Category Archives: Show Business for Ugly People

Another entry for the judicial election files

Posted on June 21, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Get Wallace Jefferson on the phone for me, will ya? Three justices on the Tennessee Supreme Court are facing an election-year attack, not for any particular decision they have authored or even for any unpopular opinion they have espoused. No, … Continue reading →

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The Mayoral succession process starts in San Antonio

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

With the confirmation as Housing Secretary seemingly in the bag for San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the process of naming an interim Mayor has begun. Not too surprisingly, there’s some conflict about this, though the issue at the root of … Continue reading →

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Once again, where are the jobs Rick Perry was trying to poach?

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Politico revisits a familiar subject. Since as early as February of last year and as recently as April of this one, Perry has made eight trips to six different states, all of which have one very particular thing in common: … Continue reading →

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Being an idiot, on the other hand, is totally treatable

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s actually a little amazing that stuff like this doesn’t happen more often. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaking in San Francisco on Wednesday night, said the U.S. would better serve its diverse population by letting the states handle many economic … Continue reading →

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Two million Texans used healthcare.gov

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Yeah, we had lots of demand for health insurance. That’s what happens when you have so many uninsured people in a state. Almost all adult Texans knew of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace before its open enrollment ended … Continue reading →

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California AG office does better on pay equity than Texas AG office

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

That’s gotta sting. Female lawyers in the California state prosecutor’s office don’t fall as far behind their male counterparts in pay as do female lawyers in the Texas attorney general’s office, according to a Texas Tribune analysis. Since March, the … Continue reading →

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Some grassroots action on the unfairness of commercial property valuation

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox: Parents, homeowners, teachers, and community members from Houston gathered at the park in front of Nathaniel Q Henderson Elementary School to kick off local efforts in a statewide campaign called Real Values for Texas to fix the … Continue reading →

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The case against Castro for HUD

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

While we wait for further word on San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro’s reported appointment to be Secretary of HUD – he is keeping quiet about it for now – it’s worth considering some of the political implications behind it. Brian … Continue reading →

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Meet your “education reform” groups

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Observer provides a primer. For 20 years, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) has been protecting our hospitals and business leaders from meddling trial lawyers, convincing the Texas Legislature to cap damage awards and closing the courthouse doors to some … Continue reading →

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The money is the problem

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

A story of interest from North Carolina. The ad first appeared on television the Friday before last, a black-and-white spot charging that Justice Robin Hudson coddled child molesters and “sided with the predators” in a North Carolina Supreme Court dissent. … Continue reading →

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FEC ponders Bitcoin donations

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

For those of you that might want to make political contributions via Bitcoin. The Federal Election Commission appears poised to rule on whether and how campaigns and PACs can accept bitcoins as political contributions. The news comes as Attorney General … Continue reading →

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Wallace Jefferson is still going on about judicial elections

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

In an interview in The Atlantic, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson rides his favorite hobbyhorse of partisan judicial elections. I’ve been talking about this for a long time. And I am not the first one. Republican or Democrat … Continue reading →

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Castro v Patrick

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Who do you think won? Democratic Mayor Julián Castro and GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Pat- rick of Houston clashed over immigration policy on Tuesday in a rowdy debate that left both politicians claiming victory. The politicians stood by the … Continue reading →

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What’s the health insurance enrollment status in Texas?

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The short answer is that we don’t know. The longer answer, as this Express-News story indicates, is that we’ll never really know. Self-sufficiency. Distrust. Desire for flexibility. Those are some reasons many consumers bypassed health insurance plans sold on government-run … Continue reading →

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We really should have expanded Medicaid

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

We know it would have done a lot of good, at a very reasonable cost. Turns out that cost was even less than what we had been told. News reports and state officials have commonly stated that expanding the Medicaid program in this … Continue reading →

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James O’Keefe is a lying liar

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the special prosecutors that investigated the allegations by O’Keefe’s group Project Veritas made against Battleground Texas. A conservative activist’s allegations that Democratic group Battleground Texas illegally acquired voter information in San Antonio … Continue reading →

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Would pot be a cash crop?

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib takes a serious look at Kinky Friedman’s campaign platform. Currently, it is illegal to grow and possess marijuana in Texas and most other states, and while hemp is legal for consumption, Texas and most other states do not … Continue reading →

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Always going backwards

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

That’s the Republican Party of Texas. When the Texas Republican Party made a guest worker program part of its 2012 platform, it was hailed as an important step forward for the party. The GOP needed to adjust itself, people said, … Continue reading →

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Vote fraud by impersