much time with the boy.
[...]
Judge X said the U.S. Supreme Court gave a powerful boost to parents in a 2000 ruling called Troxel v. Granville.
The case involved grandparents who had convinced an Oregon judge to give them more visitation rights than the mother wanted to allow.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned the lower court and the Oregon law, which would let anyone go to court for custody. The court ruled that the 14th Amendment "protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children."
It added that "so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's child."
So those are the main issues for Judge Linda Motheral: the Heflins' standing and Katamba's fitness.
Judge X said Motheral, a board-certified family law specialist, is well equipped to rule on the case. "I see her as a good judge," he said, adding, "Of course it makes a difference that it's Talmadge Heflin."
Emphasis in original. I can see this getting very ugly if the Heflins win and there's any question about why. I'd still like to know more about how the Heflins got temporary custody in the first place. Again, it may well be that all of their claims about the child and his parents may be true. If so, they're certainly doing a good deed regardless of the outcome of the court case. I don't see it that way right now on the limited information we have. I hope we'll know more soon.
Howard Dean is visiting Houston this weekend to help raise some campaign funds for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Richard Morrison.
"People think Texas is George W. Bush country," Dean told hundreds packed into the Houston International Theatre School on Saturday. "But right now, 40 percent of Texans would vote for a yellow dog before they place a vote for George W. Bush."Criticizing the Bush administration for failures in education, health care, job creation and national security, the former Vermont governor said his visit was part of his grass-roots "Democracy For America" campaign to promote progressive activism to challenge Republicans in office.
"This is about ordinary people running for office, because politics is too important to be left to professional politicians," Dean said. "Even in the most conservative county in Texas."
He said Democrats should follow the strategy of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Christian Coalition by running a candidate for every public office available, whether it's a seat on a local library board or in Congress.
Dean also was here to stump for U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and candidate Richard Morrison, who is challenging House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Jackson Lee praised Dean for empowering the Democratic Party.
"I attribute to him what has now been finalized by a bipartisan (9/11) commission: that America has not yet reached its promise," Jackson Lee said.
Dean made it clear his visit was to lend Jackson Lee the same support she offered during the primaries. He said she remained loyal after unexpected primary losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
"Loyalty means a lot to me and there's not a whole lot in politics," Dean said after a Jackson Lee fund-raiser in Montrose. "But this was a whole lot more than political back-scratching."
Dean was referring to his "Dean's Dozen" program, which supports fiscally conservative, socially progressive candidates at all levels of government regardless of their potential to win. His support of Morrison, he said, epitomizes the incrementalist approach.
"I think about the most progressive thing you can do is run an aggressive campaign against Tom DeLay," said Morrison, who will host Dean at a political rally in Sugar Land today. "I think the visit will really raise awareness about my campaign against Mr. DeLay."
UPDATE: He was in Austin, too.
Beelzebud Selig's term as Commissioner of Major League Baseball has been extended through 2009. That sound you hear is my teeth grinding.
I may have more to say about this later, when I'm done banging my head against the wall. For now, let's all just agree that a Commissioner who is basically an extension of the owners is not really a Commissioner who can act solely in the best interests of the game. Sadly, it'll now likely be at least another five years before that conflict of interest can be resolved.
UPDATE: Dayn Perry rants about this so I don't have to. What he said.
Tom and Kevin both note this NYT story about the Houston: It's Worth It campaign. I think it's pretty strong evidence for the effectiveness of the HIWI campaign that the Times wrote a respectful and gets-it article about the effort and the city it's selling. Given the Times' track record in these matters, that's no small feat.
And yeah, the fact that it's got Jordy Tollett's nose out of joint is good, too. Keep it up, fellas.
I can't let this bit go by without comment:
Of course, ttweak does not permit just any comment on the site. "We have an abundant amount of massage parlors at competitive prices," was one remark that did not pass muster, Mr. Twaddle said.
I was going to say "Different strokes for different folks", but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't. Let's just move on here.
The judge in the strange custody dispute between Talmadge Heflin and his former maid has declined to rule for now on the matter, which is a victory in a way for the Heflins since the child in question will remain in their care until the ruling is made. The interesting bit in the story is the recognition that Heflin has finally responded to his earlier White Man's Burden comment.
The Heflins' lawyer, Harry Tindall, challenged allegations that the Heflins' efforts are inappropriate. He also addressed Talmadge Heflin's comment during testimony Wednesday about "the terrible problem that black male children have growing up into manhood without being in prison.""Race is not an issue here and this is not about acting as a plantation owner," Tindall said when asked about the Heflins' motives. "This is a couple who, in their 60s, stepped up to the mat to help a child. ... We have good evidence that the (parents') track record is not good."
And maybe you do, which maybe we'll all find out about in good time. For now, though, Rick Casey's observation that there were "no police reports, no complaints to Child Protective Services, no testimony from medical staff" introduced into evidence stands in contrast to that assertion. Stay tuned.
Kerry asks the question that our wimpy national "press" corps is too chicken to ask. As an extra special bonus, he also has another Malkin screencap.
The school finance lawsuit is perking along, with the plaintiffs still putting on their case. Former State Sen. and Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, one of the authors of the 1993 "Robin Hood" law testified that Robin Hood would still be working if the state were still kicking in the same level of funds as it was in the beginning.
"I don't see anything wrong with the current school-finance system, had the state continued to fund its proportionate share, as it was in the decade of the '90s," said Ratliff, a Republican from Mount Pleasant who retired from the Senate in January.Ratliff said previous Gov. George W. Bush encouraged lawmakers to cover 55 percent of the cost of education with state funds. Today, the state pays for 38 percent of school costs, pushing a greater burden onto local districts.
The state Constitution forbids a statewide property tax. But state law caps the tax rate that local school districts can set for maintenance and operations, and 81 percent of children are in districts that are within 5 cents of that $1.50 cap. Many districts argue that the cap has become a statewide tax as lawmakers have reduced the state's share of education costs while raising standards and forcing property-wealthy districts such as Austin's to send their tax dollars to other schools.
"While I have taken the position in the past that it is not a statewide property tax, it is increasingly difficult for me to make that statement," Ratliff said.
Earlier testimony claimed that the assumptions underlying the current financing formula are flawed.
University of Wisconsin economics professor Andrew Reschovsky enumerated several faulty assumptions that he said would lead to the goverment's low-ball cost estimate.The state-sponsored study put the per-student cost of an adequate education at $6,403 per year, but Reschovsky's research put the figure at $7,578 -- or 18 percent higher, he said. The state spends about $6,500 per student, per year.
"It's quite ... unreasonable," Reschovsky told the court, when asked about some of the underlying assumptions in the government's study.
[...]
Texas lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to remedy the situation this year during a special session of the Legislature. Underlying that failed attempt was a government-sponsored study by Texas A&M and University of Kansas researchers that put a price tag on the cost of an adequate education.
It was that study that came under assault Wednesday in court.
Reschovsky, the expert witness for the plaintiffs, said the government study did not properly account for differences in district sizes, drop-outs and new arrivals.
He also said the study did not look at the state's recent switch from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills to the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Both standardized tests have been the key component in the state's accountability-based public education system.
"TAKS is a harder test, and it tests at a higher standard," he said. "To call those two tests equivalent doesn't seem reasonable. ... For any given performance improvement on the TAAS, it's going to cost more resources to make the same percentage improvements on the TAKS."
Lasso looks at those numbers and asks a question:
If there are about 4 million students (that’s low) and you round down to a $1,100 gap between the two studies, there’s a $4.4 billion difference in opinion.The Legislature couldn’t agree on how to raise a lousy billion earlier this year. What if the courts order that Legislators come up with four?
I believe the answer to that question is "There will be the most fun special session you've ever seen." Stay tuned.
METRO is asking the federal government to pick up the tab for the next two light rail extensions.
Metro officials hope that by pledging to pay for all of the subsequent two lines — from Midtown to Hillcroft and downtown to the East End — with local funds, the Federal Transit Administration will agree to foot the bill for the first two.Typically, the cost of each rail segment is split between Washington and the local transit agency.
Metro's proposal is contained in thousands of pages it is sending to Washington today to meet an annual deadline for getting in the federal funding pipeline. Metro officials said that if the FTA agrees to the plan, the authority can complete all four voter-approved rail extensions a year or two ahead of the 2012 goal set in November's referendum.
Paying for the Westpark and Harrisburg lines with its own dollars would mean Metro could skip all the federally mandated studies, President and CEO Frank Wilson said.
"All those years of planning, all that stuff you normally do, we wouldn't have to do," said Wilson, who briefed board members during Thursday's meeting. "We'll go right to design and build."
Works for me. The big question, of course, is which way Tom DeLay will flip flop on the issue.
In his presentation Thursday, Wilson laid out several scenarios. The best case, he said, would be getting $1 billion in federal funding to pay for the Northline and Southeast routes. If Metro has to build the lines solely with local money — as was done for the Main Street tracks after House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blocked federal funds — it would have to build the routes for rapid buses first and upgrade them later."What we can do will be dependent on the amount of federal funding we get, which is why it's so important to have a unified congressional delegation," Metro Chairman David Wolff said.
"If we can convince (DeLay) we are doing the right thing and acting with discipline and openness, he can accomplish great things for us."
DeLay, R-Sugar Land, praised Metro's new leadership last week at the Texas Transportation Summit in Irving.
He said, however, that he would withhold comment on whether he would help Metro obtain federal funds until he has reviewed its FTA application. DeLay has pledged not to block grants for MetroRail expansion if the projects are recommended by the FTA.
He's got the wiggle room to weasel out if he feels like it, not that it would affect his credibility one way or the other. But we'll see which way he goes. Feel free to increase the pressure on him while he decides.
Rick Casey picks up the White Man's Burden ball and advances it down the field.
And the Heflins' lawyer argued that the child's parents couldn't afford health insurance, and the boy suffered the long waits that Medicaid coverage brings.That raises a question. As the powerful chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Heflin presided over a budget that cut about 7,000 children from the Children's Health Insurance Program (ed. note: I believe he means 147,000, which is the number usually cited in news accounts). CHIP covers children of parents who cannot afford private health insurance, but who make too much to qualify for Medicaid.
I wonder if Talmadge proposes, next session, to pass a law putting all those children up for adoption.
[...]
The baby's mother, Mariam Katamba, testified that after the Heflins offered to provide housing for her, she worked for them as a maid and was paid in cash.
That's a touchy issue for a politician, ever since Bill Clinton nominated Zoe Baird for attorney general. She withdrew under a stormy cloud after it came out that she hadn't paid Social Security taxes on her housekeeper.
Janice Heflin testified Katamba wasn't a maid, but a "house guest," and the only cash she gave her was to help her obtain a green card so she could legally stay in the United States.
But that only raised another sensitive issue for Talmadge. Would his conservative Republican constituents countenance the notion that he had harbored an illegal immigrant?
Not to worry. Whatever his wife's efforts to make Katamba legal, Talmadge was, he testified, unaware of the immigration status of the woman with whose baby he was bonding.
[...]
They said the mother wasn't around enough, but her job caused much of her absence. Having offered their assistance, it appears that they are offering her acceptance as evidence against her.
Most importantly, they offered no independent testimony or evidence — no police reports, no complaints to Child Protective Services, no testimony from medical staff.
It's just their word — and socioeconomics — against that of the parents.
And yet based on that they were able three weeks ago to get a judge to order a bailiff to seize the baby from his mother and turn him over to them without even hearing, until now, from the mother and father.
That is power.
Damn straight. I hope Casey, or somebody at least, can get Heflin to answer some of these questions. (Have I mentioned lately how much I miss Tim Fleck? He'd be on this like Andy Dick on a reality show babe.) In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Hubert Vo, the man who will hopefully replace Heflin this November, Texas Tuesdays has you covered.
As for the status of the case, the judge may rule today who gets to keep the child until final custody has been determined. Every expert quoted in this article is skeptical about the Heflins' claim.
"You don't acquire the right to be a parent of a child simply because you have a superior résumé," said Richard Carlson, a professor at the South Texas College of Law who specializes in family law. "There is a strong presumption in favor of the parents in custody cases."[...]
Experts said there are two primary legal issues: whether the people seeking custody have a valid claim, which is called standing; and whether their reasons for wanting the child are compelling.
"It isn't supposed to be easy for a non-parent, even a grandparent, to get standing," said Laura Oren, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "You wouldn't want the mailman to come along and say, 'I don't like the way you are raising your kids. I think I'll sue.' "
[...]
The Heflins are citing a provision in the law that allows standing for someone who has had continuous care, control and possession of the child for more than six months. They argue that, after moving into their house, Katamba left Fidel primarily in their care.
"It is not that cut-and-dried, especially in a case like this, what (continuous possession) means," Carlson said. "If I go and live with someone, does that mean they have the actual care, control and possession of my child? I don't believe that is what the law intended."
[...]
Beyond establishing that they have a valid claim to the child, the Heflins must show there is a convincing reason he should be taken from his biological parents. Such reasons could include danger to the child or possible emotional harm because he has bonded with the Heflins.
"My guess is that they are going to have to show there is some immediate danger to the child if he is turned over to the parents, to overcome the parental presumption," said Stewart Gagnon, a partner at the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski who helped to rewrite the state's family law code in 1993.
[...]
Before permanent custody is decided, the judge must determine who will keep the boy during the legal process.
Experts said this ruling, which could come today, could have major impact on the Heflins' efforts to win permanent custody.
"The potential problem with granting temporary custody to the non-parents is that it could be used to bolster their standing when it comes to permanent custody," Oren said.
Experts also questioned why a judge signed an order July 27 to give the Heflins the boy, who had been with his mother since July 19, until temporary custody is resolved.
"Unless there is a serious immediate question regarding an emergency with the child, that typically does not happen," Oren said.
Another excellent question. Keep them coming, and let's see if we ever get any answers.
They're an optimistic lot in the Houston hotel business, that's for sure.
The Super Bowl drove thousands of visitors to Houston hotels earlier this year, but it still wasn't enough to cure the city's ailing lodging market.More than two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Enron bankruptcy, Houston hotels are still struggling.
But the city's hostelries are beginning to see a slight turnaround, said hotel consultant John Keeling, who spoke to the Hotel & Motel Association of Greater Houston on Thursday.
"We're beginning to see better numbers in Houston, and we think that's just the beginning," he said.
Houston's citywide occupancy is expected to reach 61 percent this year, up slightly from 60.4 percent in 2003.
"We haven't returned to the high occupancies we experienced in 2000, and it probably will be a long time until we do," Keeling said.
A big part of the problem is downtown. Over the past year, more than 1,500 hotel rooms were added to the city's central business district.
The new Hilton Americas-Houston convention center hotel and several boutique hotels opened, flooding the market with rooms.
Downtown will end the year with a 51 percent occupancy rate.
Keeling said 2005 will be "fairly anemic" as well, increasing to just 53.4 percent.
But the promise of future convention business is keeping spirits high.
Most conventions are booked three to four years out, said Joan Johnson of the Hotel & Motel Association.
"It's the next couple of years that'll be good," she said.
Indeed, by 2007 occupancies are expected to be in the low 60 percent range, according to Keeling.
"We'll start to see a very strong comeback in downtown," Keeling said.
Ah, the convention business. Haven't we discussed this already? Here's a quote from that first Current article:
Studies by Heywood Sanders [professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio] show that nationally, the convention industry is flagging. Attendance in 2000 was 126 million people, 10 percent below projections. In 1999 the total number of conventions was about the same as 1993, and less than in 1985, 1987, and 1989.
Note that the decline began before 2001. Do we know if anything has happened to reverse that trend?
Look, I hope I'm wrong and the downtown hoteliers do just great. Downtown Houston has had enough problems - it doesn't need a bunch of hotels turning into abandoned white elephants. All I know is that the track record here is not very encouraging.
One can call Deal Hudson a hypocrite if one is so inclined. Personally, after reading this story about him, I'd say he's a jerk, and then some. Hudson resigned a faculty position at Fordham University after being accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old freshman. Read and judge for yourself.
On the subject of living and dying by the sword:
Hudson does not shy away from the political limelight. In May he told the Washington Post that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry should be denounced from the pulpit "whenever and wherever he campaigns as a Catholic." Politics and religion fully meshed earlier this year when Hudson led an effort to oust a low level employee, Ono Ekeh, from his job at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for African American Catholics (NCR, April 23) because Ekeh hosted a "Catholics for Kerry" Web site."Look," wrote Hudson in his widely circulated e-mail column, "it's one thing for a Catholic to be a pro-life Democrat -- that in itself is a perfectly legitimate position and consistent with our Catholic faith. However, it's completely unacceptable to follow Ekeh and trade away our pro-life responsibilities."
Ekeh was forced to resign.
Politics aside, did Hudson have any personal regret that Ekeh, a father of three young children, had lost his job? Not in the least.
"If you're going to play in the sandbox," Hudson told NCR, "then you have to take the consequences of your public utterances and your public actions." In a recent fundraising letter, Hudson pledged that Crisis would be taking "a close [emphasis in original] look at some of the bishops who are allowing their local politicians to get away with" the "deception" of calling themselves Catholic while voting for abortion rights.
"They [the bishops] are scared of him, afraid that he's going to attack them," says a leading Republican Catholic layman with close ties to the American hierarchy.
The story behind the story is here. Via Kos.
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day I started college. Classes at Trinity actually started on August 23, 1984, but freshman orientation began on the 18th. Back in those enlightened days when the drinking age was still 19, nobody really cared all that much if the freshmen were knocking back a few brews at a party. We had plenty of opportunities to do so during that time.
Not unrelatedly, this means it's time for my 20-year high school reunion. I don't know what my travel schedule will be yet, but I figure I'll have a few free hours to wander around Manhattan on the Saturday. I should note that the last time I attended one of these, Rice beat Texas that Sunday night - I wound up redoing my return flight to make it to the game, which cost me about $300, but being there in the stands with the MOB to see it happen more than made up for it. They're playing on a different weekend this year, in September, not that I'm expecting history to repeat itself. But I can dream, can't I?
That sign-stealing hubbub in CD32 sure is getting a lot of coverage. Here's a typical example.
"Pete was picking up signs that were unlawfully placed by his opponent [during] the last days of the campaign," said Chris Homan, Sessions' campaign manager."Congressman Sessions is always very involved in his campaigns."
Picking up his opponent's signs at 10 PM? That's mighty involved, or maybe just extra civic-minded. I still see the occasional sign from last year's Mayoral election posted here and there. Maybe Sessions could help us out with those when he gets a chance.
On Monday, Sessions denied that he would stoop so low as to steal Frost's yard signs, and he challenged the Democrat's staff to prove him wrong.That dare, said Frost spokesman Justin Kitsch, is what persuaded the Democrat's staff to pull out the Dallas police report.
The Oct. 27, 2002, report said Sessions was caught pulling up yard signs for Pauline Dixon, his underfunded Democratic opponent at the time.
[...]
Homan fumed at the decision to make the police report public.
"These are the kind of dirty tricks that Martin Frost has always pulled; he's always run dishonest campaigns. And this one looks like it's going to be no different," he said.
Stanley said the report was made public to show that Sessions was, indeed, capable of taking an opponent's yard sign.
"It's regrettable this has to come out," Stanley said.
The Frost campaign has issued a press release (which Kos also got) which notes that Sessions has already changed his story on this.
Late yesterday, Pete Sessions gave an interview on KLIF where he couldn't quite get his story straight on his night-time sign misadventures.[...]
Sessions said, "I was driving by the signs which we had uh put out earlier, several weeks before on a piece of property that was private property that was directly there, and as I was driving home, someone had come and in front of and behind every one of my signs, they put these Pauline Dixon signs - in front of mine and behind mine."
Radio Host Gary Knapp: "Ok, so if yours were on private property and theirs were directly in front of yours, wouldn't they still be on private property too."
Pete Sessions: "They would have been."
Greg Knapp: "Did you check with the apartment complex and say did Pauline Dixon, did she ask you permission to put these up, or did you just assume she didn't have the right to put those up?"
Pete Sessions: "She did not, and no I did not. It was they were they were put up that night at some point and they were uh dropped on the they were dropped on the uh ground."
Greg Knapp: "Can you see why some people would say, "Well wait a second, why didn't you just leave those signs there. Isn't it wrong to pull other people's signs down?"
Pete Sessions: "No no, I don't think so at all. I think if I went by the CWA uh, or any other Union place that Martin Frost had his signs up and he knew they were up, and some of our supporters or somebody came and put them there, I think it's perfectly professional to pick them up and drop them."
I believe someone on Sessions' staff might want to consider giving him a refresher about the First Rule of Holes ("when you're in one, stop digging").
Do I think this is a serious campaign issue? Unless someone really did steal and relocate the Frost signs that turned up at Sessions' son's school and started this whole mess, then no, it's really more of an amusement or a distraction, depending on your perspective. Do I think this will affect people's votes? It might turn a few people off, though in that case the end result may be a vote for neither candidate. But since Sessions fired the first shot, I can't say I'm feeling any sympathy for him.
Am I the only person who just loves the concept of an anarchists' convention?
Anarchists generally pride themselves on their rejection of government and its authority. But a faction of them fed up with the war in Iraq say they plan to cast anti-Bush votes this fall.The voting debate was just one of the topics explored at the three-day North American Anarchist Convergence, which brought about 175 participants to Ohio University.
Some attendees rejected the voting proposal.
"Ultimately, those who are voting are either bad anarchists or not anarchists at all," said Lawrence, a "Californian in his mid-40s" who declined to give his last name. "No one can represent my interests. We reject political professionals."
Others said they are embracing their right to engage in the political process, and plan to vote for John Kerry, Ralph Nader or anyone who can underscore their opposition to the Bush administration.
Susan Heitker, 32, of Athens, believes that the U.S. government is neither legitimate nor democratic, but she still plans to vote.
"To me, at least, it's important to vote," she said. "There was a time when I was not going to vote, but I really dislike Bush."
Howard Ehrlich, of Baltimore, also embraces his right to "engage the political system."
"I will certainly vote against George Bush because he is leading the nation to further violence and eroding civil liberties," said Ehrlich, who is editor of Social Anarchism, a 3,000-circulation magazine.
Obviously, this is what happens when the members of the high school anarchists' club graduate. Via O-Dub.
All right, the Talmadge Heflin custody case is now on the front page of the Chron, and it's time to consider a couple of uncomfortable questions.
First and foremost is the question of the Heflins' motivation for bringing a suit to remove a child from his natural parents. They claim the parents do not care for the child, and that the father has abused the mother. That all may be true, but this testimony is making me very skeptical:
"The emotions are so strong that it is going to affect both parties, but this is not about the emotions," said Mathew Nwogu, the parents' attorney.It is about "what is in the best interest of the child," he said, "and (the Heflins') wealth has nothing to do with it."
The Heflins, meanwhile, testified that they could provide better opportunities for the boy.
"We all know the terrible problem that black male children have growing up into manhood without being in prison," Talmadge Heflin said.
Nwogu later responded that statistics about the incarceration of black men have nothing to do with this case.
I'm trying to understand what Heflin means here. Is this some kind of white-man's-burden thing? Surely he doesn't mean in general that a black male child would be less likely to wind up in jail if he were adopted by a white couple, and surely he doesn't mean that incarceration statistics mean that in general black parents are less fit than white parents. So what exactly does he mean?
Question number two is at what point (if any) should Hubert Vo make a campaign issue out of this? Normally, it would be sleazy to bring up a personal matter like a custody dispute, since such things are not really relevant to how one would perform in office. Heflin's statement about black male children and prison is really troubling, though, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask him about it. But there's a lot of risk involved in going down that path, and it also opens up the accuser to a different kind of scrutiny. Besides, the Heflins may wind up winning custody, so at the very least saying something before a ruling is made is extra risky. I don't know, and I'm glad it's not my call to make.
As for when a ruling is coming:
Family District Court Judge Linda Motheral heard about five hours of testimony before saying she would issue a ruling no sooner than Friday on who will be awarded primary custody."This is a very serious case," she said. "I really do not believe that I have everything I need in front of me."
Motheral said she wants to study the legal issues more closely and may order an evaluation of both couples.
I certainly don't envy the judge her position. I'll be very interested to see what she does.
You know how on Law and Order a witness will try to give a complicated, nuanced, occasionally evasive answer to a yes/no question, and the lawyer asking the question, whether McCoy or a hotshot defense attorney, interrupts to emphasize that "yes" or "no" are the only valid answers? Wouldn't it be nice to have one of them cross-examine whoever is reponsible for this?
I think I may have finally found an election in which I'd fervently wish for a viable third-party candidate:
The Gossips hear that former City Council member Gabriel Vasquez and his new wife, Lisa Diamond, who is chief of staff for Council Member Shelley Sekula Gibbs, just purchased a home in Mangum Manor. That would allow Gabe to run as a Republican against State Senator John Whitmire in Senate District 15. Gabe is a former Democrat who switched to run as a Republican for City Controller and was soundly defeated. Whitmire who would be well funded is expecting an opponent due to his coming back to Texas to break the impasse over redistricting in the Texas Senate. But the Gossips think that Vasquez would unite the Democrats for Whitmire in a District that is strongly Democratic and also a majority minority district.
Quitmire versus the Party Switcher? Praise Jeebus I live in Mario Gallegos' district and won't find myself in the voting booth with that decision to make.
The best option, of course, would be for a better Democrat - like, say Garnet Coleman or Jessica Farrar - to knock off Quitmire in the primary, then beat whichever Republican runs in the general. Too early to say if that'll happen, but we may as well start rooting for it now.
This is a very strange story.
A state lawmaker and his wife are to face their former maid in a Houston court today in a battle over custody of the woman's 20-month-old son.State Rep. Talmadge Heflin and his wife, Janice, contend that they have cared for the boy since shortly after his birth, according to court documents.
The parents, however, say there is no reason he should be taken away. Mariam Katamba and Fidel Odimara argue that Heflin, a Houston Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, is using his "political position to threaten" them.
The Heflins say the boy has spent most of his life with them and that they "are the only care-givers the child has known," court papers show. They also argue that the parents might endanger the boy and "have shown little or no interest in the child since birth."
The parents said Tuesday they provided for and took care of the child, including staying with him during a two-month hospital stay, while the Heflins visited once.
Katamba, a native of Uganda who lived with and worked for the Heflins, said Janice Heflin later offered to baby-sit the boy after Katamba found another job. Katamba said she never wanted to give him up.
"They always take my child to Austin, Texas, whenever I am off," Katamba stated in an affidavit. "When I protested about their denying me my child, they then brought the (lawsuit)."
Yeesh. This is like a storyline out of The Practice. I don't really have anything to add to this, but I'll be very curious to see what happens. Very strange.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, 'cause you may not be able to in as many places as before.
Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, the only physician on the City Council, is studying smoking ordinances in other cities with an eye toward proposing what would be Houston's first outright ban on smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants."The ban would be on smoking in public places — anyplace that conducts business and where people would gather, not in residences," she said. "Smoking and secondhand smoke are dangerous for all Houstonians, and that's why we are looking to move forward."
Mayor Bill White, who controls the council's agenda, said he might support adjusting the city's existing smoking restrictions, but would not commit to a full ban.
"I support the efforts taken so far," White said. "Whatever we do is going to have to be incremental and over time."
But Councilman Gordon Quan believes that, if proposed, such an ordinance has a strong chance of passage.
"I don't know how the sides are going to line up, but I was at a Quality of Life Committee meeting a while ago, and there was a lot of support," he said Tuesday.
"I know it has been on the back burner for a while," Quan added. "But I think the fact that other major cities are doing it, and that it hasn't hurt their businesses and convention trade, is a good thing. Concerns with secondhand smoke have also been raised by the medical community."
Houston is the only major metropolitan area in Texas that has not banned smoking in either eateries or workplaces, although many Houston businesses voluntarily have limited smoking.
The city does ban smoking in elevators, restrooms and certain retail establishments; requires workplaces to accommodate nonsmoking employees; and sets special ventilation standards for places that allow smoking.
El Paso barred cigarettes inside all workplaces, restaurants, and bars in 2002; Dallas followed with a restaurant ban in 2003; San Antonio and Austin banned workplace smoking earlier this year.
I worked for a summer in a "family" restaurant whose non-smoking section consisted of two tables in the back. If I ever die of emphysema, it'll be because of that experience. As such, I'm pretty sympathetic to people who complain about smoke in eateries. That said, I can't think of a whole lot of places to eat in Houston where there's any noticeable smoke. This is one of those times where voluntary restrictions have worked pretty darn well, and I think we ought to tread very carefully here before we muck with it.
Of course, given the widespread voluntary compliance with no-smoking zones, enforcing it for restaurants and workplaces shouldn't be that big a deal. Where the controversy will be kicked up, and rightfully so, is here:
Restaurant owners do express that fear, and particularly worry about partial bans that limit smoking in restaurants but not bars. They fear exempted businesses would have a competitive advantage.Sekula-Gibbs said her proposal would group bars with restaurants, so restaurants wouldn't lose business to bars subject to looser smoking restrictions.
She said she is consulting the various interests before drafting a specific proposal, and does not have a timetable. "We are gathering data from other cities on comparable language and gathering input from stakeholders, people with an interest in individual health and businesses.".
She anticipates opposition from restaurants and smokers.
"Certain people look at smoking as an individual right," she said. "They have to understand that they would still be allowed to smoke, just not in public areas."
I have a much bigger problem with enforcing a smoking ban in bars. This is not to say that I have ever enjoyed spending a few hours in a smoky bar. I go to the non-smoking shows at the Mucky Duck whenever possible. But it seems to me that if bars attract smokers, then there's a reason for it, and those of us who don't smoke ought to respect that. Whatever it was that made the restaurant industry in this town determine that banning smoking was the winner hasn't afftected the pubs. I think that's telling us something.
What I do know is this: Sekula Gibbs is right when she says there will be opposition to this. I still think the City Council has bigger things to worry about than cigarettes. If we must debate this issue, can it at least wait until we've gotten the city's financial health in better shape?
A lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Houston which alleges that there is an organized campaign to harass and intimidate black elected officials.
HEMPSTEAD, Texas – Six black Waller County leaders filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against white county officials and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, alleging "an extensive illegal reign of terror against African-American" officials.Justice of the Peace Dewayne Charleston, who says he has been a target of discrimination, claimed that District Attorney Oliver Kitzman had been behind much of it.
Charleston said when Kitzman lost a battle earlier this year to keep students at historically black Prairie View A&M University from voting in Waller County, the intimidation by Kitzman against those who spoke out against him increased.
"The whole thing just shows a pattern of seeking to undermine the civil rights of African Americans," Charleston said.
The lawsuit accuses Kitzman of a campaign of "repression and intimidation" toward blacks with a goal "to intimidate, harass, oppress, malign, beleaguer and torment plaintiffs in order that they might become discouraged from participating in any aspect of the political process in Waller County."
Kitzman told The Associated Press Tuesday that the allegations are baseless.
"It is absolutely, totally false," said Kitzman, who still hadn't seen the lawsuit but had heard about some of the allegations in it. "I don't see any foundation for those allegations and earnestly do not believe that those allegations are well founded."
[...]
Kitzman, who served as the district attorney for three counties – including Waller County – from 1967 to 1979, returned to the office in January 2003 after decades as a judge. Kitzman said he returned to the district attorney's office in Waller County because he thought his "services were needed."
"I thought it was not being run efficiently and that I could do better," said Kitzman, who is known for his hands-off approach in 1973 to a brothel in Fayette County. A rookie television consumer affairs reporter managed to stir up enough political and public pressure to close the Chicken Ranch brothel, one of Texas' worst-kept secrets.
The house of prostitution ultimately inspired a book, stage play and movie: "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."
I'm slapping my forehead over here. I can't believe that I had no idea of Kitzman's connection to the Chicken Ranch. It all makes a weird kind of sense now.
Herschel Smith, who describes himself as a Waller County community activist and is another of the plaintiffs, said since Kitzman returned as district attorney the racial climate has changed."Any time that African-Americans run for public office, there is some form of retaliation, intimidation, threats toward them because they do not want African-Americans to take their rightful place in this county," he said.
Besides Kitzman, the lawsuit names County Judge Owen Ralston, Waller County Sheriff Randy Smith, Waller County Commissioners and the Concerned Citizens of Waller County, a nonprofit organization.
Smith said he would not comment on the lawsuit until he was served with it. Ralston was at a meeting in Houston and did not immediately return a message left with his office Tuesday.
The lawsuit claims civil rights violations, conspiracy, malicious prosecution, infliction of emotional distress and libel.
It does not ask for a specific monetary amount but seeks compensatory and punitive damages and asks that the defendants named in the lawsuit be prevented from targeting blacks or "arresting or permitting the arrest of any individual where there exists only the uncorroborated word of the district attorney."
Kitzman raised a huge stink last fall when he attempted to prevent students at historically black Prairie View A&M from voting in Waller County elections on grounds that they did not meet residency requirements. He was wrong on the law and eventually reversed himself. You can find a ton of info on this by Googling +"oliver kitzman" +"prairie view a&m" +voting, but here are a few relevant results:
Burnt Orange Report
Black America Web
Austin Chronicle
More Austin Chronicle
Texas Secretary of State
Political State Report
More Polstate
Daily Texan Online
UPDATE: Chris Elam has some insight on this.
UPDATE: Greg joins in. I'll chime in with those two plus Kevin that the Chron coverage was bad (this is why I linked to the AP feed from the Morning News), but they did in fact have their own story. It's not unusual for the Chron to have an AP story initially and a staff-reported one later.
If the letters to the editor are any indication, no one is buying Tom DeLay's flip-flop on METRO. The letters are reproduced below for posterity. In all fairness, it should be noted that one of the letter writers is Mike Fjetland, who is also running against DeLay in November. I believe an editorial footnote which mentions that fact is in order for this sort of thing, but as we know the Chron often lets its guest contributors slide on matters of self-identification.
DeLay dances to new tune?
180-degree heart change
Regarding the Chronicle's Aug. 14 article "[U.S. Rep. Tom] DeLay is changing his tune on future mass transit plans": I wonder if any of the construction companies involved in the Metropolitan Transit Authority's rail construction projects have made campaign donations to DeLay's campaign?
Was this an opportunistic political decision? Has DeLay explained his 180-degree change of heart?
JAMES BURRUS
Houston
Facing strong candidates
Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, has singlehandedly prevented Houston from receiving millions of dollars in yearly transportation funds for more than a decade. Light rail didn't fit into his mass-transit plan.
Now that he is down in the polls and facing two strong candidates in District 22, he suddenly embraces the Metropolitan Transit Authority ...
And yet Republicans call John Kerry a flip-flopper!
KAREN BYRD
Houston
Doing the rail dance
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay is doing his usual pre-election "I like rail" dance, which will change if he's re-elected. He did the same thing in the prior two campaigns. He'd make noises for rail until he won the primary, then go back to the delay game. What's really happening is that he's polling under 49 percent and getting desperate.
MICHAEL FJETLAND
Houston
Henchman not changing
It would be wise to question Rep. Tom DeLay's change of heart regarding mass transit in Houston. While he now espouses a willingness to work with transit officials, his lapdog, Rep. John Culberson, continues to support the opposite position. If DeLay were sincere (not just looking for support at home while he battles legal problems in Washington) he would get Culberson to change his stance, too. DeLay gets to look like he has reasonable while his henchman continues to do his bidding. Leopards can't change their spots.
JERRY MILLER
Houston
Suppose you're an incumbent Congressman, and you're locked in a tight and expensive battle for reelection against another incumbent Congressman (thanks to the magic of redistricting). One day you take your kid to school and see a ton of signs for your opponent plastered all over the place, which they shouldn't be as this is a school and all. You call a press conference to denounce the inappropriate sign-placing instead of calling your opponent and telling him to take back his signs.
And then it turns out that your opponent had a pile of his signs stolen the previous night. And it turns out that you yourself were once cited by the police for participating in sign-stealing in your last election. Which your opponent knows all about, and is now reminding everyone about.
Oops.
That's how Pete Sessions' day has gone today. You can see the police report here, or if you don't like Adobe Acrobat you can see it in JPG form here and here. Once again, I say "Oops".
UPDATE: Josh Marshall has more background on Sessions' sign-stealing citation, and some reaction from Sessions' campaign manager.
The Bonassus notes that the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame is going to honor the 143 Jewish men who have played in the bigs. I don't really have anything to add to this except to note that this is as good a time as any to plug the excellent documentary The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, which I was lucky enough to see in the theaters a couple of years ago. Two thumbs up.
Actually, there is this to comment on:
A Ph.D. in Social Welfare, Abramowitz took his research a step further. He found that Jews, who made up about 2 percent of the U.S. population during the 20th Century, comprised just 0.8 percent of baseball players through the 2002 season.They had hit 2,032 homers -- 0.9 percent of the major league total. Their .265 batting average is three percentage points higher than the overall average. Jewish pitchers are 20 games over .500, with six of baseball's first 230 no-hitters (four by Koufax, including a perfect game, and two by Holtzman).
The one stat in which Jews fall short is stolen bases, with a total of 995 through 2002 -- fewer than Rickey Henderson did all by himself.
"Obviously," Abramowitz said, "it's because they were honoring the Eighth Commandment."
I just thought that was amusing, albeit another example of Commandment Confusion. Anyway, those of you in the Cooperstown area later this month should drop in for a visit. Sounds like a cool exhibit.
Political Wire asks the following:
Q. Which state is most over-represented in the Electoral College?
The answer is Wyoming, whose 3 electoral votes cover just over 500,000 people, or about 167,000 per person. California, with over 35 million people and 53 electoral votes, has a ratio of one EV to nearly 670,000 people.
They're not the most screwed in terms of Congressional representation, though. That dubious honor falls on Montana, whose population of 917,000 is nearly double Wyoming's, but they both have one solitary member in the House. Delaware, South Dakota, Utah, and Mississippi all have over 700,000 people per representative as of the 2000 reallocation.
Personally, I think the problem here is that we're forced to play a zero-sum game when it comes to allocation Congressfolk every ten years. I think a better answer, or at least one that allows for more equal representation in all 50 states, is to drop the rule that restricts Congress to 435 total members. Let each state have a number of Congressfolk that's proportionate to the state with the least population. If that means finding more office space every ten years - and it will, since the fastest growing states are adding population at a much faster clip than Wyoming is - then so be it.
Awhile back, in a moment of boredom, I put together this spreadsheet that reallocated Congressfolk and electoral votes based on 2000 Census populations and one Congressperson per population of Wyoming, which was 493,872 at that time. California gains 16 representatives, while Texas gets ten more, New York nine, Florida seven, Illinois and Michigan six each, and Ohio and Michigan five each. Every state except for North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming gain a representative and an equivalent number of EVs. (Washington DC, with a population between Wyoming and Vermont, stays pat with 3 EVs.) The House would wind up with 569 members, nearly a third more than what it has now.
Now, I don't expect anyone to rush to adopt such a proposal. It's more for your amusement than anything else, though if someone did put it on the table I'd be first in line to advocate for it. It's certainly clear that the people of most states deserve more representation, so I could see this getting some support.
By the way, I should note that I didn't fill in the values from the 1990 Census, so I can't say how the 2000 election might have been different under this scheme. I can say that using the 2000 apportionments, Bush would have won by a slightly larger margin, 345-327 (there would be 672 EVs, with 337 needed to win), not too surprising since his margin would have been 278-260 with 2000 Census numbers. If anyone wants to dig out that data and do the math, I'll be happy to post an update.
We know, as Ginger among others has noted, that the national political conventions don't bring in that much money to the host cities. It happened in Boston, and it's expected to happen in New York (if Zoe's research is any indication, it could be even worse for NYC). That surely doesn't seem to have dampened any city's efforts to lure conventions or to build bigger and more expensive convention centers. The San Antonio Current has a two-part look at the history of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and the related efforts to add on a convention hotel for some disputedly large amount of money. If even tourist-oriented cities like San Antone can't turn a profit here, which cities should?
I must say, this bit has me curious:
According to the City's adopted annual budgets, the Convention Center's operating costs have consistently outstripped revenues. In 1993-94, operating costs for the center were $14 million, versus $2 million in revenue. The years 1994 through 2001 saw operating costs climb from $8.5 million to $10.7 million, and revenues increased from $2.5 million to $4.8 million. Last year, operating costs had climbed to $18.3 million, versus revenue of $6.2 million.[...]
The City's five-year financial forecast for 2005-2009 predicts tourism will inject $7.2 billion into the local economy. Tourism ranks as San Antonio's second largest industry, employing more than 86,000 people, with an annual payroll of $1.37 billion. In 2003, more than 425,000 convention delegates booked by the Convention and Visitor's Bureau brought an estimated $383.5 million in direct expenditures in San Antonio.
Now, obviously, the cash from those 425K delegates mostly comes from things like hotels, rent cars, food, and entertainment (putting any qualms I may have about how they arrived at those numbers aside). It seems to me, though, that if you're only taking in $6.2 million in convention center revenue from 425,000 convention delegates, then maybe the problem isn't entirely one of a shrinking convention business. Maybe San Antonio needs to look at its cost model and see if they need to boost their fees a little.
Anyway. There's lots of good stuff in those two Current articles, so check them out.
UPDATE: Jesse points out why conventions, at least national political conventions, are bad for business. For what it's worth, in my experience a lot of this is also true for big technical conventions like Microsoft's MEC. On the plus side, if it's in the right city, one can meet some cool people.
Becky Klein is running against Rep. Lloyd Doggett in the new CD25. Nobody thinks she's going to win, but an array of corporate benefactors are throwing money her way anyway because she might someday be the head of the FCC.
Why is Klein such a draw? Because administration officials have said that in the event of a second Bush term, she would be considered by the president, for whom she served as a senior policy adviser when he was governor, as a candidate to be the next head of the Federal Communications Commission. And even if that does not work out, she is expected to receive a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should a vacancy occur.Klein, who stepped down in January as chairwoman of the state Public Utility Commission, is challenging Doggett in the newly created Congressional District 25, which snakes 350 miles from the southern end of Austin to McAllen on the Texas-Mexico border. As of June 30, according to federal records, Klein had raised about $450,000, compared with more than $1.1 million raised by Doggett.
But much of her money has come from a highly motivated group of executives from companies -- many of them ones she once regulated as head of the utility commission -- that are investing not so much in her current congressional campaign as in the right to be considered Friends of Becky.
"Washington is all about relationships, and her relationships are far, wide and deep," said a senior executive at a large telephone company who is a supporter and spoke only if not identified. "Washington is also about getting in early -- that's the way the game is played.
"She's not going to win the race," the executive added.
Other supporters said that contributing to her campaign was a no-lose proposition; if she beats the odds to win, they would be happy, if surprised. But they acknowledged that as a first-term member of Congress, Klein would have less power to affect their interests than if she were appointed to a top regulatory job, as they expect.
Gene Kimmelman, a senior director at Consumers Union, put the matter more succinctly: "Clearly, the companies are investing in the future. This is an interesting story about how Washington works."
Well, isn't that special? There's your next frontier in campaign finance - buying futures in candidates. All they need is a way to hedge against the risk that her friends in high places may themselves fall out of power and it could turn into a nice little investment vehicle.
Nathan notes that Becky got started funraising as she was leaving her job with the PUC, something she now denies doing. That's the thing about email, Becky - like roaches, you can never truly eradicate emails.
UPDATE: Seth notes that Becky Klein, by far, has the worst disclosure rate for campaign contributions of any House or Senate candiadate. (Ted Poe, running against Rep. Nick Lampson, is fourth worst in the House races and sixth worst overall.) As noted elsewhere by Political Wire, disclosure comes from the contributors, not the candidates, and I believe small donors are not required to disclose their information, so there's only so much you can read into that. Still, she's way, way out of whack with other candidates, and based on this story, I'd bet it's not because she's a champion of the grassroots.
Greg also piles on.
After months of increasing pressure, Gov. Rick Perry on Monday approved spending $561 million to restore some of the cuts made last year in health care for the poor.The money will reduce by half the estimated shortfall for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. It will also restore Medicaid benefits to some pregnant women and maintain personal-attendant aid for disabled and elderly Texans.
Some of the money will maintain current reimbursement rates for doctors and other health care workers who provide services to Medicaid clients. And $25 million will be used to draw down additional federal funds to help hospitals that serve high numbers of indigent patients.
[...]
"This does not restore the 147,000 children who have lost CHIP coverage since Sept. 1, nor are dental and vision benefits to be restored to the CHIP package," Best said.
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said it's about time Perry acted to restore some of the health care cuts made last year.
"This is a victory for the people of the state of Texas and a victory for those who advocated these cuts never occur and then advocated for their restoration," said Coleman.
Coleman said he'd like to see Perry go further and use $1.3 billion in available revenue to restore other health cuts.
"What this shows is that this was bad public policy to begin with," Coleman said.
"They've really cheated these families out of needed services for the last year."
Comptroller Strayhorn must be on vacation, since I can't find any story that contains a reaction from her. I'm glad the Governor has finally taken a step towards doing the right thing, but he's got a long way to go. I hope this doesn't ease the pressure on him to finish the job.
Today's special guest star is Rep. Scott Hochberg from SD 137. Scott is a Rice grad, a go-to player in the House on all things education, and one of the all around good guys in Austin. Check out the brief intro here and the thorough analysis of the race here, and as always if you like what you see, let him know it.
A group of Texas writers, musicians, artists, and other interested people are raising some money to run a full-page NYT ad with the aim of letting people know that President Bush does not speak for everyone in Texas. You can see the ad here, the full list of participants here, and you can fill out this form if you'd like to add your name to the project and the ad. I can't say this is the best use of your discretionary political money, but spreading the idea that Bush isn't as beloved back home as one might think does have its merit. Check it out. Via Sarah.
Still working my way through Fifty Years of the Texas Observer - these things do go in fits and starts sometimes, you know? The book is divided into sections, with an intro and an afterword by founding editor Ronnie Dugger. Section one was about people ("Heroes and Hucksters"), while section two, which I've just finished is about places ("Local Angles"). This one has a lot of humor in it, which I find to be one of the stronger parts of TO's writing. Subjects include:
- A "startling expose of how Governor John Connally's plot to bankrupt liberals and other heavy drinkers" with a new alcohol law that mandated airplane-style single serving bottles.
- An amusing look at the battles faced by the crew that filmed the satirical movie Viva Max! (based on a novel by Jim Lehrer, yes, that Jim Lehrer), about a ne'er-do-well Mexican general who recaptures the Alamo after his girlfriend tells him that "his men wouldn't follow him to a house of ill repute". It contains this wonderful description of the Daughters of the Alamo, who did their best to keep those Hollywood ruffians from soiling their shrine:
Mrs. Scarborough pointed out that: "We are not little old ladies in tennis shoes." And several of her companions, one of whom had come straight from the country club and still wore golf shoes, nodded solemn agreement.
- The story of the world's largest cake, to celebrate the Sesquicentennial in 1986
- And my favorite, the story of a gambler who was convicted of premeditated murder after he bashed a loan shark's head in with the frozen body of his poodle (whom the loan shark had previously killed for failure to repay a debt).
There are other stories from various locales, ruminations on change, loss, and getting by in the world. The one online entry is from 2001, The Wounds of Waco, about a cameraman named Dan Molloney who was unfairly blamed for tipping the Branch Davidians about the ill-fated raid on their compound and never recovered from it.
The next section is called "The Political Tumult". I can already see a few themes to discuss. More later. Remember, there are book signings coming up in Austin and San Antonio in September.
In this corner, we have the Statesman's Lasso blog, which features permalinks, categories, archives, and (yes! finally!) an RSS feed. More of a linker than a thinker, and author Bill Bishop does refer to himself in the third person, but a good source for Texas news and occasional insight. Easily meets the minimum requirements for a real blog.
And in this corner, we have the Chronicle's Olympics blog. No permalinks, no archives, no feed, dumbass scrollbar-within-the-page interface, and worst of all, the wit and wisdom of John Lopez, who has discovered to his shock that not everyone in those foreign countries speaks English. What more need one say?
The Kerry campaign has given $3 million each to the DCCC and DSCC. Smart move, since money spent on battleground Congressional and Senate races - like Nancy Farmer and Joe Hoeffel - should also give a boost to the top of the ticket. Way to go, guys!
This Sunday Chron article on property tax variances was a bit of a disappointment to me. I don't think it's any great secret that some municipalities in Harris County, like Southside Place, have lower taxes than others - I mean, isn't that the reason for Southside Place's existence? What else is there? I guess I was hoping for an article on why property valuations can vary so much within a neighborhood, but that isn't what I got. Alas.
The discussion of municipal utility districts (MUDs) was interesting enough.
Municipal utility districts, which install and operate water and sewer systems in many new neighborhoods outside incorporated cities, frequently charge homeowners $1.50 to $2.50 per $100 assessed valuation to pay off the costs of the infrastructure. That leads to neighborhood property tax bills that are wildly inflated for several years until the MUD costs come down.The new neighborhoods of Village of Northgate Forest and Cypress Mill Park are the two most heavily taxed areas of Harris County, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of county and Harris County Appraisal District tax records. Both have high MUD taxes, driving their overall tax burden skyward.
The total tax bill for a home in Northgate Forest, for example, is $5.36 per $100 assessed valuation, meaning a $500,000 home was taxed last year at nearly $25,000 after homestead exemptions. By comparison, a similarly valued home would have been taxed at about $11,000 in Houston or $9,500 in Southside Place.
The developers of Northgate Forest recognized they would have trouble attracting buyers with such high taxes, so they agreed to pay all but $1.25 of the subdivision's $2.79 MUD taxes.
"We knew that we could not sell these lots with a $2.79 or $3 rate," said Doug Shannon, the general manager of the Northgate Forest Development Company. "So that's why we subsidize it down to $1.25."
I don't have any problem with the concept of MUDs. Seems perfectly fair to me that new housing in previously undeveloped areas should be responsible for the startup costs of extending utility services like water to them. And I have no problem with developers subsidizing those costs for their customers. That's the free market at work, isn't it?
Questions that weren't addressed but which I'm curious about anyway: How does new development, especially dense townhouse development, in existing populated areas affect utility services? Is there a cost to extend or expand water and sewage to city blocks that now may have a lot more people living in them, and if so who's paying for it? I've been wondering about this since the inner-loop boomlet began.
Recently, I posted about Tom DeLay's apparent change of heart regarding METRO. This led to speculation that DeLay's about-face was caused in part by Richard Morrison's aggressive campaigning on local issues such as transportation alternatives. Kevin then commented that Morrison isn't "credible", which drew some strong responses, and got me to thinking: What makes a candidate "credible" in the first place?
We can argue about whether a candidate is credible on a set of issues or not, but to me a credible candidate is one who has the resources and capability to have a shot at winning. What criteria can we use for that?
Let's start with money. Morrison has nowhere near the cash DeLay has, but he has raised over $200,000 so far, which is double what DeLay's previous opponent raised (I'm not counting the amount Tim Riley loaned to his campaign here). He's had a lot of success raising funds online, though a good portion of his cash still comes from in state and in particular in the Houston metro area. The DCCC may invest in him. He'll never match DeLay's firepower, but he's certainly not unarmed like some of DeLay's opponents have been.
Then there's polling data. We don't have much of that, but at least one poll suggests that Morrison isn't that far behind DeLay. Given that DeLay has won all his recent elections by 25-30 points, being within 10 is a pretty strong statement. He's still in a sizeable hole, of course, and will have a lot of work to do to get his name out, but at the very least Morrison is in a good position to do a fair amount better than any DeLay challenger in recent memory.
There are a number of other things in a campaign that can make a candidate look credible - professional operations, volunteer forces, etc - and my limited experience here suggests that Morrison is doing about as well as he could be. He certainly made a big splash at the State Convention a few weeks back - there were Morrison T-shirts and stickers everywhere, and the event at his hospitality suite was overflowing. These are all subjective measures, of course, and one can certainly differ in one's interpretation of them.
What clinches it for me, though, is how Tom DeLay has reacted to the Morrison campaign. We know he's opened campaign offices in the district for the first time in a long time. We know he's switched positions on teachers' retirement pay and now on METRO, both of which are issues that the Morrison campaign has highlighted. These events suggest to me that DeLay finds Richard Morrison to be a credible candidate. Who am I to argue with him about that?
Albert Hollan, a Democratic candidate for judge of the 400th District Court in Fort Bend County, is a wee bit upset. He's upset because Cliff Vacek, his opponent, was just appointed to the bench they're both running for. The incumbent judge, Bradley Smith, resigned on Friday and was immediately appointed to a brand-new, created-with-federal-grant-money "sanctions court". Smith had announced much earlier that he was not running for reelection, in part because Vacek had a ton of money left over from an earlier run for Fort Bend County DA to run against him in the GOP primary. By jumping from one judgeship to another less than three months out from the election, Smith has cleared the way for the man who chased him off and screwed Hollan in the process. Sweet, huh? As Hollan notes, now his opponent gets to put the (i) next to his name on the ballot and gets to change his campaign signs to say "Keep Judge Vacek" even though he probably won't try a single case before November.
I've reproduced an email sent by Hollan to his supporters, which was forwarded to me over the weekend. Juanita has some of the background - she also promises a full article next week - and Hollan's email has some more. They do run a tight ship down there in Fort Bend, don't they?
By the way, consider this post to be an extension to my earlier complaint about the utter lack of local election coverage in the Chronicle. I've searched their current and archived pages for all three of the principals in this post and found zilch on any aspect of the story. Thanks, Chron!
I wanted you to hear it from me first.
This afternoon, Governor Perry appointed my opponent, Cliff Vacek, as the Judge of the 400th District Court to fill out the remaining term of the incumbent, Judge Bradley Smith. The term runs until the end of the year, but the election will still be held on November 2nd.
The advantage for Cliff Vacek is that he will now be considered the "incumbent", even though he was appointed only 80 days before the election, and without a single vote cast.
This completes a backroom deal that cost taxpayers $363,000. Let me explain, so you can explain it to your family, friends and neighbors before they go to the polls on November 2nd.
Last year, Judge Bradley Smith was harshly criticized by Cliff Vacek for a ruling the judge made on the admissibility of some evidence in a criminal case. It wasn't Vacek's case and he had no role in it, but he decided to use the ruling as a political issue. Vacek, who ran for District Attorney two years ago and lost in the Republican primary, borrowed $100,000 and announced that he would run against Judge Smith. At that news, Judge Smith decided not to run for re-election.
Vacek made good on his threat and became the Republican candidate; however, I entered the race as the Democratic candidate and have made good on my promise to run a good clean campaign. I have walked blocks, shaken hands, spoken at meetings, and raised money from many friends in small increments. I now have large roadside signs going up all over the unincorporated areas of the County. For example, if you are driving from Guy to Needville and on to Rosenberg, you will encounter 7 large "Elect Hollan" signs. My campaign is the real deal, and the Republicans were privately concerned.
So, to give Cliff Vacek some help, the dealmaking began.
Bradley Smith, understandably, doesn't like Cliff Vacek. Vacek essentially ran him off the bench. So, how does one convince Judge Smith to resign so that the Governor can appoint Cliff Vacek?
I don't know what was said, but I know what was done.
County Commissioners (almost all Republican) approved using a $363,000 state grant to create a "Sanctions Court" program, administered by Judge Bradley Smith. I've been practicing law for 16 years and I have never heard of a Sanctions Court.
That's because there aren't any.
This is the first and only one in Texas, and it will expire in August of 2005, unless more funding is found. Judge Smith resigned from the 400th Court on a Friday and on Monday he was back on the bench after receiving an appointment as an "assigned" judge.
After the resignation of Judge Smith, I wrote to the Governor and asked him not to appoint anyone to fill out the remaining term. I urged him to let the voters decide on November 2nd.
Today, the Governor appointed Vacek. This will allow Vacek to have an "i" behind his name on the ballot and campaign to "Keep Judge Vacek", even though he likely will not preside over a single trial between now and the election.
Let me say this clearly and directly: The resignation of Judge Smith on a Friday and his appointment to another court on the following Monday was a political act to move him out of the way so the Governor could appoint Cliff Vacek 80 days before the election. This is a sham and a fraud. It is an abuse of power. It is politics at its worst.
If you are offended by this attempt to influence the outcome of the election and offended by the use of tax dollars (yes, grant money comes from taxpayers) to create a special court for Judge Smith so he would resign and allow the Governor to appoint Cliff Vacek, let your local newspaper editor know that you are not happy. Letters to the Editor are read and appreciated. You can go to their websites and type in an e-mail letter. Be sure and leave an address and phone number, so the editor can call and confirm that you really are the author of the letter.
Then, share your opinions with your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. You may think that you will never be in a District Court so this doesn't affect you, but it does. The political dealmakers who just made the 400th Court their latest triumph are now looking for their next deal.
Thank you for your continued support. Please vote on November 2nd. It's urgent, more urgent than ever.
Man. I had no idea that people still leased telephones.
Twenty years after the government's breakup of the Bell monopoly, nearly 1 million consumers still lease their telephones from an affiliate of AT&T, paying anywhere from $4.45 a month for an old-style rotary phone with "conventional bell sound" to $20.95 a month for a cordless phone with built-in digital answering machine. The result: Customers spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a piece of equipment that can be purchased for as little as $10.AT&T's Web site touts numerous benefits to leasing, including portability (you can take your phone with you if you move anywhere in the continent) and free accessories like long cords.
But consumer advocates say the program takes advantage of consumers, particularly elderly people, who may be easily confused over their options. According to an AARP survey from 1998, the latest year for which figures are available, 6 percent of people 75 or older leased their phone, compared with 2 percent under 65.
"It is such a rip-off," said Chris Baker of AARP's Public Policy Institute. "It's one of the things older people really depend on, and the fact they get abused is pathetic."
I'm sure the old rotary phone in my grandmother's kitchen was a leased phone. Hell, the thing was probably integral to the structure of the house. For all of the crap I had to deal with the last time we moved phone service, at least I wasn't asked why I didn't want to consider phone repair insurance. I can understand why AT&T still offers the service - it's got to be a cash cow for them - but I'm just boggled that anyone would still take them up on it.
Gary Farber points to this Wired article about something called "Vedic math" - what that is, they never really tell us - which has some practical application if you're interested in quickly solving some arithmetic problems. Since the example given is presented more or less as magic, and since I believe in de-mystifying math, I feel the need to do a little explaining.
Here's the cited example:
Shetty did not know the original Sanskrit verses, but he did know how to crack the square of 85 in less than a second. "To find the square of any number ending with 5, just put 25 on the right-hand side," he said. "Take the number that precedes five. In this case it is 8. Add 1 to it. So in this case it becomes 9. Multiply 8 and 9. You get 72. 7,225 is the square of 85. It's easy."
Here are two simple reasons why this works. Let x be "the number that precedes five" as stated above. Then the number you want to square can be represented as 10x + 5. Squaring that gives
100x^2 + 100x + 25
which can be rewritten as
100 * x * (x + 1) + 25
which is what happens when you take the number that precedes 5 (that's x), add one to it (x + 1), multiply them together, and put the result to the left of the 25 (which is to say, multiply that result by 100). Note that this will work whatever your choice of x is - the formula holds for squaring 1235 or 6587465125, just as it did for squaring 85.
Method two:
Notice in the example cited that you can express the number "85" as both "80 + 5" and "90 - 5". With that in mind, let x + 5 represent a number that ends in 5 (the number x is therefore a multiple of 10, such as 80). The expression x + 10 - 5 then represents the same number. The square of x + 5 can then be written as
(x + 5) * ((x + 10) - 5)
Multiply it out to get
(x * (x + 10)) + ((x + 10) * 5) - (x * 5) - 25
Rearranging and multiplying out the second term, we get
(x * (x + 10)) + (x * 5) - (x * 5) + 50 - 25
which reduces to
(x * (x + 10)) + 25
Which again is the desired formula. In this case, you're recognizing that "the digit to the left of the five" is in the tens place, so adding one to it is really adding ten to the actual number it represents. Going back to the example, this is just saying that to square 85, you multiply 80 and 90, then add 25. And again, this works for whatever number-ending-in-five you want to square, though of course the bigger that number, the harder it'll be to do in your head.
Now, if you're like me, the next thing to pop into your head after working through this is "I wonder how it works in general". For example, what's the magic formula for squaring two number that end in 6? Using Method One, we square 10x + 6 to get
100x^2 + 120x + 36
which we rewrite as
100x^2 + 100x +20x + 36
and then reduce to
100 * x * (x + 1) + 20x + 36
Expressed in words, this is "Take the digit next to the six, add one to it, and multiply those two numbers, then multiply that by 100. Now multiply that number by 20, add 36 to that, and add the two new numbers you got for the answer." In practical terms, to square the number 86, do the same thing as before to get 7200, then add 160 (for 8 times 20) and 36, to get a final answer of 7396. Piece of cake, right?
A little noodling around will show that for the cases of numbers ending in 6 through 9, the formula will always start with the 100 * x * (x + 1) term and will always end with the square of the last digit (36, 49, 64, and 81). The middle term will be 20 times the difference between that number and 5, multipled by the last digit. That means the middle term for the case where the number ends in 7 will be 40x (20 times the difference between seven and five, which is two, times the original digit which we represent as x in the formula), 60x for 8 and 80x for 9. The formula is the same for the cases of numbers ending in 4, 3, 2, and 1, except you subtract the middle term instead of adding it - e.g., the formula for squaring a number that ends in 4 is
100 * x * (x + 1) - 20x + 16
Maybe I'm the mutant here, but I think working through this easy little bit of algebra to learn what these formulas are (and I hadn't even known they existed before I read that article) is way more fun than learning a bit of rote memorization that's only useful in one specific case. Whoever said that math is hard is really missing out.
Has anyone noticed an upswing in dogs and cats cohabitating lately? Rivers running upstream? I'm at a loss for how else to explain this.
Houston leaders responded with enthusiasm Friday to an apparent warming of relations between U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the Metropolitan Transit Authority."I consider this to be a real positive, and perhaps a turning point, for improved mass transit in our region," Mayor Bill White said. "Metro has established a good relationship with Mr. DeLay, which is critical to getting the mass-transit funding we need."
DeLay, who has opposed Metro rail plans for more than a decade and blocked federal funds for the Main Street light rail line that opened in January, told the Texas Transportation Summit here that he's impressed with the agency's commitment to explore possible alternatives for future lines.
"Metro's new leadership, it's becoming clearer by the day, has a vision for a mobile Houston region, and the kind of open minds and flexible management style it will take to realize that vision," DeLay, R-Sugar Land, told attendees Friday morning.
Harris County Judge Robert Eckels called DeLay's comments a welcome development: "It is good for the city to see a Metro board and a mayor that are interested in working with Tom to really get the solutions for transit in our community."
[...]
"The majority leader is challenging us to work together as a region," said Garrett Dolan, vice president of the Greater Houston Partnership."He's painting a picture for us to look at innovative rail solutions, and we are 100 percent behind the idea."
Previously, DeLay has suggested that Metro needs a more advanced system than light rail.
After his speech, DeLay said he was pleased "they are finally doing something that Metro has never done: They are holding a forum to look at all forms of technology and how those technologies fit into the mobility in Houston, and how it will benefit the taxpayers in getting the biggest bang for the buck."
I want to see what happens next before I make any judgments about DeLay's apparent shift in attitude. Suffice it to say for now that I still don't see any reason to trust him.
Not everyone is on board with this New Attitude.
While the transit authority's relationship with DeLay appears to be warming, another of Metro's congressional critics offered his strongest comments yet against rail.Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, suggested during a Thursday discussion with other Texas representatives at the Irving summit that the quickest way to reduce the highway funding shortfall would be to abolish federal assistance for mass-transit projects. One of the major themes of this year's Texas Transportation Summit is what to do about road needs that are far outpacing the government's ability to pay for them.
Culberson said revenues from the federal gasoline tax should be limited to the Highway Trust Fund. A portion of the tax drivers pay at the pump now goes to the Federal Transit Administration.
"Transit is taking 11 percent of the money but they don't contribute a nickel," Culberson said. "It's carrying less than 1 percent of the traffic. I'm afraid rail in Houston is going to be a white elephant and a boat anchor around the neck of taxpayers."
Though Culberson spoke out vigorously last year against Metro's rail referendum, his comments about ending federal subsidies for mass transit appeared to surprise other panelists and many in the audience.
"If Houston wants to give us a little more of that transit money for Dallas, we'd be glad to take it," said Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, who earlier had alluded to the fact that Dallas got ahead in building light rail because of Houston's failed past plans.
More of the same old same old. Maybe they're playing good cop/bad cop, I don't know. Like I said, I want to see what comes next. I can't help but feel there's a shoe dangling somewhere, and I want to see where it drops.
As of yesterday afternoon, I am now an official Deputy Voter Registrar for 2004 in Harris County. You can do it, too - it's as easy as dropping by the Harris County Tax Office and filling out a form. I now have a bunch of voter registration signup forms in my car and will start pestering people shortly. You are asked to either let the new voter mail in the form himself or herself, or deliver it to the Tax Office in person within five days. Voter reg cards take three to four weeks to be mailed out, so the deadline for getting registered is October 4. Your deputization is good through the end of the year.
The nice lady at the tax office said she's been swamped with deputization requests and new voter reg cards. We'll see if that translates to higher turnout this year. If you want to know more, or you live in Houston and want to register, let me know.
There are many things about the Houston Chronicle that I'd change if I were given the freedom to do so. If I were limited to just one thing, I'd see to it that they never printed anything by Michelle Malkin ever again. If you want to know why, read this and follow the links. As far as I'm concerned, any publication which uncritically prints Michelle Malkin is not worthy of being called "respectable".
I guess you could call this I Got My Mojo Workin' But It Just Don't Work On You:
The head of a multistate drug ring that paid a voodoo priestess for protection from federal agents might want a refund.John Timothy Cotton, 39, is facing a life sentence after being convicted of drug trafficking. Cotton was accused of leading a Houston-based organization that netted an estimated $43 million over 10 years, dealing crack cocaine in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Kansas.
"This was probably the largest drug-trafficking case prosecuted by this office in several years," said U.S. Attorney Donald Washington.
Most of the drugs came from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, where Cotton shipped at least $500,000 on one occasion in a car stuffed with cash, Washington said. Cotton and other members of the drug ring paid thousands of dollars for voodoo hexes against federal agents and for protection, Washington said.
"They paid what they called a spiritual adviser -- what we would call a voodoo priestess -- large amounts of money for blessings to protect their drug-trafficking business ...," Washington said. "If I were them, I would ask for my money back."
Better hope they kept the receipt. And is it just me, or is anyone else mildly alarmed by the fact that the U.S. Attorney's office has been categorizing voodoo priestesses?
It boggles my mind that there are no airport shuttle vans outside of a few select locations in Houston. Thankfully, that may be about to change.
"Airport passengers look for this kind of service, and we don't have it," Houston Aviation Director Richard Vacar told City Council's Transportation, Infrastructure and Aviation Committee.Of the nation's 60 busiest airports, only eight do not allow door-to-door shuttle van service, Vacar said. Two of those airports, Hobby and Bush Intercontinental, are in Houston.
Vacar said shuttles would likely cost half of what taxis charge to carry people because the shuttles can transport eight or more passengers.
Airport officials have made similar proposals since the 1980s, but they never came to fruition because of intense opposition from the city's taxi companies, which claim they would lose business to the shuttles.
Jerry Brady, president of Liberty Cab Co. in Houston, asked council members to approve his proposal to permit taxi companies to have vans that could carry up to 10 passengers when necessary, instead of allowing shuttle companies to operate at the airports. He said this plan would be more fair than giving "an exclusive contract" to shuttle companies.
J. Wellington Masseh, president of the Independent Cab Operators of Houston, told council members that the shuttle proposal "would drive many of us out of business."
[...]
Vacar said a consulting company hired by the airport system concluded that taxi companies would not be seriously hurt by shuttle services. According to the consulting company, Leigh Fisher Associates of Burlingame, Calif., taxis now transport 6 percent of the passengers at Hobby and 4 percent at Bush.
The introduction of shuttle services would reduce taxi companies' share at Hobby to 5.3 percent and to 3.2 percent at Bush.
Most passengers drive their cars and park at the airports, Vacar said. He said shuttles would help ease traffic congestion as Houston's airports continue to grow and get busier.
I agree that this proposal would put some cabbies out of work. I'll be sorry when that happens, but at the risk of sounding heartless, that's how a free market works. We don't have a free market in the airport-transportation business right now, and speaking as someone who'd never drive to the airport again if there were a viable alternative, we need one.
I have to say, I'm surprised it's not the private satellite airport parking lot lobby that's leading the fight against this, because I think they're the ones who'll take it in the shorts when a real shuttle comes online. 95% of people already drive and park, a proposition that's both annoying and expensive. Even at $20 each way, the shuttle would be cheaper than parking at Intercontinental for anything longer than a weekend trip, or at a satellite lot for anything approaching a week or more, at least for solo flyers. The only times we've ever taken a cab have been when we got someone to drive us to the airport but couldn't get someone to pick us up on arrival.
I'm rooting for this to happen. I'll be interested to see if Mayor White plays an active role. Seems to me this should fit with his overall "get Houston moving" theme. What do you say, Mister Mayor?
Julia Child has stirred her last pot.
Julia Child, whose warbling, encouraging voice and able hands brought the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and books, has died. She was 91."America has lost a true national treasure," Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for the famed chef's publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, said in a statement. "She will be missed terribly."
Child died at 2:50 a.m. Friday at her home in an assisted-living center in Montecito, a coastal town about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, said her niece, Philadelphia Cousins.
"She passed away in her sleep," Cousins said. "She was with family and friends and her kitten, Minou. She had cookbooks and many paintings by her husband Paul around the house."
Child, who died two days before her 92nd birthday, had been suffering from kidney failure, Cousins said.
[...]
Her custom-designed kitchen -- including small utensils, personal cookbooks and six-burner Garland commercial range -- is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
I've been to that exhibit at the Smithsonian. It's very cool. Julia Child was indeed a national treasure. May she rest in peace.
The longest primary election is finally over. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez has conceded defeat in his legal challenge to primary recount winner Henry Cuellar after the Texas State Supreme Court once again rejected his appeal.
Rodriguez threw in the towel late Wednesday after the Texas Supreme Court again rejected his request that it hear his appeal from a lower court. Just as it did last week, the state's highest court said it has no jurisdiction over election cases.The congressman had said he was thinking about moving his battle to federal court, but eventually he decided to surrender and start looking ahead.
"I don't intend to pursue any further legal action on the 2004 election," he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Instead I will focus on electing Sen. (John) Kerry as president and working toward my own 2006 congressional election.
"This appeal process was serious business to ensure the integrity of the election process and to make sure the person with the most legal votes actually won," Rodriguez said. "In the end, that did not happen."
Cuellar, a former Texas secretary of state under GOP Gov. Rick Perry, will meet Republican Jim Hopson in the November general election.
Rodriguez led by 145 votes immediately after the March 9 primary.
But Cuellar took the lead in a recount after more than 200 previously untallied ballots were discovered in Webb County, where he lives, and neighboring Zapata County.
Rodriguez sued in April, alleging irregularities in the "casting, counting and recounting" of ballots. He later amended the suit, claiming some voters didn't live in the district.
Cuellar successfully challenged the amended lawsuit, saying it raised new claims after the filing deadline.
But a panel of the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio later ruled 2-1 that Rodriguez had the right to question the legality of the votes.
However, a 5-2 vote in July by the full appeals court said Rodriguez was trying to bring a different allegation to trial. That decision came along party lines, with the Republican majority ruling against Rodriguez.
The two former friends battled each other because of a new, Republican congressional map.
Cuellar, 48, had planned to run again against Rep. Henry Bonilla, who narrowly beat him in District 23 in 2002, but last year's GOP-led redistricting made Bonilla's district more solidly Republican by including voters in San Antonio's well-to-do northern suburbs.
Interestingly, if you look at the new map (available here, click on PLANC01374), CD 23 is the least Republican of the districts drawn to be GOP-majority, with a statewide DPI of 43.2%; the Voting Age Population is only 36.5% Democrat, however. Given the bridges that Rodriguez burned in Laredo, I almost think he'd be better served taking on Henry Bonilla in 2006 instead of rematching with Cuellar, though really neither one seems particularly realistic to me. State Rep. Richard Raymond is the guy I want to see run against Bonilla some day.
The cost of building Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and Toyota Center rose by $37.2 million this week when the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority voted to issue new bonds.Issuing the bonds was necessary to persuade one of the three major investment rating agencies, Moody's, not to downgrade the authority's bonds from investment grade status to junk bonds, said Ric Campo, chairman of the authority's finance committee.
The new bonds were needed to make up for declining hotel and car rental tax revenues, which the authority receives to pay off bond debt. In 2002 and 2003, the revenues sagged 10 percent.
To meet the annual payments for $900 million in previously issued bonds, the authority had projected annual 3 percent increases in hotel and car rental tax revenues.
"September 11 came and the recession came, and the hotel and car rental taxes have not been growing 3 percent. They're declining," said Oliver Luck, sports authority executive director.
The three sporting venues cost $1.036 billion to build. (Reliant Stadium cost $500 million, Minute Maid Park, $286 million, and Toyota Center, $250 million.) With the bond issuance, the price tag has now risen to $1.073 billion.
Many of those who supported building the venues said the county's residents would not pay the bills — they would be borne by visitors who stayed in local hotels and rented cars.
"The taxpayers of Harris County really aren't affected," said Sue Millican, the authority's chief financial officer.
But Paul Bettencourt, Harris County tax assessor-collector, has estimated that about half of car-rental taxes are paid by county residents and businesses and about one-third of the taxes collected by the sports authority come from within the county.
"It's just three, four, five years after the elections, and already they're selling more bonds," he said. "This is a big concern to me, and it should be to taxpayers."
Learning from History.
The Dallas Cowboys and Arlington are closer to an agreement on the financing of a $650 million football stadium that would make this city the new home of America's Team.Both sides said Tuesday that they agreed on all major issues but would not discuss specifics.
[...]
The City Council voted Tuesday night to pass a resolution outlining some details of the financing plan. That resolution, described as a formality, has to go to the state comptroller's office before a financing plan can be presented to voters.
That document says the city would pay for its share of the stadium with a half-cent sale tax increase, a 5 percentage-point rental car tax increase, and a 2 percentage-point hotel-tax increase. Also, a $3 tax would be added to the parking fee at the stadium, and a tax on each ticket sale of up to 10 percent would be levied.
Be sure to check back in a few years when the city of Arlington issues some new bonds to help cover its debt.
What do you do when you promise to cut your costs but you don't want to actually cut them? Transfer them to another department and claim it as savings anyway.
Gov. Rick Perry last year ordered state agencies to reduce their budgets 7 percent and promised that he would lead the way by cutting his own office by 14 percent.Part of Mr. Perry's cost savings was achieved by transferring the salaries of two maids, a cook and a porter at the Governor's Mansion to the Texas Building and Procurement Commission, according to state records obtained through an open records request by The Dallas Morning News. All remained assigned to the governor.
In addition to those four posts, Mr. Perry's office reassigned the salaries of five other staffers for mail support, purchasing and information systems to the procurement commission. They, too, maintained their duties for the Republican governor.
Press secretary Kathy Walt said the salaries of the transferred personnel – amounting to $300,000 annually – were part of the equation used by the governor in January 2003 to achieve his 14 percent cost savings.
She said the workers were moved for greater efficiency and because Governor's Mansion upkeep is overseen by the procurement commission.
The mail, purchasing and computer tech workers were made available to other agencies, although they still fulfilled their duties at the governor's office, she said.
"It means they were probably being asked to work a little bit harder when they were moved. Their duties were likely to increase," Ms. Walt said.
What a great boss. Who knew that Perry's hair was actually pointy? Via Carefully Selected Garbage.
In a Playboy interview, which we'll all read because that's what we all buy Playboy for, right?
According to Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. is now being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an interview its founders gave one week before the company filed with the SEC to go public. The investigation could delay Google's much-anticipated initial public offering.Under SEC regulations, company officials are barred from talking publicly about the company in the lead-up to an IPO. Google's unconventional auction-style float is expected any day now. The Playboy issue with the interview hits newsstands Friday.
According to the newspaper, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page talk at great length about how going public might influence the culture at the widely successful search engine. They also talk about the controversial decision to track customers' Web activity in an attempt to offer customized advertising on Google's new e-mail service.
More background here. As of this morning, there's still doubt as to whether publication of the interview violated SEC rules.
The only thing I can imagine that would be better than Britney Spears at the national GOP convention would be the national "family values" crowd throwing a hissy fit over the Britster's appearance. No excuse for poor TV ratings here!
Say what you want about Richard Morrison, the man is fearless.
If fundraising is any indicator, Morrison shouldn't be brushed off too lightly: "For the people that said we could raise no money and money would be hard to raise, we've already raised more than $300,000, and we've raised more money than all of DeLay's [previous] opponents combined!" he told the cheering crowd. Of course, Morrison only has about half of that still in the bank. DeLay, by contrast, has already spent more than three times what Morrison has raised and still has about $1.3 million in cash on hand.And the money must be translated into actual votes. Morrison cited a Democratic National Committee poll showing him about 10% behind, although he tried to spin that positively, saying that the 49%-39% numbers were not good for an incumbent. More troubling for Morrison: In the only poll that counts, an election, DeLay received 15,490 in an uncontested Republican primary back in March. On the Democratic side, Morrison and opponent Erik Saenz could only muster up 10,223 votes between the two of them, only 7,303 of which went to Morrison. Clearly, he'll need a staggering level of support from independent voters – hard to come by these days in our politically polarized nation.
Still, don't try to tell that to Morrison or the people signing checks at Scholz. He's still convinced that hard work can take him over the top: "My attitude is, if Glen walked up to me right now and said, 'Morrison, I guarantee you a victory if we could cut off your right arm,' I'd say, 'Glen, go in there and get the machete and bring it out here cut it off.' That's what it's going to take from each one of you, that kind of dedication."
Via The Stakeholder. It's never a bad time to contribute to Morrison's cause. Houstonians may want to check out this fundraising brunch for him in September.
On a side note, I got a rambling and slightly bizarre email (sent to a mailing list I'm on) from Mike Fjetland, the independent candidate in this race. Here's part of his pitch, in which he tries to make the case that only he can beat The Hammer:
Democrats, who make up a maximum of 35% of District 22, don't have enough votes to elect a Democrat in a district gerrymandered by DeLay whose talents are limited except for twisting boundaries and dumping Democrats --(it's a 63% GOP district)....BUT (importantly) Democrats DO have enough votes to defeat DeLay IF they combined their votes (35%) for the independent with Fjetland's existing moderate Republican base (20% he received in 2000/2002 GOP primary) = Fjetland stomps DeLay 55% plus (35% + 20% plus).
I guess you could claim that the two GOP primaries represent a poll that indicates 20% of the CD22 Republicans would be willing to vote for Fjetland. I'm not sure that this constitutes a representative sample, but there's a more fundamental problem with Fjetland's math. If as he asserts 65% of the voters are Republican, then 20% of those voters represents 13% of the total, which when added to his assumed amount gives 48%. That leaves 52% for DeLay, which needless to say is still enough for him to win. Fjetland would have needed 23% of the primary vote to get over the hump. Admittedly, that isn't that much more than what he says he got, but a quick check of the Historic Election Returns shows the following:
2000 Republican Party Primary ElectionU. S. Representative District 22
Tom DeLay(I) REP 41,901 83.32%
Michael Fjetland REP 8,385 16.67%
-----------
Race Total 50,286
2002 Republican Primary ElectionU. S. Representative District 22
TOM DELAY(I) REP 22,379 79.85%
MIKE FJETLAND REP 5,645 20.14%
-----------
Race Total 28,024
You can draw your own conclusions. No sale here, Mike.
The Chron editorializes about the financial woes of the Harris County Sports Authority.
The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority is not responsible for economic factors that make the sale of $37.2 million in new bonds necessary. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 depressed travel worldwide. If all goes well, the bond sale will relocate financial liability to out years when hotel and car-rental taxes should have climbed appreciably.However, the authority is responsible for issuing around a billion dollars in stadium debt on the mistaken proposition that tax revenues, on average, would rise 3 percent per year. Over 2002 and 2003, the authority's tax revenues declined 10 percent.
Faced with the prospect of having its stadium bonds degraded to junk status, the authority voted to issue more debt to ensure repayment of old debt that financed Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and Toyota Center.
Most of the hotel and car-rental taxes are paid by visitors. "The taxpayers of Harris County really aren't affected," Sue Millican, the authority's chief financial officer, told the Chronicle.
Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt notes, however, that county residents and business owners pay about half of all car-rental taxes and an estimated one-third of combined hotel and car-rental taxes. Now local taxpayers will pay more to retire stadium debt without getting more value for their money.
About $15 million in proceeds from the sale of additional bonds are to be used to boost the authority's cash reserves set aside for making bond payments in economic downturns. The authority hadn't been able to make the required cash reserve increase because of the decline in tax collections and might soon have had to dip into the fund to make bond payments. (Insurance would pay off the bonds in the unlikely case of a default.)
But every new bond sale adds interest and principal to the debt. The more debt the authority takes on, the more the financing of the new stadiums comes to resemble that of the Astrodome. Though obsolete and seldom used, that facility still carries tens of millions of dollars in debt.
The county's three fine new sports venues are wonderful assets. They contribute to redevelopment of the central city. Without them, Houston would not have hosted this year's Super Bowl or All-Star Game.
After those gigantic events, however, hotel and car-rental taxes should not be lagging. Add the Sports Authority to the list of government agencies that underestimate cost and overestimate revenue — a list that, unlike tax revenues, grows inexorably.
Here's the original story, as noted by Kevin. There's a lot of ground to cover here.
First, full disclosure. I supported these initiatives, and on balance I still support them. I can offer a lot of weasel words about intangibles and world-class and stuff like that, but to be honest, I'm a sports fan and I like these new venues. I'm glad we have them, I'm glad they've been instrumental in bringing big events to Houston (my sketpicism about the trumpeted cash infusions those benefits supposedly bring notwithstanding), and I think Houston would lose something without them. That's just how I feel about it.
That said, there's no question that they were sold with a lot of disingenuousness about cost and benefit. Research about the little-if-any economic benefit of publicly funded stadia was fairly new when the first referendum was on the ballot, but by the third time it should have been (but wasn't) common knowledge. We all deserved a better debate about municipal priorities, and we didn't get it.
Second, it'd sure be nice to get the same kind of followup data on economic benefit projections from the All-Star Game and the Super Bowl that we did for these tax projections. Sure, it's easier to get the actual data on tax collections. My point is that if it's so hard to get the real numbers on special event economic benefits, maybe we ought not to make such specific projections beforehand, since they apparently can never be falsified. For what it's worth, by the way, note that the one post-ASG number we did get was $10 million short of the projection.
Since we do now know that the Sports Authority was all wet (and I have to say, it's hard to disagree with Paul Bettencourt's assertion that the Authority has done the work it was supposed to do and should now be disbanded), it would be instructive to know where in particular they were wrong. Maybe there's an opportunity for improvement buried within, I don't know. If nothing else, I'd like to know if the Super Bowl and the All-Star Game had any effect on the 2004 projections, and if the midyear numbers are currently on track. Will we face the same problem next year because one wildly optimistic prediction led to another?
I suppose there's one consolation here. Sooner or later, the economy really will get better, and the tax collections will start to catch up once again to the projections. At least we can be comforted by the fact that this time when everyone influential has had a chance to forget the lessons of this particular saga, there aren't any more stadia to be built. We'll have to find a new way to repeat history.
Jesse points to this initially promising but ultimately frustrating article about the race in CD17 between Rep. Chet Edwards and Arlene Wohlgemuth. What's frustrating about it?
In the campaign, Edwards is trying to position himself as a moderate Democrat who is equally ready to back his party or the president on issues.His campaign is trying to portray Wohlgemuth as being right of Bush and the Republican Party on issues. His efforts have been helped by several leading Republicans in Wohlgemuth's home area abandoning their party in the race because they see her as being too conservative.
[...]
Edwards' campaign may get a boost from defections among Republicans. Some leading Republicans in Wohlgemuth's home of Johnson County publicly split with her during the Republican runoff campaign to find a candidate for the race to fill her State House seat, and the bitterness lingers.
In the waning days of the election, photos mysteriously appeared that showed one candidate as a cross-dresser.
The photos of candidate Sam Walls, a backbone of the Republican Party in the county and considered one of the area's greatest benefactors, in women's clothes helped give the race to a candidate favored by Wohlgemuth. Texas newspapers reported that Walls had for years been a cross dresser and said Walls in a statement called the activity a "small part" of his past.
In addition, some voters in Johnson County see Wohlgemuth as too strongly aligned with fundamentalist Christians. These voters have taken to calling hard-core religious conservatives Talibaptists, a play on the name of the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban.
Emphases mine. Would it kill the reporter to name any of these Republicans/voters that he keeps alluding to? Maybe furnish a quote or two? I haven't been teased this badly since my last foray into a singles bar. I want to believe, really I do. A little actual evidence would go a long way, you know?
And what does the Sam Walls thing have to do with the Wohlgemuth-Edwards race? I suppose "some voters" might hold the fact that a Wohlgemuth ally was the beneficiary of Walls' embarassment against her, but once again, who are these voters and what are they themselves saying? This feels like a big ol' red herring to me. Show me there are voters who might base their November decision on this, don't tell me.
I can already hear some of my readers proclaim that this is an example of the perniciousness of the liberal media. All I can say is that if this is the best the so-called liberal media can do, I don't know why you bother getting upset about it. How could anything this ridiculous be worrisome?
And finally, after all that basically content-free buildup, the story then shoots down its own hypotheses.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said despite defections in the Republican camp, Wohlgemuth will not suffer significantly for it come election day."Wohlgemuth does bother people as sort of being aggressively and thoughtlessly conservative," Jillson said.
"While there is plenty of time left for finger pointing among the Republicans, when push comes to shove on election day, if they turn out, I expect them to vote for Arlene Wohlgemuth," he said.
The redistricting did not greatly change the percentage of Republicans in the district, but it did erase traditional areas of support for Edwards around a military base and among some rural communities.
Political observers have said the new district lines mean that if a Democratic incumbent does well, that candidate can easily get 47 percent of the vote, but 51 percent or more may be impossible.
So now the author has trotted out an expert to say that although "some people" might not like Arlene Wohlgemuth, they'll vote for her anyway. What was the point of this article again?
Kenny Boy Lay and Jeff Skilling made their first joint appearance in awhile, in court.
Former Enron Chairman Ken Lay won't get his requested September trial date.Lay and his former second-in-command Jeff Skilling were in federal court Wednesday for a pretrial hearing. It was the first time the two had appeared together to face their multiple criminal charges, and when Lay entered the court he winked at Skilling, who smiled back.
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake did not set a trial date for Lay, Skilling and their co-defendant ex-Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey. Instead, the judge asked the three to make all their arguments about why each wants to be tried separately and said he will likely rule on that by early October.
"It's too soon to set this case for trial. We're dealing with what could be life sentences here," Lake said. He said the case is extraordinarily complex. But the judge also noted Lay deserves the quick trial he has requested.
Lay has asked that he be tried alone, and the other two said they will do so. It is common for conspiracy defendants to ask to be separated, and often they are unsuccessful.
Lay wants a quick trial, but Skilling and Causey don't.
While Lay wants a trial in the next few months, prosecutors have asked for one trial for all three defendants in March 2005.And Skilling and Causey want the trial a year after that, in March 2006, if not later.
One of the big differences between the Lay approach and that of his two co-defendants is that Lay's charges focus on only a few months of his reign right before Enron's bankruptcy while the other two face charges that focus on a variety of activities over several years.
Lawyers for Skilling and Causey have complained that the volume of documents and possible evidence they have to sift through is massive, and it's the reason they need another year before going to trial.
They have also complained that the government has not pointed out documents that could help the defendants.
The fun is just beginning. I'd almost prefer to see Lay's trial severed from Skilling and Causey's just because having all three of them go at it at once might be too much concentrated excitement. We'll see what happens.
The lawsuit to remove a Bible display from outside the Harris County Civil Court building (first noted here) has been decided for the plaintiff, with an appeal pending. As I noted in my original post, I support this ruling, though I can't say it's high on my priority list. Given that Harris County is already on the hook for court costs, and given the probability that the ruling will ultimately be upheld, I wish they'd cut their losses and quit wasting my tax money on this frivolity. But this is a red-meat issue for the GOP, and County Attorney Stafford knows where his bread is buttered.
As always, former judge John Devine provides a little unintentional comedy:
Former state District Judge John Devine, a leader of the drive to restore the monument from its dilapidated state, disagreed. "The Bible is a book of three faiths," he said, citing Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
For some reason, this quote reminds me of that classic line from The Blues Brothers: "We got both kinds, country AND western!" I also suspect there might be a few Jews and Muslims who'd take exception to that claim. But who's counting?
Milton brings his non-Christian perspective to the case. It's worth your time to read it.
So there's been a lawsuit filed in the Rodney Alexander race, claiming that the last-minute party-switcher violated Louisiana state law by essentially filing for the race twice, once as a Democrat then again later as a Republican. I don't know the merits of this suit, but there sure would be some poetic justice in Alexander getting booted. He's already seen his entire staff quit, plus his consultants as well, according to that Stakeholder post.
If Alexander loses the court fight, there will still be a Republican (a gentleman named Jock Scott who is currently being pressured by the NRCC to drop out) and a Democrat (a woman named Tisa Blakes) in the race, so at least that result won't utterly deprive the voters of a choice. You never know what may happen in a case like this, but at least that argument won't hold water.
MyDD has a bunch of info. For the record, I don't object to party-switchers. It happens all the time, and Lord know we Democrats have been parading a few former Republicans in various Congressional races (Ginny Schrader and Steve Brozak, to name two). Last minute shenanigans to thwart competition are another matter. If Alexander had switched when he was first rumored to be contemplating it, I wouldn't have liked it, but that'd be life in the big city. This was a sleazy trick, and it'd serve him right if he got nailed for it.
Looks like the proponents of the move to roll back Houston's term limits law have hit a roadblock.
Lobbyists and people who do business with the city, among others, were considering a measure that would allow Houston's mayor, controller and council members to stay in office for eight years, two years longer than term limits now permit.The group was going to propose limiting officials to four two-year terms. The existing limit, set by city voters in 1991, is three two-year terms. It also was considering allowing former officials to run again after sitting out two terms and applying the new limits to current officeholders.
However, the group, led by lawyer Bill King, did not believe it had time to put together a petition drive, which would have required gathering more than 20,000 signatures by the end of this month to get the measure on the November ballot.
"I don't think we have time to coalesce around a particular position," said King, managing partner at the law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, which collects delinquent taxes and parking fines for the city.
"We will take another look at it the next time around."
You all know that I oppose term limits laws, but I think it'd be better to vote on this in 2005, during our regular municipal elections. With the Mayoral race likely to be a non-entity, this would allow the voters' attention (such as it is) to be focused on this issue. Even the incremental changes that have been proposed are a big deal, so we may as well take the time to talk about them in full. My only hope is that we get more than one option, including one to remove term limits entirely, to vote on, which as I recall was how the election to impose our current plan was conducted.
The City Council can put the charter change on the ballot, although it is not likely because doing so would appear self-serving, city officials said."I never heard sentiment among council that anyone was willing to move forward with it," said Councilman Michael Berry, who supports the city's current term limits. "It's simply not the most pressing issue on the table."
That's appropriate, and I certainly agree that the Council has more pressing items to address. Let's do this next year, and let's do it right.
What can one say about VH1's list of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs?
1. There are about a half-dozen or so songs on this list that I like, for some value of the word "like", anyway. There's no point in getting worked up about that, since any subjective list will gore some people's oxen. And no, I won't admit in public which of these songs are the ones I like.
2. I know it's been over ten years and the original list was extra-heavy on atrocities from the 60s, but does anyone really think it's possible to improve on the Dave Barry Bad Song Contest? Cause I don't.
3. Having said that, if one were to insist on updating this classic, putting Julia in charge of it would be a good move. Do not get into a Battle of the Bad Song Lyrics with Julia. She'll kick your ass.
4. For a different take on the Song Badness issue, Pete brings you his list of When Bad Songs Happen To Good CDs.
I guess that's about it.
They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that goes for our Tuesdays as well. This week's Texas Tuesday is so big, it covers all of Wednesday. Meet Hubert Vo, our featured candidate for today, read his intro and his analysis of the race he faces against incumbent Talmadge Heflin, and of course, donate to the cause.
An anti-immigrant hate group is once again running misleading ads Targeting Marting Frost in the Dallas area.
Democrat Martin Frost and Republican Pete Sessions, both Dallas incumbents vying for the same North Texas seat, wrote separate letters on Friday to Coalition for the Future American Worker urging the anti-immigration group to pull its ads from Dallas-area television stations.Frost also wrote letters to television stations urging them not to run ads that he says are inaccurate and racially inflammatory.
"North Texans, your viewers and the voters in the 32nd Congressional District, deserve better than to have 3rd party shadow groups with a long history of spewing inaccurate and hateful messages cluttering the airwaves," Frost wrote to the stations. "I again urge you to make the responsible decision and immediately reject these ads."
Sessions called on the coalition to "cease and desist all public activities that pertain to the election."
"The voters of the 32nd Congressional District deserve to hear from the candidates and the candidates alone," Sessions said in a news release.
The candidates pledged earlier this spring to disavow third-party ads in the race after the coalition ran an ad in the Dallas market in April criticizing Frost's stance on immigration.
The ad - which showed a Hispanic man fleeing in one scene and accused immigrants of abusing the U.S. health care system and clogging schools - drew criticism from The Dallas Morning News editorial board, which called it "racially tinged."
Local station KXAS-TV dropped the ad.
As the coalition plans to run more ads in the area, Frost and Sessions have asked it to kindly butt out.
Frost's campaign claims the coalition has purchased nearly $200,000 of TV advertising that will air in the Dallas area Aug. 16-27.
The same thing happened back in April, and similar ads have popped up in other races. I criticized Pete Sessions back then for not denouncing those ads, so let me praise him for doing the right thing this time around. Well done, Rep. Sessions.
As always, the Southern Poverty Law Center has some more info on these creeps. David Neiwert has also written about them.
Now that Kenny Boy Lay has been officially indicted, his alma mater has publicly considered its options for the economics professorship he endowed, and the $1.1 million donation that came with it (link via Kevin). Today, Chron columnist Loren Steffy takes a closer look at it and suggests a solution.
If the only option is returning the cash to the perpetrators of some of the biggest corporate scandals ever, universities might as well try to do some good with it instead.Often, though, their hands are tied because the money comes with stipulations. Missouri can't, for example, transform the Lay chair into a professorship in business ethics, a move that would be both ironic and pertinent.
In an e-mail obtained by the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Chancellor Richard Wallace said if Lay were convicted, the school would prefer to remove his name from the professorship, and "in accord with the terms of the endowment, we believe that this would require returning the money to Mr. Lay," according to an Associated Press report.
In Lay's case, returning the money would be an outright insult to the thousands of Enron employees who lost their jobs and their retirement money. As he did with so much else, Lay used Enron stock as his currency to endow the scholarship in 1999.
School officials, in what proved to be a shrewd investment decision, sold the stock and netted the $1.1 million. That means returning the cash would actually make money for Lay — more than hapless employees who took Lay's advice to buy Enron stock made on their investments.
Perhaps Missouri, like Seton Hall with its [Dennis Kozlowski-donated] auditorium, should keep the Lay professorship and rather than recoil in shame hold it up as a reminder: Money doesn't elevate you above the law. It isn't a pass to abdicate your responsibilities to employees.
And more importantly, good works layered on moral turpitude aren't restitution or redemption.
Admittedly, the school may not be able to fill the post. The title alone is a conversation killer at cocktail parties, on par with "I'm a journalist ... "
So be it. Let the school keep the money, even if it just sits in some bank account, hidden as if it were an asset in a special-purpose entity. Let the teaching position remain empty, a perpetual reminder of the transgressions of the past.
It seems a fitting tribute to Lay's legacy: an empty chair.
I'd love to ask the Missouri Board of Trustees what motivated their decision to liquidate the Enron stock. I presume they just preferred the cash - anyone remember if Enron stock paid dividends? - but talk about your lucky breaks. Anyway, I love Steffy's idea, and I wholeheartedly endorse the notion that giving the money back to Lay serves no good purpose. I also think it should be clear that even if Kenny Boy gets acquitted (which he well may), that doesn't remove the taint from his money. Not that I'd expect profs to start sending in their resumes for this position if that happens, but still.
Karl-T and Redpeg give their thoughts on Chairman Soechting's objection to the DNC's money-exporting practice. Karl-T's bit about the State Party's relationship with county parties is especially worth reading. Check it out.
UPDATE: Lasso promises a relevant Statesman article for the weekend. StoutDem also chips in.
UPDATE: And Greg checks in.
Not just anyone can recast A Midsummer Night's Dream and other Shakespeare works with Muppets, but Lis Riba and her husband have done a brilliant job of it. Too bad Disney now owns the Muppet franchise and has reduced their stars to pimping Pizza Hut with Jessica Simpson (and am I off base in thinking that she's the end result of a Muppet Labs experiment gone horribly wrong?), as sadly their inspiration will never reach the big screen. Ah, well.
Awhile back I commented on the case of tax avoider Irwin Schiff, who was ordered by a federal court to stop selling one of his fraudulent how-to-not-pay-income-taxes books. I thought this was extreme but justifiable on grounds that there's no free-speech right to defraud. This month's Intelligence Report from the Southern Poverty Law Center examines the legal precedents that pertain to this ruling, and comes down on Schiff's side. I still don't see this as a free speech crisis, but I admit that as described by the SPLC, the law is more complex on this point than I thought. Check it out.
On a general matter, you should be reading the Intelligence Report regularly. It's an excellent source of information. One other item of interest in this month's edition is this bit about a project being undertaken by one of the heirs to a right-wing publishing fortune. Once again, check it out.
Kenny Boy says "Try me now!"
Ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay wants to go to trial immediately and alone, possibly without a jury, and he's ponied up some $15 million to get it done, according to court papers filed Monday.Lay, who faces 11 criminal charges, was indicted along with former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling and former top accountant Rick Causey. As expected for weeks, Lay's Houston lawyer, Mike Ramsey, asked U.S. District Judge Sim Lake on Monday to separate Lay from his alleged co-conspirators and try Lay in mid-September.
"We are ready for trial now. We are ready for a trial with a jury. We are ready for a trial without a jury," Ramsey said. He said they'd prefer a jury, but if it will slow the case too much, Lay will waive his right to a jury trial and be tried by the judge "as long as it's speedy."
Ramsey said he wants the trial over before the November election. He said his client is innocent and has suffered enough.
He called the media to the courthouse when he filed his motions and complained about what he called the politicizing of Lay's charges in self-congratulatory prosecutorial press conferences. Ramsey said he thinks the Lay charges — seven about Enron and four about personal banking — can be tried in three weeks to Lake and about eight weeks if a jury hears it.
Almost every Enron defendant has asked that their case be severed from co-defendants. Lawyers said this is because sitting in a group accused of conspiracy can make everyone look more guilty. Attorneys familiar with the case say that though it's risky for Lay to speed to trial, the benefit of sitting alone at the table could be priceless.
Interesting, and I think pretty shrewd if he can get away with it. Certainly the parade of high-profile perp walks bolsters the prosecution's efforts - you're not going to find twelve people who know nothing about this, after all - so eliminating the jury makes sense. While Jeff Skilling is pretty much universally despised, there are still people who have some warmth for Ken Lay due to his Houston boosterism, so severing the two trials has got to be good strategy for the defense. Finally, even though they forced the issue by making the arrest, the feds probably don't have all of their ducks in a row yet. So it all makes sense, even if it seems risky.
Meanwhile, as Tom Kirkendall notes, the trial for the Nigerian Barge Case will begin on Monday. So much Enron action, so little time.
Due to technical difficulties with the TexasTuesdays.com webhost, which kept the site unavailable to us until a few minutes ago, we are postponing this week's Texas Tuesday until tomorrow. It may look like Wednesday to you, but it'll still be Texas Tuesday. Look for the usual announcement in the morning. Thanks for your patience.
Mark Evanier has some interesting TV tidbits, including this story about TiVo's future as a business, and this news about the Trio network (who knew anyone was rerunning Battle of the Network Stars?), and this post about an unusual moment of foreshadowing from the Flip Wilson Show. Check it out.
OK, now that I've brought up BOTNS, I can't resist talking about it. I admit it, I loved that show as a kid. Robert Conrad! The obstacle course! Howard Cosell! The dunk tank! More T&A than the late-night Cinemax lineup! Sheer genius. I'd watch it again.
I'll be interested to see what kind of response John Kerry gets when he speaks at the national VFW convention next week.
Kerry will speak to VFW members Aug. 18, said Brendon Cull, a spokesman for the Democratic Coordinated Campaign in Ohio. The Kerry campaign has expanded its efforts in recent weeks to emphasize Kerry's military service in Vietnam.Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Bush's re-election campaign, said Tuesday he had no information on whether the president has accepted the VFW's invitation.
The VFW does not endorse candidates for president, said VFW spokesman Jerry Newberry. He said he expects the candidates to discuss health care for veterans, which the VFW regards as a top priority.
"I don't think either candidate would dance around that," he said.
VFW officials expect 12,000 to 15,000 people at the convention, Newberry said. Delegates attending the convention represent 2.6 million fellow VFW members and the interests of 25 million other veterans.
The VFW convention delegates are to act on dozens of resolutions on subjects including prisoners of war, military pay and health care.
Edward Banas, the VFW's current commander, outlined veterans' concerns in his March testimony before a joint meeting of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees in Washington. He said thousands of veterans had been waiting well over six months for basic health care appointments.
"Other veterans must wait over a year for specialized health care appointments," he said. "There are millions of veterans who are completely excluded from the system because they make above a paltry income threshold."
The VFW was unhappy with the budget proposed by the Bush administration this year. It included increased co-payments and an enrollment fee the VFW said would force many out of the Veterans Administration health care system.
I can't imagine that Bush would duck this, especially as he is actively campaigning through swing states, but you never know. I'll be even more curious to see how the crowd reacts to him.
And the money keeps flowing in CD 32:
How anxious are Republicans about Rep. Pete Sessions' chances for a fifth term? Every top House GOP leader has sent money his way – $318,000 in all, with $10,000 apiece from political action committees controlled by Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Speaker Dennis Hastert and others.Mr. Hastert will headline a Sessions fund-raising breakfast Tuesday at Royal Oaks Country Club in Dallas, one of five events in Texas this week for Republicans hoping to oust the Texas 5 – the Democratic incumbents targeted by redistricting.
"That doesn't sound like they're very confident. They're doing everything they can to prop him up," said Frost spokesman Justin Kitsch.
Mr. Hastert denied that he or anyone else is worried.
"Martin's an old hand," he said in a brief interview. "You don't want to take anything for granted. Pete's a good friend of mine. He's a great member of our conference, and I'm going to do everything to make sure that he gets elected."
Most GOP House leaders have sent checks to Mr. Sessions. The $10,000 club includes Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier of California. Mr. Sessions, a fourth-termer, is a junior member of the panel. Mr. Frost, with 13 terms of seniority, is the top Democrat.
One Bush cabinet member, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, sent $1,000.
Besides donations, GOP leaders also have bestowed legislative goodies on Mr. Sessions – prompting derision from the Frost camp. In May, for instance, they assigned him to lead the charge on a popular tax-cutting bill to help raise his profile. Similar favors have gone to other Republicans deemed vulnerable.
"Sessions is beholden to his national party – leaders like Tom DeLay – because he hasn't done anything on his own to help the people of North Texas," Mr. Kitsch said.
Sessions campaign manager Chris Homan disputed that, saying the aid springs from respect for his work. "We've had offers from every member of leadership and just about every chairman and chairwoman," he said.
It's not unusual for senior lawmakers to help a colleague. But Mr. Sessions has also gotten aid from freshmen: $1,000 each from Reps. Candice Miller of Michigan and Tom Feeney of Florida, and $2,000 from Dallasite Jeb Hensarling. He represents the Dallas-to-Tyler 5th District that Mr. Sessions gave up two years ago to run in the new 32nd District, which is more compact and seemed safer at the time.
At least two freshman Democrats have sent Mr. Frost $1,000 checks: Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton administration official, and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. In all, Mr. Frost has collected $140,000 from House Democrats, including $10,000 each from Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, a former rival, and Whip Steny Hoyer.
Unlike Mr. Sessions, Mr. Frost has his own leadership PAC. The Lone Star Fund has handed out $41,000 to 28 House candidates; $5,000 went to his campaign.
Chris Paulitz, press secretary at the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the outpouring to Mr. Sessions reflects reality and confidence. "Scared translates to less money, not more," he said. "Pete Sessions is beloved in his party. ... Anybody looking at this race knows it's going to be close."
As for bragging rights, both sides boast about their fund raising.
Mr. Frost has raised $3.1 million, more than all but three House candidates nationwide – Speaker Hastert; Houston businessman Ben Streusand, who lost a GOP primary; and the No. 2 House Democrat, Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.
Mr. Sessions has raised $2.8 million. But he has $2.6 million in the bank – $1 million more than Mr. Frost.
Via Vince, who also points to an AP wire story on Charlie Stenholm. Not a whole lot new in there, but I thought this was interesting:
Stenholm has fought hardest for farmers and agriculture and for reducing government spending, without giving away the farm. Stenholm helped found the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats.He counts among his friends some Republican officials and GOP voters, such as former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, who retired after the 2002 elections.
Combest and Stenholm worked closely to write the 2002 farm bill that replaced the 1996 Freedom to Farm law. The new bill raised subsidy rates for grain and cotton growers and revived a system to provide supplemental income when commodity prices fall below certain levels. Texas got the biggest increase in subsidies under the bill.
"I couldn't ask for anybody to be more supportive of me as a chairman than what I got from Charlie, in committee, in action on the floor and certainly in conference," Combest said in a telephone interview from Lubbock. "For a long time it was me and him against the Senate."
Combest, who lives in District 19, declined to say who he'll vote for in November.
That's Stenholm's challenge, as we well know: convince Republicans like his former colleague that if there's only going to be one West Texas voice for agriculture, he's the one to pick.
Win some, lose some: The Quorum Report notes that Rep. Chet Edwards won the Texas Farm Bureau Friends of Agriculture Fund (AGFUND) endorsement (Word doc), but his challenger won the nod from the NRA (Word doc).
Lorenzo Sadun had an op-ed in the Statesman about making every vote count.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Charles Soechting has thrown down the gauntlet.
State Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting said Monday that he is disgusted that his national party has written Texas off as Republican and is urging financial donors from here to cut off the Democratic National Committee."Is a line drawn in the sand between myself and the DNC? Yes it is," Soechting said. "If you want good government in Texas, you start (by giving) at home."
Soechting said national party officials have taken the attitude that Texas is President Bush's home state and cannot be won.
"That is a loser, defeatist mentality," Soechting said. "I'm not willing to concede that Texas is not winnable. I'm just hearing too many good things around the state."
Soechting said he decided to start urging Texas donors to keep their money in the state after the DNC offered $5,000 to the Texas party to send staff to battleground states that could be won by the Kerry presidential campaign.
"I'm not sending a single person to another state when we have important races here. They want my best and brightest," Soechting said. "I've got people from the courthouse to the White House to elect."
Byron has already covered most of the ground here. I agree that Texas is not in play, that Soechting's never-say-die attitude is what should be expected from a state party chair, and that it's time Texas got a little love back from the DNC.
I think Soechting is taking the wrong tack here, though. Unless you can find some polls showing Bush below 50% in Texas, you're going to have a real hard time convincing anyone that Texas is winnable. There's no traction in that argument.
What Soechting needs to hammer on is twofold. One is the fate of the redistricted Congressional incumbents. All of these candidates (and Richard Morrison and Morris Meyer, too) will benefit from better turnout among Democrats, something which a visit or two from the Kerry/Edwards ticket can help provide. If you think Kerry himself won't be much help for some or all of the endangered incumbents, fine. Just send Edwards, or deputize Wes Clark as I've advocated. Especially in light of Rodney Alexander's cowardly last-minute party switch, every Congressional seat is critical. This is an argument that should resonate with the DNC.
The second point is harder to make as a short-term proposition, but is in my opinion the more important long-term. We all know that the demographics of Texas are changing. Hispanics are on the verge of becoming the majority population, and their historic voting patterns strongly suggest that as this happens, Texas will become more Democratic. How long this takes to happen, and how great an effect there will be as it does, is entirely up to the state and national Democratic Party. They can put some time and effort into voter registration and outreach (getting the New Democratic Network to run some of their Spanish language TV ads here would be a good start) and reap the benefits sooner, maybe even in 2006, or they can sit on their hands and let the state GOP use its money and organizational skills to erode that advantage.
I'm more than happy to see Soechting make this challenge to the DNC. I just want to see him make it as persuasive as possible. I think what I've outlined here has a better chance than the Texas-is-a-swing-state strategy.
And the latest school finance lawsuit is set to begin today.
The trial before state District Judge John Dietz of Austin, expected to last six to seven weeks, could put more pressure on lawmakers to increase spending on education or settle on sources other than local property taxes to fund it.At issue in the trial is a lawsuit originally filed by four wealthy school districts but that now includes more than 330 rich and poor districts. It questions whether the current system, adopted to ensure more equitable funding, has leaned so much on property taxes that it amounts to an unconstitutional statewide property levy.
It also asks whether Texas has fallen short of its constitutional duty to fund schools sufficiently as educational expectations rise.
[...]
In 1984, the Edgewood, Harlandale and South San Antonio districts joined other low-wealth districts seeking equitable funding. The state lawsuit emerged after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed a federal lawsuit filed by Edgewood parents in 1968.
The Texas Supreme Court found the old system unconstitutionally inefficient in 1989. Lawmakers adopted the Robin Hood approach four years later.
In the latest lawsuit, poor districts say the gap between what they can raise from taxes and what wealthier districts can raise has widened since 1994.
Court filings suggest the districts will point to spending gaps in construction and in educating economically disadvantaged students or those who do not speak English.
Districts leading the lawsuit, including Alamo Heights, Northside, North East and Marble Falls, aren't likely to disagree, but they hope to prove other weaknesses.
Districts say a law capping local maintenance and operation taxes at $1.50 per $100 valuation has developed into a statewide property tax, which is barred by the Texas Constitution.
In 2003-04, 495 of the state's 1,050 districts reached the cap — with many more expected to do so soon.
Lobbyist Bill Ratliff, who sponsored the Robin Hood plan as a senator, might testify in favor of its overhaul.
Ratliff said that because many districts are taxing at $1.46 or more per $100 valuation, it is "increasingly hard for me to argue that" the system doesn't amount to a statewide property tax.
Ratliff also questions research presented to lawmakers suggesting that current spending is adequate to ensure that 55 percent of students pass the state's mandatory exam, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
"Surely that's not what we're striving for," Ratliff said.
Depends on what you think we're paying for, I guess. It seems safe to say now that no legislative action will occur before the suit is decided. A little more background is here. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Lasso has some good linkage.
The Alamo Drafthouse expansion, first noted here, has hit the AP wires.
With a slightly new name but same attitude, Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas Ltd. plans to expand to San Antonio this month, and by early next year to Tyler, San Angelo, Waco and Corpus Christi. The company also is working on deals in Colorado, Oklahoma and Florida, with the eventual goal of 200 U.S. franchises.It's an ambitious project for a small chain founded in 1996 with one screen that showed second-run films and played host to eccentric events -- like a showing of Jaws at Lake Travis, where moviegoers watched the film from inner tubes while swimmers under the water pinched their legs.
"They love cinema more than just about any theater that exists in the country," said Harry Knowles, who hosts events at the Drafthouse and is the creator of the Ain't It Cool News film Web site. "They have an independent spirit and an outside the norm sensibility that is quirky enough to fit with my own."
[...]
The chain, which has three Austin locations and one in Houston, shows new releases as well as independent and older movies with special promotions. The theater may show a Kung Fu movie and offer a full menu of Asian cuisine. On another night, one screen may be reserved for amateur filmmakers who compete for $100. Parents can bring infants to Tuesday matinees for baby day. During football season, the Drafthouse shows NFL and college games, free of charge.
One of the most popular events is Mr. Sinus Theater, during which three comedians sit at the front of the theater with microphones, making quips and heckling during movies such as Dirty Dancing, Pretty in Pink and Karate Kid.
Director Quentin Tarantino has hosted film festivals at the original downtown Austin location, and the Drafthouse showed a premiere of his Kill Bill -- Vol. 1. Last December, Mel Gibson attended a screening of an unedited cut of The Passion of The Christ that Knowles hosted as part of his "Butt-Numb-A-Thon" film festival.
A side project of the Drafthouse is a giant inflatable movie screen that travels. The Rolling Roadshow, as it is known, aired Caddyshack on a Manor golf course, Deliverance along the Guadalupe River and Goonies at Longhorn Caverns. It recently was used to show Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 in Crawford, near President Bush's Texas ranch.
You know, it occurs to me - and I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before now - they really need to get Joe Bob Briggs on board with this concept. I mean, if the Rolling Roadshow isn't the spiritual heir to the drive-in theater, then I don't know what is.
(Speaking of drive-ins, here's another variation on the concept that seems to be alive and well. Does one's heart good to hear this sort of thing, doesn't it?)
Anyway. I'm rooting for the Drafthouse to be a big success nationwide. And I'm ready for that new Houston location to open up. Go Alamo Drafthouse!
Crazy Times Demand a Crazy Senator. If such a yard sign ever gets printed, I want one. Via your one-stop source for all things Keyesian, ArchPundit.
Would you believe the falling out between Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Governor Rick Perry all started over funding for community colleges?
[Strayhorn's] claim: Perry torpedoed funding for her TexasNextStep proposal last year, even though he had earlier voiced support for it.His response: Untrue. He did not try to sabotage TexasNextStep. Quite the contrary.
"Your word is your contract. I take people at their word," Strayhorn told The Associated Press. "Yes, I believed in my gut that I had a commitment for TexasNextStep right up from the governor and from the governor's office. And that was the very place where it was done under."
But Perry's aides say the governor's office actually tried to help pass a version of Strayhorn's proposal during the 2003 regular legislative session.
"The comptroller does a disservice to Texans with her revisionist history when the fact is Gov. Perry worked to pass her bill and to ask (legislative) members to support it," said Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt.
Strayhorn said that's untrue. A community college program the governor's aides were considering didn't even resemble her proposal, she said.
"This governor and this governor's administration killed TexasNextStep," she said. "They killed it behind closed doors."
Strayhorn declined to characterize her dispute with Perry as the sole reason for their public fallout, but it clearly angered her.
"I don't point to any point as rifts or not rifts. You know, I like Rick Perry; I like everybody," she said. But she added, "I guess this was the first time we'd worked that closely together on something that really, really was important — and is important."
Interesting. I don't really care who's telling the truth and who's lying here, I'm just happy to see them squabble. Seriously, given the lack of attention paid to Democratic critics of the Governor, if it weren't for Strayhorn's carping there'd be no effective counterbalance to him in the media. So keep it up, Carole.
Had about 37,000 hits in July, which is a dropoff from June and May but not bad considering I had no flood-of-traffic links. This is probably my natural level for now. I'll be curious to see if the publicity surrounding the Blogging of the DNC will increase those bloggers' traffic, and if there will be a trickle down effect from there. Anyway, thanks as always to everyone for reading. Top referrers and search engine terms are beneath the More link.
Aggregators, collections, indices, etc ====================================== 420: http://www.bloglines.com 396: http://www.technorati.com/ 173: http://blo.gs/
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565: TAPPED
536: Atrios
353: The Agonist
210: Pandagon
160: The Burnt Orange Report
122: The Stakeholder
106: Kicking Ass
100: The Sideshow
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97: A Perfectly Cromulent Blog
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91: Nosey Online
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87: NorbiznessTop search terms
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#reqs: search term
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589: real men of genius
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144: gregg phillips
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93: steve brozak
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86: barack obama
84: barack obama bio
72: home makeovers
69: budweiser real men of genius
Congratulations to Greg Maddux for his 300th career win. He's the 22nd pitcher to reach that milestone and is now tied with Earl Wynn and Lefty Grove for 20th place all-time in victories.
What's amazing to me is that as he's only 38, he could climb quite a bit higher on the all-time victories list. With two more decent seasons, he ought to pass Steve Carlton's 329 wins and become the winningest pitcher alive. With a third season, he could challenge Tim Keefe's 341 wins, and if he can keep it up for four more years, he could even take aim at Warren Spahn's 363 victories. Imagine that. It probably won't happen, but with good health, run support, and the will to keep going, who knows?
Mac recently critiqued this Tom Verducci piece which suggested Maddux may be the last to reach the 300 milestone. Let's just say that I agree with Mac that this is way premature.
Getting back to Maddux for a second, Rob Neyer once listed him as the fourth-greatest pitcher since WWII, behind Tom Seaver, Roger Clemens, and Warren Spahn. It'll be interesting to see where he winds up when all is said and done.
Enough of that. Congrats to Maddux, who richly deserves the accolades he'll be collecting for the rest of the season. What a great career he's had, and it ain't over yet.
Want to hear Molly Ivins and other Texas Observer authors read from Fifty Years of the Texas Observer, and maybe score an autograph? You lucky duckies in Austin and San Antonio will have your chance in September:
Sept 8 BookPeople, Austin 7:00 p.m. Details here.Sept 9 The Twig, San Antonio 5-7 p.m. Details here.
Sept 18 Barnes & Nobles at Fiesta Trails, SA 2p.m. Details not online yet.
Sept 27 Barnes & Nobles at Westlakes, Austin. Details not online yet.
If and when they come to Houston, Dallas, or elsewhere, I'll let you know. You can preorder thru Amazon.com or through the bookstores above. Trinity University Press will have its online shopping function available later this month.
Red Adair, the world's most famous fireman, has died at the age of 89.
Adair got his start in 1946 working for Myron Kinley, a pioneer of well-fire and blowout control in Houston. In 1959, Adair bought Kinley's equipment for $125 and started his own business.Within a few years, Adair and his crew were battling a fire at a natural gas well in the Sahara Desert known as The Devil's Cigarette Lighter.
Flames shot 800 feet into the air with a sound that shook the ground for miles. Within a half mile of the well, the desert sand was melted into glass from the intense heat.
After deciding that digging under the natural gas well would be too dangerous, Adair put out the fire with a single blast from 750 pounds of nitroglycerine.
"Got it on the first shot," he was quoted as saying in a 1994 Houston Chronicle article.
His company brought 119 well fires under control in Kuwait, out of about 700 that were torched by the Iraqis.
But Adair himself has had some close calls. He was working on a well near Falfurrias, in South Texas, in the 1940s when an explosion under the platform propelled him upward through the derrick for an estimated 50 to 60 feet. He escaped without injury.
On a job near Weatherford, Adair was holding a handful of blasting caps with dynamite at his feet, when a bulldozer operator carelessly drove over the electric wires leading to the caps. Heralded jobs performed by Adair included extinguishing a massive offshore blaze at Bay Marchand, La., in 1970; the Bravo offshore blowout in the North Sea in 1977; the Ixtoc blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979; and the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 that killed 167 men on a North Sea platform.
Adair was the inspiration for a 1968 movie called Hellfighters, starring John Wayne. Adair said he got to be friends with Wayne while serving as a technical adviser for the movie, and even took the actor to see a real blowout.
Adair Red put out fires in Kuwait in 1965; Algeria in 1972; Gaylord, Mich., in 1977; Sumatra in 1978; Libya in 1979; Mexico in 1980; and Germany in 1981.
Capping wells and fighting some of the most dangerous fires came second-nature and he welcomed the challenges such as the fires in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. "It wasn't that big of deal to him. Everything happened so quick. The most difficult thing about Kuwait was there was so many of them," Robyn Adair said.
Rest in peace, Red Adair.
Now that Kevin has kindly sent a boatload of readers here to find out about Fifty Years of the Texas Observer, I thought I'd discuss another article from that book, one from the much more recent past. This one, The Pols He Bought, is from 1999 and as such can be found on the Observer web page.
That article is about far-right hospital bed magnate James Leininger, first profiled on the Observer pages two weeks previously, and the influence he wielded on the 1998 elections with an infusion of late cash.
John Sharp didn’t lose to Rick Perry. Nor did Paul Hobby lose to Carole Keeton Rylander. Instead, the two Democrats lost their races to James Leininger’s money. Leininger helped guarantee two loans – a $1.1 million loan to Perry on October 25 and a $950,000 loan to Rylander on October 1 – that likely made the difference in the races for lieutenant governor and comptroller, the closest races on the statewide ballot. Perry beat Sharp by 68,700 votes. Rylander beat Hobby by 20,223 votes, in one of the closest statewide races in Texas history. In each race, about 3.7 million votes were cast. Sharp lost by 1.8 percent of the vote, Hobby by 0.55 percent.Handicapping political races is an inexact science, and there is no way to prove that Leininger’s loans were the decisive factor in the two races. "It’s almost impossible to narrow down the result to a single thing," says Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at U.T.—Austin. "But when the races are as close as those two races, it’s reasonable to suggest that money like that may have made the difference."Leininger’s money certainly provided critical ammunition to both Perry and Rylander:
• More than 10 percent of the $10.3 million that Perry raised before the election came from the loan guaranteed by Leininger and two other businessmen.
• Nearly 25 percent of the $3.85 million that Rylander raised in the year prior to the election came from the loan guaranteed by Leininger and four others.
• On the same day Leininger’s loan to Rylander was approved, her campaign wrote a check for $850,000 to National Media in Alexandria, Virginia, for media buys.
• Within five days of getting the money from Leininger, the Perry campaign spent slightly more than $1 million on media, with the bulk of that money ($966,000) going to David Weeks, Perry’s Austin-based media consultant.
• Leininger’s money came at critical times for both campaigns. When Rylander got the money from Leininger, she was trailing Hobby in the polls and was being outspent more than two to one. From July through September, Hobby had spent $3.7 million. Rylander had spent almost $1.7 million. In late October, when Perry got his loan, he was in a dead heat with Sharp, with polls showing both candidates with 37 percent of the vote. And Perry was being outspent by a margin of almost three to one. From July to September, Perry spent $2.3 million. Sharp spent $6.8 million.
Now, I don't fully buy into the notion that Leininger's cash was the difference maker. Texas was already fairly solidly Republican by 1998, and the top of the ticket that year featured the then-very-popular Governor George W. Bush, who destroyed challenger Garry Mauro by a 2-1 margin. And finally, Sharp and Hobby had a fair amount of cash, solid reputations, and good name recognition themselves. Leininger's money certainly helped Perry and Strayhorn, but I won't claim it was necessary or sufficient.
That said, these were two very close elections. A little change here and there, and the Democrats would have won two of the top four offices available that year (there was no Senate race in 1998). John Sharp would have then ascended to the Governor's mansion in 2001 when Bush headed to Washington, and while both he and Hobby would have faced strong challenges in 2002, it's fair to say that running as incumbents they'd have done a hell of a lot better than Tony Sanchez and Marty Akins did.
Under this scenario, it's likely that we'd be hearing a lot less about the decline and fall of the Texas Democratic Party. This is not to say that the actual decline and fall would have been arrested or reversed with these two wins in 1998. The underlying problems - lack of a bench, no cohesive philosophy, strong population growth in the heavily Republican suburbs, GOP death grips on Harris and Dallas Counties - wouldn't have gone away. Things might look OK for the Democrats on the surface, but the troubles would be there to see for anyone who'd bother to look, much like a candidate who's tied in the polls but getting clobbered on the internals. They'd still have their work cut out for them if they wanted to be a real force again.
What would probably be different would be how much ground they'd concede while they got their act back together. I think it's a lot more likely that Governor Sharp could have gotten a compromise redistricting bill passed in 2001, which would have avoided the court-drawn map and thus short-circuited the one plausible argument that the DeLay crew had when they steamrolled the 2003 sessions. The Republicans probably would have still won the State House in 2002, but they might not have had such a friendly map from the Legislative Review Board to work with, and as such Tom Craddick still might not have wrested the speakership from Pete Laney. Who knows what might have happened with the budget in the last Legislative session with Sharp and/or Hobby in office, or if Perry and/or Strayhorn had won in squeakers instead of routs? Maybe without being distracted by redistricting, they'd have straightened out school finance. You never know.
You can play that kind of what-if game all day. Here's something that for sure wouldn't have happened if John Sharp had won:
For his part, Perry made certain that he repaid Leininger’s loan. Records show that his campaign paid off the $1.1 million loan on December 17, an amazingly quick turnaround. How did he do it? In part, by pressuring lobbyists. After the election, several lobbyists who had supported Sharp were contacted by Perry’s campaign and told that they were expected to help retire Perry’s campaign debt. In some cases, they were given specific amounts of money to raise and/or contribute, with amounts ranging up to $50,000. Said one lobbyist who asked not to be identified, "There was no direct mention of the Leininger loan, but you don’t have to do any high math to put two and two together. Most of the people who were contacted understood where that debt came from." Republican Party political director Royal Masset even circulated a memo, advising Republican statewide elected officials to tell lobbyists who supported Democratic candidates that it was now going to cost them a premium to get on the "late train" with the Republican winners.Sullivan insists no fundraising quotas were given and dismisses the complaints as "sour grapes from lobbyists whose guy lost the election." Perhaps so. But questions about Leininger’s influence over Perry and Rylander will undoubtedly continue, particularly as the issue of school vouchers becomes more prominent.
As shown by his secret trip to the Bahamas with Leininger and others, Perry is still paying that debt back in one way or another. Had it not been for those few votes here and there, ol' Jim would have gotten a much lower return on that investment.
ArchPundit is your one-stop shop for all things Alan Keyes, including several looks back at Keyes' two disastrous runs for the Senate from Maryland in 1988 and 1992, and this gem which notes that Keyes is a tax delinquent.
Meanwhile, over at BOR, Andrew D got to meet Barack Obama. You owe us all a picture, Andrew!
Whatever else one may think of the Houston: It's Worth It! marketing scheme (and as noted, I rather like it), if Rick "Hostshot" Casey and Kevin Whited both think it's a good idea, it must be doing something right. Now we just have to see what Rich Connelly makes of it.
Tom and Sue give their opinions as well. Sorry if I missed anyone.
Yesterday, my TiVo recorded Pulp Fiction. I just noticed that it's now recording Jackie Brown. I have no idea what's brought on this sudden Tarantino fetish. Our subscriptions right now are for The 4400, The Prisoner, and The Amazing Race. If anyone thinks they can connect the dots between all of these things, by all means please do so.
Speaking of The 4400, you can catch a rerun of all four previous episodes, leading up to the broadcast of the finale, tomorrow on USA. They promise to answer the Big Questions about what happened to the abductees. I'm hoping the show gets picked up for next season.
Ginger emailed me about this TechCentral Station column in which author Gil Weinrich laments using criminal justice remedies for white-collar crimes.
Andrew Fastow is expected to serve a 10-year sentence, and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay could face as much as 30 years if convicted in the massive corporate fraud, in which Fastow and others concealed billions of dollars in debt in off-the-books partnerships. The crime wiped out $68 billion in market value, destroyed at least 5,600 jobs and vaporized workers' retirement savings.So what's the connection between the jobs and money lost at Enron and Lea Fastow's forcible removal from her children, menial labor and potentially dangerous cellmates? Precious little if you ask me. Does a single Enron worker get his job back because Lea Fastow is washing underwear? Does a single Enron creditor get its money back because she is baking tater tots or cleaning dishes? And does Andrew Fastow's 10-year prison sentence repay his debt to society -- a debt that can be measured in the billions?
Our society does a poor job of penalizing crime. In the sphere of violent crime, the high recidivism rate of convicted felons indicates a failure adequately to protect society from dangerous criminals. In the white-collar arena, the unrequited losses endured by victims of financial crime similarly underscore the fecklessness of the system.
Besides the injustice to victims there is an inherent lack of mercy to criminals who are not given an opportunity to make amends. For the sake of the victims of Enron and other white-collar crimes, we need to shift away from a system based on punishment to one based on restitution.
You know, if Fastow had lifted a couple of bags of cash from a poorly-guarded Brink's truck, I don't think Weinrich would advocate for an alternate to jail time even if all of the money he swiped were recovered. I fail to see the justification for treating criminals in three-piece suits any differently from criminals in stocking masks. The criminal justice system is about prevention, rehabilitation, and punishment. It's not about restoring equity - that's what the civil courts are for.
Tom Kirkendall points out another problem with Weinrich's scheme:
[T]he fact that politicians have arranged for absurdly long prison sentences in business cases to appeal to the public passion to punish wealthy people excessively does not mean that there should be no penal system disincentive whatsoever for engaging in corporate crime. One imagines Bialystock & Bloom in "The Producers" blithely continuing to create Ponzi schemes in perpetuity under Weinrich's proposed system (and so long as Zero Mostel could continue to play Bialystock, that might not be such a bad thing).
Exactly. Who's to say that, given a mandate to raise enough money to compensate his victims or else, that Fastow wouldn't cook up another Death Star to fulfill the terms of his sentence as quickly as possible? I'm perfectly happy for him (and Lea and Rick Causey and all of the other malefactors who've done the perp walk so far) to contemplate their wrongdoing in a federally-funded timeout, and for the class action system to work out the rest of it.
Atrios links to a Bob Herbert column and notes that he doesn't link to Herbert often enough.
Despite my odd reticence to draw attention to his work, Herbert should be in line for every humanitarian award there is for his critical role in bringing attention to the Tulia, TX injustices. Herbert's contribution to the cause of justice in this situation cannot be overstated. One would hope that some of his colleagues would look at his example and begin to understand the power for good they have at their fingertips (cough, Modo, cough).'And, even writing that... I've not given him enough credit. If once in my life I could claim as an accomplishment what Herbert did with the Tulia case I'd consider it a life worth living.
There's no question that Bob Herbert did a lot to bring the Tulia injustices to the world's attention, but it must be noted that the story was actually broken in June of 2000 by Texas Observer reporter Nate Blakeslee. Here's the Observer's complete coverage of Tulia, starting with the June 2000 article that got the ball rolling. However much credit Herbert deserves, Blakeslee deserves more. Herbert had the bigger microphone necessary to make people hear about Tulia, but it was Blakeslee's words that he was broadcasting.
This is all of special interest to me now. Last week I got an email from Dr. Char Miller, one of my favorite profs from Trinity. He's the editor of a just-released anthology called "Fifty Years of the Texas Observer", a review copy of which sits in my hot little hands. I plan on reading it in my copious spare time over the next two weeks or so and writing a review here. Stay tuned for more.
Here's a little taste of what you'll find. From an October 30, 1964 editorial called "This Man George Bush", about that Senate race that year:
Presenting himself as "responsible", he says his conservatism is "compassionate", yet he has so little sensitivity for the feelings of the needy aged; he wittily compares medical care for the aged with a federal program to air-condition ship holds for apes and baboons, a program which he has dubbed "medical air for the caged".
Plus ca change, eh? I'll bring more such tidbits as a go through the book. In the meantime, remember the Observer, which started publishing 50 years ago this December.
The makers or Starbock Beer will keep on pouring for the time being, at least until they take their copyright battle to court next year. Pete has the scoop.
You know, in my entire life I don't think I ever looked this cool. Not bad for a two-month-old. Click the More link to see for yourself.
If you're a MT-Blacklist user (and you should be), there's a new maintenance release, version 1.65, available. If you've got version 1.64, it's a minor change to one line of code in Blacklist.pm. That change was added because some spammers have gotten clever and started using URLs with the ASCII code for a period (%2E) instead of the period; as a result, you'd get http://www.spamsite%2Ecom in your comments, which would make it through even if spamsite.com was blocked. It's a quick and easy update - just upload the new files and you're done.
Looks like the new MT 3.1 compatible version will be out in another two weeks or so. I need to think about when I want to upgrade. If only babies came with a fully configurable nap module...
John Forney, come on down! You are the next contestant on Plead Guilty and Promise The Feds You'll Cooperate!
John Forney, 42, of Ohio, is the third official to plead guilty to manipulating electricity prices from Enron's now-defunct trading office in Portland, Ore. The crisis played a role in Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s bankruptcy and will leave California consumers paying abnormally high electricity prices for years.He faces a maximum of five years. He remains free on $500,000 bail. A sentencing date has not been set.
"With the guilty plea of John Forney, we have now obtained convictions of the top three Enron executives most directly responsible for manipulating the energy markets in California at a time unique in our history, when the lights were going off and the grid was in danger of shutting down," U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said.
Ryan said that, as part of the guilty plea, Forney is expected to cooperate with the investigation into Houston-based Enron, as well as reveal details about how other energy firms may have played a role.
[...]
Former Enron executives Timothy Belden and Jeffrey Richter also have pleaded guilty and cooperated with the FBI.
Forney, the manager of Enron's trading desk, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, specifically that he promised to supply energy Enron did not have and that he improperly collected electrical grid management fees for Enron.
Enron's scheme to charge fees for services it did not provide was known inside the company as Forney's Perpetual Loop, the indictment said. Forney also took part in schemes known as Death Star, Get Shorty, Ricochet and others, which inflated consumer prices.
It doesn't say, but I presume that Forney and the other mentioned are more bricks in the wall against Skilling and Lay. Those are going to be some bigass trials.
Many moons ago, ESPN.com did an online "Battle of the Bands", in which they matched up collegiate marching bands NCAA-tournament-style and asked their readers to vote for the winner. The Rice MOB was one of the entrants, and I spent several days sending emails to friends and coworkers exhorting them to vote for us. (I later discovered that some of them were passing these emails along to other folks - in the end I probably had about 250 people voting for the MOB.)
As if by fate, the MOB was eventually matched up against its nemesis, the Texas A&M band. By this time, pretty much everyone who followed college halftime bands was getting involved in these contests. A member of the Texas Longhorn Band alumni group posted a message somewhere (I don't remember where - this all took place in 1996 or so) advocating Longhorns to vote for Rice based on the two schools' "mutual hatred" for all things Aggie. This spurred a furious reaction in College Station, which was made worse by Rice's eventual win in the poll. The Aggies got their revenge in the next round when a hacker flooded the system and caused Rice to lose to eventual winner Stanford by several hundred thousand votes.
ESPN had claimed from the beginning of the poll that only one vote per IP address would be counted, but of course this was laughable on its face. Early rounds of voting seemed reasonably fair, mostly because early on not too many people knew about the contest and most of them took it as a lark, but in the end the simple truth was known by all - Web-based polls are totally meaningless.
So one wonders why they still exist in 2004, and when newspaper sites will eventually give up on them. Until then, those of us who know better may as well keep reminding them of these basic facts. You can do your part by choosing the right answer in this poll (hint: it's Edwards and Sandlin). Have fun, and remember to vote early and vote often.
Swift Boat Veteran Roy Hoffmann, part one:
Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, head of the Swift Boat group, said they respected McCain's "right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did not."
Swift Boat Veteran Roy Hoffmann, part two:
Hoffmann acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally.
Just so you know. The latter link comes from Media Matters for America, which has quite a bit more about SV and its baloney.
Joe Conanson and Oliver Willis have some information on Bob Perry, the big bankroller of SV. Here's a little more about ol' Bob, who despite not being related to Governor Rick Perry is awfully tight with him.
UPDATE: Allow me to channel Brad DeLong for a moment and say that only Fafblog! can respond to this sort of thing in the manner it deserves.
Oops.
An internal investigation by Belo Corp. has uncovered practices and procedures that led to an overstatement of circulation at the media company's flagship newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.Dallas-based Belo said Thursday that the overstatement will cause an estimated decline in circulation of about 1.5 percent daily and 5 percent on Sunday.
Belo said the largest part of the overstatement found late in July appears to be due to a change made in early 1999 in unsold newspaper returns. The company said those figures rely on reports by contractors that are verified by circulation managers. The company said a circulation sales reward program also resulted in overstatements. That program was discontinued in the first quarter of 2004.
Belo said the investigation is ongoing.
Robert W. Decherd, Belo's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said, "The Dallas Morning News circulation practices must be completely consistent with Belo's uncompromising standards. The Morning News will voluntarily provide fair compensation to its advertisers given the circulation overstatement. We believe the revised circulation figures to be submitted to ABC are a reliable baseline for future Morning News circulation."
ABC refers to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, an organization that monitors newspaper circulation.
A media company's circulation figures are important in the setting of rates for advertisers.
In the wake of the disclosures, Belo said a compensation plan for advertisers will be communicated to them within seven business days. Belo said that at that time the company will disclose the impact on net earnings and net earnings per share in the third quarter of 2004.
As noted by the Chron, this restatement puts the Chron ahead of the DMN for Sunday circulation; the Chron already led in the dailies.
And another entry in the Gregg Phillips files.
A deputy human services commissioner awarded a $1.2 million consulting contract to a company whose lobbyist employed the commissioner's former business partner as a consultant.Gregg Phillips oversaw the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's award of a public information contract last year to Accenture to develop a strategy to inform the public and state employees about a state social services overhaul.
Accenture's lobbyist in seeking the contract was Strategic Partnerships Inc. of Austin.
Shortly after Phillips became the No. 2 director of the state social services agency in March 2003, Strategic Partnerships hired Phillips' former business partner, Paige Harkins, as a "senior strategy consultant" to advise companies how to lobby Phillips for contracts.
Strategic Partnerships' founding partner Mary Scott Nabers said Harkins never directly lobbied Phillips and never worked on the Accenture account. Nabers said she also was unaware that Phillips' wife, Helen, continued to work with Harkins in an unrelated business venture.
Nabers said she hired Harkins as a consultant because she worked with him in Mississippi when he oversaw the state's social services restructuring.
"We really sought her out because we did not know what they had done in Mississippi, did not know anything about Gregg, did not know how to advise all of our clients, all of whom were interested in the consolidation," Nabers said.
Nabers said she knew Harkins and Phillips had been partners in a Georgia-based company that Phillips had founded, Enterject Inc. But Nabers said Harkins had told her that she and Phillips had severed all business ties.
The Georgia Secretary of State lists Phillips' wife, Helen, as the chief financial officer for Enterject. Phillips said his wife is just a part-time bookkeeper for the company.
Phillips last week announced plans to resign from the social services agency effective Sept. 3 for personal reasons.
Responding to questions by e-mail, Phillips said he never spoke to Harkins about any specific contracts awarded by the agency. Harkins, who works out of a Marrietta, Ga., office, could not be reached for comment.
Suzy Woodford, executive director of Common Cause of Texas, described Harkins employment by Nabers as a "sweetheart deal" because of Harkins' relationship with Phillips and his wife.
Got all that? Whether any laws were actually broken or not - and I should note that the rest of the article mentions that the Texas Workforce Commission has determined there was no wrongdoing in the previous sweetheart deal that Phillips arranged - this whole process is awfully incestuous. Part of that is probably because there's not that many people currently employed in the HHS privatization biz, and part of it is because any time there's big fat juicy contracts to award there's going to be a large incentive to give them to friends and colleagues who may someday have a big fat juicy contract to award to you. The latter is in my mind one of the stronger arguments against privatizing this sort of government function. I sure don't see much evidence that a free market is the driving force here, so what benefit are we actually getting out of it?
I suppose one has to give Rep. Ciro Rodriguez credit for persistence in the face of continued rejection.
In a move expected by many legal and political observers, the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in an attempt to resuscitate his Congressional District 28 re-election bid.Citing a lack of jurisdiction, the state's highest court issued a one-line order dismissing the case.
The decision — the third legal defeat for Rodriguez — effectively ends his protracted legal battle against Democratic opponent Henry Cuellar of Laredo, who has stood as the party's nominee since a recount after the March 9 primary.
Rodriguez's attorney, Les Mendelsohn of San Antonio, however, said he still believes the court has authority to hear the case and is considering asking the nine-member body to reconsider its decision with additional documentation to support his claim.
"I don't know if it will make a difference to the court, but we may refile it because we think we're right," he said.
I would have preferred for Rodriguez to win, and I think that given more time he might well have been able to prove there was some funny business going on, but it's time to concede defeat and contemplate what comes next. I suspect we'll hear more from Ciro Rodriguez in the future, but whatever happens I wish him well, and I hope Henry Cuellar does as good a job in Washington as he did.
I'm moderately surprised that as of this blogging, none of my fellow Houstonians have commented on this.
Throughout its existence Houston has struggled to come up with an effective image campaign. There have been many attempts, but none like the latest.Calling attention to flying cockroaches, pollution, flooding, construction and billboards, it's called "Houston. It's Worth It."
The campaign is creating a buzz around town and has among its fans Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, director Peter Marzio, and Hermann Park will incorporate it into its 90th anniversary party.
The branding campaign is the brainchild of David Thompson and Randy Twaddle, partners in the local marketing firm ttweak.
No municipal body has commissioned or endorsed "Houston. It's Worth It," a self-financed, guerrilla-style operation that aims to build grass-roots support.
"Houston. It's Worth It" spotlights Houston's 20 "afflictions," which include: "The heat. The traffic. The sprawl. The ridicule. The air. The no mountains."
Its intent isn't to focus on the negatives, but to create a vehicle for which people can express their reasons for liking Houston despite the hardships, Thompson said.
Before I get into my opinion of this, I just want to say that "Twaddle" is perhaps the perfect surname ever for a marketing guy.
I confess, I kinda like this scheme. I don't think anyone who lives in Houston will dispute the basic fact that there are things about it that aren't so nice, though some of us don't find the heat to be a negative. Those of us who like it here simply believe that the positives about Houston outweigh them. It's not like Houston is the only city in America with issues related to local fauna, weather, traffic, or any of the various other items on the list, after all. We don't focus on those things because there are better and more relevant things to focus on.
Something that often gets overlooked when a city's negative traits are discussed is that to the locals, some of those traits are a badge of honor. I can't tell you how many people I've met who claim that their hometown has the world's worst drivers in it, for example. It's a way of demonstrating one's toughness by noting all of the things one has to overcome just to make it through the day.
And let's face it, given Houston's official attempts to market itself, it's not like Thompson and Twaddle can do any worse:
[Jordy Tollett, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau] acknowledged that it has been a challenge over the years to come up with the right slogan."We've probably spent an excess of $75 million in the past 30 years on image campaigns, and we keep coming back and saying, 'Well, that didn't work.' "
One of the more embarrassing moments came in 1997 during the "Houston. Expect the Unexpected" campaign.
The Houston Image Group, a city-sponsored commission, spent $500,000 for an ad in Time magazine featuring a scratch-off sweepstakes game. Only one person among 4 million Time subscribers claimed one of the 33 prizes.
Pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it?
Anyway, I think these guys are on to something. I'll have to check out their web site to see what other reactions they've gotten. In the meantime, Sue gives her reason for why Houston is worth it.
Nice catch by Kevin: independent Congressional candidate Tom Bazan has withdrawn his lawsuit that alleged Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee failed to file her candidacy papers on time.
A candidate hoping to unseat U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, in November has filed a notice to withdraw a lawsuit challenging her candidacy. Tom Bazan, an independent candidate for the 18th Congressional District, did not file his lawsuit on time and filed notice Monday to withdraw it, his attorney said. Bazan had claimed Jackson Lee had failed to file her application in time for the Democratic primary earlier this year.
As I said earlier, barring an accusation of perjury Gerry Birnbirg's sworn statement should be the end of the matter. Whether Birnbirg's testimony and Bazan's retreat are related or not I can't say, but the end result is not a surprise. Too bad Tim Fleck is no longer at the Press and George Strong is on vacation. I'll bet one of them would have known what was going on here.
So the Illinois GOP has asked Alan Keyes to run for Senate against Barack Obama.
Keyes told a news conference Wednesday night that he would make an announcement by Sunday."If I do step forward to accept this challenge, I will be laying it all on the line," he said.
Sweeeeeeet. Of course, as ArchPundit reminds us, Keyes is probably taking the time to determine if he can spin his way out of something he said about another candidate who moved to a new state in order to run for the Senate:
"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton’s willingness go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it.
I await with bated breath his final answer. I suspect if he does run it'll be along the lines of "It was wrong for Hillary to do it, but it's totally different for me."
So-Called Austin Mayor has a theory as to why the Illinois GOP would ask Keyes to take on this mission. It's a bit conspiracy-theoryish, so take it for what it's worth.
Continuing on the Alan Keyes Greatest Hits Parade, Josh Marshall recalls Keyes' Michael Moore-sponsored mosh pit dive (wonderful quote by Moore: "We knew Alan Keyes was insane. We just didn't know how insane until that moment."); TBogg notes that Keyes has made a pretty good living out of his runs for public office; and Byron points out that Keyes lost by a 71-29 margin to Barbara Mikulski in 1992.
So there's your potential standard-bearer, Illinois Republicans. All I can say is thanks for making the Texas Democrats look good.
UPDATE: Dwight is also rooting for a Keyes candidacy.
State Rep. Ron Wilson of Houston, a 27-year legislative veteran unseated in last spring's Democratic primary, has resigned from the Texas House five months before his final term ends."It was fun. Now, it's time to move on," Wilson said Wednesday. He declined to discuss his plans but said he had "lots of options."
Wilson, an attorney, said he quit quietly Saturday in letters sent to Gov. Rick Perry, Speaker Tom Craddick and the chief clerk of the House. His term officially ends at noon Jan. 11, the day the next regular legislative session begins.
If Perry wants to fill the seat before then, he will have to call a special election for the remainder of Wilson's term. Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Wednesday no decision has been made on whether to call such an election.
That sure seems like a flaw in the elections code, doesn't it? Wilson was knocked off in the primaries by a candidate who is now running unopposed in the general election, and it's long past the filing date for other potential challengers. Wouldn't it make more sense in this instance to give the Governor the option of appointing the primary-elected unopposed-in-the-general candidate instead of calling a special election which would almost assuredly be won by that candidate anyway? It's a moot point anyway, since barring an extremely last minute special session there's no compelling need to fill the seat before November.
Whatever. So long, Ron. It's not been nice knowing you.
The captain of the Staten Island Ferry that crashed into a concrete pier and killed 11 passengers has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting that he was drugged up and completely derelict in his duty. The report mentions but goes into no detail about the fact that the director of the Ferries has also been charged with manslaughter for overseeing a system that was completely out of control. This Newsday story has much more.
"The Barberi crashed as a result of the criminal negligence of two individuals, Assistant Captain Richard Smith and ferry director Patrick Ryan," U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said Wednesday. "This was a tragedy waiting to happen."Prosecutors said Ryan neglected long-established safety practices, including the requirement that a ship's captain and assistant captain share the wheelhouse during docking. The two-pilot requirement was put in place in 1958 to prevent an accident if one person was incapacitated, prosecutors said.
But Ryan never told new pilots about the rule or enforced it, prosecutors said. After the crash, he falsely told his superiors and federal investigators that the rule was in place, prosecutors said, leading to additional charges of making false statements and obstructing justice.
Ryan's attorney said he had no immediate comment on the indictment. The city's corporation counsel, Michael Cardozo, quickly issued a statement defending Ryan.
"We do not believe that Captain Patrick Ryan was guilty of manslaughter in the performance of his duties ... as the indictment alleges," Cardozo said. "Patrick Ryan has been a respected and loyal employee who brought about many improvements to the ferry over his long history of service."
[...]
The plea and indictments followed a 10-month investigation into the crash, when a routine trip across New York Harbor turned into a nightmare of shattered glass and twisted metal as the boat slammed into the pier.
The crash tore open a 250-foot-long gash that ran 8 feet deep into the ship's hull.
The accident revealed serious problems with safety rules on the ferries. Insiders leveled allegations of problems ranging from overtime abuse to retaliatory beatings. The city has revamped its procedures, requiring three crew members in the wheelhouse, for example.
"Retaliatory beatings"?? Good grief. I rode the Ferry for four years as part of my high school commute, plus two summers more for jobs. I was on board for a collision in 1981, though that one wasn't the ferry captain's fault. "Appalled" doesn't begin to describe how I feel about this.
Here's what the Newsday front page looks like today. Captain Smith could get up to three years in jail for his plea to 11 counts of manslaughter, which I have to say doesn't seem like enough to me. It won't be enough for Patrick Ryan, either, if he winds up getting convicted.
You know what the worst part about the Vote for Change music tour? They won't come anywhere near Houston. Oh, well. I'm not as free to see live music right now as I used to be anyway. You folks in the swing states enjoy yourselves. I'll try not to envy you for it.
UPDATE: Bruce Springsteen gives his motivation for the Vote for Change tour.
There's been an interesting and I think fairly useful debate going on regarding how Congressional races can and should get funded, how candidates come to be supported by the netroots and party establishment (read: DCCC), and how the two philosophies differ. Kos started it, the DCCC's Executive Director Jim Bonham responded; Greg, Ezra, Kevin Thurman, and ArchPundit have also contributed. The Stakeholder has now put up a post which summarizes the complaint and promises a full accounting of how and why they do what they do. I'm very much looking forward to it, and I hope it helps answer some questions about how things work in the DCCC. I also hope it serves to remind people that the DCCC has been way out in front of other organizations in either party in terms of engaging with the online community.
I also hope the Stakeholder's effort helps to quell some of the fire that has been (in my opinion, unjustly) aimed at them lately. I don't know exactly why it is that some people have taken the view that the DCCC is an all-powerful and unyielding monolith. There's more to electing Congressional candidates than the DCCC. I'd like to clear up a few points.
1. Candidate recruitment is the primary responsibility of the local and state parties, not the DCCC.
We'd all like to see every race contested, even if we're honest enough to admit that some seats are not now and likely never will be competitive in any meaningful sense. Think CD07 (John Culberson) and CD18 (Sheila Jackson Lee) in Texas, for example. The DCCC is about funding people who run, not finding people to run. The state and county parties are closest to the ground and in the best position to know where to find candidates when they're slow to step up on their own. They're in the best position to know what issues really matter to the voters in those districts. I don't understand why you'd want a DC-based organization to have primary responsibility for finding a candidate to run in Victoria, Texas.
It's certainly true that DCCC money, or the promise of it, can help attract candidates. That money can only help so much if the candidate is weak to begin with. I believe the job of finding good candidates must belong to the people who can actually vote for them. We do want candidates who'll be responsive to their constituents, right?
2. If you want to retake Congress, start with your state legislature.
This is a two-part message. We already know how control of the state legislature can affect a state's Congressional delegation through its power of redistricting. Having good people in your State Lege also gives you a bench to draw from when it's time to find good candidates for Congressional seats. The GOP here essentially created a seat for State Rep. Kenny Marchant, and State Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth has had her eye on Congress since she first arrived in Austin. Among the many good reasons to support Mark Strama in his run against Rep. Jack Stick is that Strama will be an excellent Congressional candidate some day, hopefully in a position to challenge Lamar Smith or Mike McCaul. That day will come a lot sooner if his legislative career begins in 2005.
3. Don't forget the local parties.
Combining points #1 and #2, long term success is not going to come from DCCC cash, and it's not going to come from the netroots. It's going to come from all of those people who say they want to change things and make a difference putting some of their time, energy, and yes, money into their local and state parties. Whatever else you may say of your locals - and here in Houston, Texas, there's much to be said - these structures exist to provide logistical support, networking, and organizational memory. There are many ways, from volunteering to answer the phones to being a precinct chair to running for office your own damn self, to contribute to making your local parties stronger, and by doing so you'll be helping more Democrats get elected.
My point here is that by getting bogged down in an argument over the merits or faults of the DCCC and the netroots, we're losing a big part of the picture. There are a lot of parts that work together, or at least should work together, to elect candidates. It's okay to focus on one, but don't forget about the others.
Awhile back, I posted about a proposed change to copyright laws (HR 4586) and an apparent contradiction it led to in GOP philosophy as espoused in their platform. That generated some really good comments, including one today by Bill Aho, the CEO of ClearPlay, which is an outfit that sells a DVD player add-on that lets You The Responsible Parent censor home movies that your kiddos watch. I still think this sort of thing enables parents to be lazier rather than more responsible, and it does nothing to address the question of how one's kids will behave when you're not there to watch them, but his comments and his remarks to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property are worth your time to read. I report, you get the idea.
BTW, this is an example of why I've always been unwilling to close comments on older posts. Admittedly, the "diamonds" to "rough" ratio is pretty low, but I still like finding them, however rare they may be.
Note: Since I first posted this, Ryan Pitylak has completely abandoned the spam business, and in fact has become an ardent anti-spammer. Please see this post for an update.
UPDATE: As this post is no longer accurate, and is apparently causing Ryan some harm, I have removed it.
Olivia and I attended National Night Out last night - NNO is always a big deal in our neighborhood. (Tiffany is taking a Tuesday night Pilates class, in case you were wondering.) Thankfully, there are no kleptomaniac cats - that I know of, anyway - in our area (read the Chron story, you'll understand). Anyone else attend NNO festivities? Anyone else know it was NNO last night?
Via The Stakeholder, some familiar shenanigans by a Republican Congressional candidate. In this case, the perpetrator is Louie Gohmert, challenger to Rep. Max Sandlin in CD01.
Gohmert said he would be more effective than Sandlin in making sure the proposed Interstate 69 comes through the Longview/Marshall area, probably along U.S. 59. He said Sandlin has lost clout in Congress by angering Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land."If he (Sandlin) wants it, they don't want him to have it," Gohmert said.
Sandlin said he helped put into law the proposed route, which branches south of Carthage with an east route through Marshall and north on U.S. 59 to Texarkana. He also disagreed that his relationship with DeLay mars his effectiveness.
"Saying that Tom DeLay is mad at me is childish. My obligation — unlike my opponent's — is not to Tom DeLay. My obligation is to East Texas, and to suggest that pleasing Tom DeLay should be a litmus test for an East Texas congressman is absurd and shows just where my opponent's loyalties are."
In other words: "Mighty nice interstate you've got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it." They tried this before in Kentucky. It didn't work then, and hopefully it won't work now.
But let's pretend for a minute here. Let's pretend that Gohmert does defeat Sandlin, but Democrats do well enough elsewhere in the country to retake control of the House. Would it then be proper for Speaker Pelosi to block this project on the grounds that it's Gohmert who's playing for the wrong team? I suspect the people who'd be affected would rather have it judged on its merits than on the affiliations of the interested parties. Too bad Gohmert doesn't see it that way.
Three out of four letter writers (scroll to "Undecided? Not Election Day yet") agreed with me on various aspects of David Langworthy's op-ed from yesterday. For what it's worth.
Eh. I got 5.5 questions right on the CJR News Quiz. More importantly, I got three of the five "substantive" questions right, so that's cool. Check it out, it's pretty good. Get eight more more, and you're not only a "pretty savvy media consumer", you ought to be calling into Wait Wait Don't Tell Me every Saturday.
Rusty and Andrea Yates are getting divorced.
In his divorce petition, Rusty Yates, 39, says he and his wife of 11 years ceased to live together as husband and wife on or about June 20, 2001 — the day Andrea Yates called police and told arriving officers she had drowned her children.The couple was married April 17, 1993.
[...]
Rusty Yates, who regularly visits his wife at the Skyview prison psychiatric unit near Rusk, says the couple will enter into an agreement to divide their assets, the petition filed by Houston attorney David Salinsky says. If an agreement cannot be reached, Yates asks that the court divide their assets.
The family's Clear Lake-area home where the children were drowned was recently sold.
Salinsky was not in his office late Monday afternoon for comment. Rusty Yates also could not be reached at his Johnson Space Center office and did not return a message left on his cell phone.
George Parnham, Andrea Yates' defense attorney, said he was sure she was aware of the divorce request.
"Andrea knew this was coming. She had been aware of it for some time. I don't think Rusty would pull this on her unexpectedly. And there's no questioning the fact that he still cares deeply for Andrea," said Parnham, who is handling Yates' criminal appeal.
[...]
Andrea Yates was returned to her prison unit last week after a nine-day stay at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. She was taken to the prison hospital unit after she refused to eat and drink and was in "an acute confusional state" both mentally and physically.
She was fed intravenously while hospitalized.
Parnham said he could not say if Yates' recent hospitalization was a result of her marriage ending.
"I just hope the whole process causes her as little anguish as possible," he said.
I can't quite bring myself to make any smartalec remarks about this. I've long since ceased finding anything humorous in this sad, sad affair.
One thing I do want to know: Why did the Chronicle think this was front-page, above-the-fold news? Was there nothing more important happening yesterday?
Via Tom Kirkendall comes the latest extreme sport craze in Austin.
Leave it to Austin, which prizes its weirdness, to foster this contagious blend of high performance sport and campy theatrics called not games but bouts, fought on traditional four-wheel skates. And to field the two feuding leagues - the Texas Rollergirls (www.txrollergirls.com) and the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls, also known as Bad Girl, Good Woman (www.bggw.com).This is, at the very least, extreme roller skating, heavy on attitude and light on attire, the better to bare breathtaking tattoos. Social scientists may scratch their heads over the emergence of a new form of staged violence by macho women, but to the players, who don't get paid, it's easy to explain: it's fun.
"It's kind of like hockey in lipstick and fishnet stockings," said Lacy Attuso, 27, a computer publicist who goes by the rink name of Whiskey L'Amour. (Whiskey because she drinks it, she said, L'Amour from the Western writer Louis L'Amour.)
You know, I do believe I know someone who participates in this. They ought to do some cross-marketing with the Ice Bats. I'd pay good money for a double feature.
UPDATE: ElGato is a fan.
That former right-wing radio talk show host whose name I will not mention has been sentenced to seven years' probation for exposing himself to an eleven-year-old neighbor girl. I'm not all that interested in the details, but I gagged when I read his public statement.
"Those of you who have listened to my radio show and read my newspaper columns over the years know how strong a supporter I was of our criminal justice system. I can only say how misguided I was. Our criminal justice system is not based on justice; it is a quota system where conviction is the only scorecard," he said.
What an utter, flaming hypocrite he is. How totally self-absorbed and self-serving he is to harbor any suspicions about the criminal justice system after all these years, when it's his own ass on the line. If it were in my power to do so, I'd force him to listen to his own broadcasts about crime and criminals for the entire time he's on probation. He has richly earned all the scorn and contempt that will be heaped on him for the rest of his life as a result of his wrongdoing. For shame.
On a side note, if he feels the need to commiserate with someone over their shared fascination with the underaged, here's someone to whom he could reach out. Via Alan.
Big Media Matt, Zoe, and Ezra talk about the Kerrycentrism of the Democratic Convention, how the national media covers elections, and the triumph of celebrities over politics. (It's all connected, I promise!) There are two points in there that I want to touch on.
First, I don't expect national media to pay attention to anything but the Presidential election as a general rule. There will be exceptions - Arnoldmania, the occasional "scrappy underdog" and "national portent" races, that sort of thing - but not that many. It sure would be nice if they spent more time on non-Presidential politics, since thanks to our closely divided legislative chambers pretty much every halfway contested Senate and Congressional race has a much greater potential for impact on our lives than, say, Matt Hacking ever will, but you know the drill. It ain't gonna happen.
Where we should be seeing a lot more coverage of these races is in the local media. If the Houston Chronicle were your only information source, how much would you know about the Lampson/Poe and DeLay/Morrison races? How much would you know about any of the potentially tight State House races? Not a whole lot, that's for sure. The local Happy Talk TV News is even worse, while the other major papers aren't much better on their own local races. If not them, then who? And don't tell me that it's still summer, there's nothing happening yet. Primaries were in March, and every one of these candidates has been campaigning since at least January. Maybe if the media paid a little more attention, the public might, too.
If the Chronicle (just to pick on the local rag) wanted to serve the public better as well as establish themselves as a real online resource, there's a good model for them to use in covering local campaigns more thoroughly: blogs. Seriously. There's no law that says blogs have to be snarky commentary on consumed news and not original reporting, possibly done in a less-formal style. Surely among their cadre of political reporters, they attend a campaign event or two and receive a ton of campaign-related email every week. Why not write some of that stuff down in an easy-to-publish online format, add in some analysis and context, and then once a week or so collect it all for the dead-tree edition? There's even a highly qualified, well respected, unemployed political writer floating around that they could have tapped. Or, if they wanted to go all "edgy" on us, they could turn it over to a squadron of political consultants - say, Marc Campos and George Strong for the Ds, Allen Blakemore and the Waldens for the Rs - for a regular point/counterpoint free-for-all. A little imagination is all it takes to give us all a lot more than we're getting now.
As for the issue of celebritization of politics and the news, I suggest you read Heather Havrilesky on the subject of "humanizing" prepackaged commidities. It all makes sense to me now.
UPDATE: Greg puts on his Marketing cap and asks, quite reasonably, what effect this sort of enhanced online coverage might have on newspapers' subscription rates if they adopted my approach. My guess it would be minimal, but in any case there are two things which could ameliorate it. One would be enhanced revenue from the ads on their online version (simply, more readers/more desireable demographics among them = more $$), and two is that they could always require a subscription to access this kind of advanced coverage. It wouldn't be friendly of them to do this, and it would sort of defeat the greater-public-good purpose that I envision, but it wouldn't be out of bounds for them to do this, and as Greg notes, "The evolution will take relative baby steps". Which is why we push.
Byron reports (yes! reports! you know, the thing that Journalists do but that Bloggers don't! reports!) the following:
I had the chance to speak with some high ranking DCCC folks for a little bit at the convention, and they are considering investing into TX-22 against Tom DeLay. They'll obviously be working to help reelect all of our embattled incumbent congressmen in Texas, but recent polling data gives the DCCC much reason to consider putting some funds into Morrison's race. Andrew posted a DCCC poll last week that showed DeLay under 50% and leading Morrison by only ten points. That poll included Independent Fjetland at 7%.Without Fjetland, DeLay leads Morrison 50%-36% in the latest DCCC polling:
Tom DeLay - 50%
Richard Morrison - 36%
Undecided - 14%While the district is Republican, DeLay runs eleven points behind Bush. The point here is that with a little bit of work, Morrison could wind up with DCCC assistance in a targeted race. But the only way that the DCCC will invest in the race is if Morrison continues to show the grassroots and fundraising success that he has shown so far. So, donate to the campaign to help make that happen.
Even if Morrison doesn't defeat DeLay (even if the DCCC does invest in the race, I know I'm not alone in being somewhat skeptical of Morrison's chances), Morrison will have made an impact just by running a competetive race. For the first time in years, Tom DeLay has opened a campaign office, and any money and time that we force Tom DeLay to spend in his own district is money and campaign time that won't be spent elsewhere.
Expect me to push this pretty much nonstop for the next three months. And remember, you can also donate to Morrison and several other fine Texas Democratic Congressional candidates through the Texas Tuesdays ActBlue page.
It's Twofer Tuesday on Texas Tuesdays today, as we feature Charlotte Coffelt and Wade Weems, two Houston-area candidates who are trying to conquer some challenging territory. Read about Wade here and here, and about Charlotte here and here, and if you like what you see you can help them out here and here.
Also via FSS, we have new Texas blog, The Left Wing, by Kenna Kempton of Tyler, Texas, who calls herself "both a liberal Democrat and a Christian". Check it out.
The Republican Congressional delegation here in Texas sure does seem hell-bent on providing campaign fodder for their opponents. Look at the slapdown handed out by the Abiliene Reporter-News.
Before its summer recess, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed and sent to the Senate a $10 billion military construction bill, giving House members the credentials to campaign as bona fide backers of the armed services.Their approval, however, does not reflect the steps by which the final bill was put together. A single vote in the House on July 21, in fact, made the difference in the future quality of life at Dyess Air Force Base and directly exerted a negative impact on Abilene's economy.
By a margin of 212-211, the House rejected a Bush administration request for $500 million in later military housing construction, some of which would have been at Dyess.
Who opposed the administration on this matter? Not House Democrats, including Rep. Charles Stenholm of Abilene, who voted to support the White House and our troops by increasing military housing funds.
No, the opponents who shot down the White House plan were House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock and other GOP House members pounded into line by DeLay - who broke House rules by extending the roll call 23 minutes beyond its 15-minute limit so he could hammer reluctant Republicans into getting the votes to defeat Bush's proposal.
Sound bizarre? The absurdity defies comprehension.
Texas Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards called this vote ''a slap in the face to America's military families. They have a right to be outraged, and they will be.''
What sort of rationale did DeLay and House Republicans present for opposing a Republican president whose re-election drive is based so centrally on the military's role in the war against terrorism? Supposedly, cutting $500 million out of future military construction was meant to show that the Republican-controlled Congress, which has been justly criticized for its free-spending habits, was actually capable of some fiscal restraint.
Given the billions Congress has thrown around during the last four years, it's laughable to think that trimming $500 million from military housing would ''prove'' a conservative attitude toward spending.
Stenholm's record as a fiscal conservative doesn't need to be proved. Ask former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, if you have any doubts on that score.
Stenholm's advocacy for Dyess is also widely acknowledged. The final House bill as passed included $28.6 million for military family housing at Dyess plus $3.3 million for a new Dyess refueling vehicle maintenance/ crash rescue facility that Stenholm had requested.
Meanwhile, Neugebauer has campaigned in Abilene's new District 19 as a strong supporter of Dyess. Evidently, that depends on whether the House majority leader says it's OK.
Maybe while Dick Effin' Cheney is in town to raise money for Neugebauer, someone can ask him about this vote. Assuming, of course, one doesn't have to sign a loyalty oath in order to ask him a question these days. Via Free State Standard.
Behold the power of The Hammer.
Sandwich chain Subway Restaurants today said it was ending a promotion at its German franchises that used an image of a fat Statue of Liberty.The promotion sparked outrage from a leader in the U.S. Congress.
Subway spokesman Kevin Kane said the promotion, which ended today, may have been pulled ahead of schedule.
"The staff over in Germany has been contacting us daily because they feel bad," Kane said. "They may have said 'OK let's wrap this up.'"
At issue was a tray-liner at Subway's German franchises promoting the documentary "Super Size Me," which links the U.S. fast-food industry, particularly Subway rival McDonald's Corp., to the nation's obesity epidemic.
Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, who famously lost nearly 250 pounds eating the chain's sandwiches daily, appears in the film.
Subway began receiving customer complaints about the tray-liner, which features a heading that asks "Why are Americans so fat?", after U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas criticized the promotion.
"I guess for some companies' corporate patriotism is as flexible as Jared's waistline," DeLay said in a statement last week.
Conservative groups the National Legal and Policy Center (LP) and the Center for Individual Freedom also criticized the promotion.
DeLay spokesman Jonathan Grella today cheered the promotion's end, saying he was encouraged by Subway's "responsiveness and sensitivity."
And having settled this pernicious dispute, DeLay will turn his attention to the raging condiment controversy that is now rending the nation in two. If he solves one more problem like this, he'll be officially eligible for a cape and a secret identity.
(Props to Kerry for taking the Photoshop challenge. We still need to work in the Statue of Liberty motif, though.)
I know everyone has their own criteria for voting for a particular candidate. My primary concern has always been "which one do I agree with more?" I've never quite understood why this isn't universal. Why does anyone care if a candidate is "likeable"? I mean, how much time do you spend in the company of your various elected officials? Either they're mostly going to do things you approve of or they're not.
I'm not saying someone is wrong for having a different way of evaluating a candidate. I'm just saying I don't fully understand any method that strays too far from this basic concept. So with that in mind, I'm trying to make sense of this David Langworthy op-ed in which he confesses that he's starting to lean towards voting for Kerry. He lists a bunch of issues - Iraq, energy, health care, stem cell research, retirement benefits, and the budget deficit - and he gives Kerry the advantage on four, with the other two being tossups. This would make the choice clear for me, but apparently not for him. What's his hangup?
To even contemplate [voting for Kerry] I would first have to clear some high hurdles. The largest, by far, is the Bush loathing so prevalent among Democrats. As a Texan, I take deep offense at this. Bush is neither a monster nor an idiot. It is ugly and mean-spirited — and utterly calculated — to make those claims. I hope John Kerry means what he said about conducting a civil campaign.The second hurdle is John Edwards' background as a plaintiff's lawyer. If there is a native-born parasite class in this country, it is trial lawyers. I shudder to think what unlimited access to the White House would bring.
And we're back at my original question. What does some people's "Bush loathing" have to do with it? You're not voting for Michael Moore or Whoopi Goldberg. Do you just find candidate loathing distasteful, David? If so, I'll presume you've never listened to any of the talk radio stations here in Houston, or else you might be forced to conclude that there's plenty of Kerry loathing around to balance that out. Is it that Bush is a Texan? I admit, I don't much care for ignorant Texas bashing (not that we're somehow unique in our victimhood - I've bitten my tongue through plenty of ignorant New York bashing in my 20 years here), but neither does that mean that I feel compelled to stick up for every Texan who, justifiably or not, comes under attack from out-of-staters, much less vote for them in some bizarre act of solidarity. State of residence probably makes my Top 20 list of identifying factors, but it sure isn't number one.
As for that remark about trial lawyers, I don't even know where to begin. Putting aside the fact that some of the finest people I knew growing up were trial lawyers (this is what happens when your dad is an attorney and most of his friends are attorneys - I probably bristle at this sort of thing even more than you do about "Bush loathing", David), I can only marvel at the lack of concern regarding the "unlimited access" that corporate lobbyists have had with the current White House. I guess I can just chalk that up as a different set of priorities and move on to the next point of contention.
So I don't know. I don't know what I'd say to David Langworthy if I found myself chatting with him at a bar. I just can't quite understand why he doesn't already have all the information he needs.
The Sunday Chron had an editorial that connected a few of the more recent DeLay dots.
First came the grand jury investigation. The Travis County district attorney is trying to find out whether House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority spent corporate funds to gain control of the Texas House.Then came Rep. Chris Bell's complaint to the U.S. House ethics committee. The Houston Democrat alleges DeLay's PAC and the Republican National Committee exchanged checks for $190,000, thus trading restricted corporate cash for unrestricted donations.
Now comes news of the links joining DeLay, Marc Racicot and the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. The railroad has given to DeLay's PAC. Racicot, President Bush's campaign chairman, is a director on Burlington's board and was GOP national chairman at the time of the exchanged checks.
The railroad wants to build a controversial line in the Clear Lake area. The same Houston-based law firm that represented Burlington in Washington represents DeLay during this investigation-prone period.
Of course, everything is coincidental. But many Houstonians might not like to have their representation in the nation's Capitol quite so shaped by corporate cash and influence peddling.
It would be nice if they did a bit more original reporting on this, not to mention kept up with the full extent of the story line (Bacardi and Westar, for example), but that's a post for another day. The Racicot/railroad connection was something they reported on here, which was noted by Taking On Tom DeLay. The original story about that controversial railroad line, which is no longer online, was noted by the Morrison campaign blog. One hopes that this sort of issue, in which the voters' interests clash with DeLay's national money machine and its interests, is the sort of thing that will help drive DeLay's poll numbers ever southward.
Travis County DA Ronnie Earle has dismissed a complaint against Rep. Martin Frost that he made illegal use of corporate campaign donations.
U.S. Rep. Martin Frost has been cleared of an allegation that he illegally funneled more than $100,000 in corporate donations to Texas legislative candidates in 2000, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle announced Friday.Earle cleared Frost, D-Dallas, after investigating a complaint filed by state Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville.
Deuell had raised questions about campaign finance activity carried out by a Frost political committee called the Lone Star Fund.
Frost, who is locked in a re-election battle against U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, said he was pleased but not surprised by the outcome.
[...]
In a letter to Deuell, Earle, a Democrat, said that during the 2000 and 2002 election cycles Frost operated two Lone Star Funds, which shared the same federal employer identification number but maintained separate bank accounts and kept their financial activities separate.
He said he found no evidence after examining bank records and campaign finance reports that the Lone Star Fund-Texas, the only one of the two committees subject to Texas law, had ever been used to deposit or illegally spend corporate or labor union funds on political races.
[...]
"We have concluded that Lone Star Fund-Texas did not accept and commingle corporate funds and that it did not contribute corporate or labor organization funds to candidates in Texas campaigns," he added.
Earle, however, told Deuell that his "suspicions that Texas law had been violated were certainly reasonable, particularly given the unfortunate similarity of identifiers, including not only names but also federal employer identification number."
Deuell had based his complaint, filed in May, on Internal Revenue Service filings for the Lone Star Fund.
Here's Frost's statement on the dismissal, which I got in my email:
"While I'm pleased with this announcement, I'm not surprised. Upon being notified that the Lone Star Fund's finances were being examined, I immediately directed Lone Star Fund representatives to cooperate fully with District Attorney Earle. We are pleased this matter was concluded quickly and accurately. I look forward to a vigorous campaign that is focused on accomplishments, not attacks and I look forward to contrasting my record with my opponent's."
Greg speculates what this may mean to the still-ongoing investigation of Tom DeLay.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the day Yankees catcher and captain Thurman Munson was killed in a plane crash. I still remember it like it was yesterday. My neighbor Neil told me the news as I was getting out of the car. I didn't believe him, of course, but he insisted. In those dark days before the Internet, you had to tune to a newsradio station and wait for the story to come back around on the rotation. I managed to be in denial for quite some time before I heard confirmation of the tragedy.
I remember the Daily News headline the next day, and the Bill Gallo tribute cartoon, in which two kids trudge off a baseball field, with Munson's image hanging over them, and one saying to the other "I just don't feel like playing today". I remember Munson's face on the black-and-white scoreboard in left field at Yankee Stadium, and the moment of silence that turned into a thunderous five-minute ovation. And I remember the game a few days later, on the day of Munson's funeral, when his friend Bobby Murcer, back with the Yankees after the 1974 trade that sent him to the Giants for Bobby Bonds, hit a walk-off home run to win it.
Sports Illustrated had a big "where are they now" issue a couple of weeks ago which had a picture of Diana Munson and her kids and grandkids. I kept turning back to the page and rereading the little blurb about how they were doing. It just made me happy to know they were okay after all these years.
There were two other men in the plane with Munson when it crashed, and both of them survived. I found two articles in which Jerry Anderson, one of those survivors, talks about what happened on that awful day, one from the NY Daily News , and one from ESPN (via David Pinto). It was hard for me to read them, but it was good to read them, too. There's also an official web page for Thurman Munson, which has some older articles about him. Finally, I note that in Canton, Ohio, there is a Thurman Munson Stadium. Unfortunately, it appears to be unused at this time, and the guy who wrote about it wasn't terribly impressed by it. Pity.
Now that John Kerry Thursdays are a thing of the past, Atrios is looking for new races to support. Check out his criteria and leave your suggestions in the comments.
Richard Morrison gets a gold star for being Johnny-on-the-spot here - he left a comment making his case to Atrios' readers directly. He'd already gotten a lot of support there, and I won't be at all surprised if he's one of the candidates Atrios highlights, even if Morrison is also in the dKos 8. I put in a plug for all of the Texas Tuesdays Congressmen, with a pointer to our handy ActBlue page, which contains info about them and a convenient way to give to any or all of them. Go make your suggestions, and be ready with the support.
First of all, everybody knows that July 31 isn't really a "deadline" for making a trade in Major League Baseball, right? It just means that now teams must put any player they want to trade on waivers first, which allows all the other teams to make a claim for those players, which either forces the original team to pull the player back or let him go to the team that made the claim. So whatever happened yesterday isn't the end of the action.
Good thing, because there's no way it makes sense for the Diamondbacks to keep Randy Johnson. I know he has the right to veto trades, but all that means is that he hasn't been properly incentivized yet. Sooner or later he'll move on, whether to a team he now says he'll accept a trade to or not.
Can anyone explain the logic of the Nomar Garciaparra trade to me? What a huge pickup for the Cubs, and what an edge it should give them in the wild card chase. But seriously, what were they thinking in Boston? Help me out here, I'm confused.
Clay Robison piles on Tom DeLay for being unclear on the concept of "parody", and makes a suggestion that I think needs a little blog publicity:
Fortunately, I am not in the corporate or political consulting business, but Democrats who want to have some fun with the "pathologically partisan" Tom DeLay and his political money machine could borrow an idea or two from Subway.It is not difficult to picture DeLay's photo in an ad, altered to show his mouth stuffed not with French fries, but with good ol' American dollars.
Or, his face superimposed over the Statue of Liberty, his arm outstretched to the corporate masses and holding aloft an invitation to a fund-raiser.
Now, that really would give the majority leader something over which to sputter.
OK, all you people with mad Photoshop skillz. Here's the original picture that got DeLay's panties in a twist. Take whatever action you deem appropriate - feel free to find and alter a different picture as well - and send me a link with the results. I'll come up with some kind of appropriate prize (I'm thinking it'll involve food) for the person who comes up with the best example. Have fun!
Today is my parents' fortieth anniversary. They've come a long way - literally, since they got married in Staten Island, NY, and now live in Portland, OR. Four kids and four grandkids later, they're doing great and having fun.
A great Kuffner family tradition got started at their wedding. During the reception, my dad's uncles got together and serenaded my mom with There Is Nothing Like A Dame. My dad and his brothers picked it up when the first of my cousins got married in 1987, and it's been done at every family wedding since (it was a huge hit at my wedding). All of the non-groom men and boys from the family get to sing along now, with a couple of solo parts being reserved for the uncles. They almost had a disaster at my brother's wedding in Missoula, Montana, back in 1996, when no one remembered to bring a copy of the lyrics. Fortunately, I found a "South Pacific" songbook at the Missoula Public Library and had copies made in time. I think they've since appointed an official Keeper of the Lyrics to prevent further near-misses.
Anyway. The anniversary official celebration won't be until November, when Olivia takes her first plane ride and the whole family can be together, but I want to take a moment to salute them. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!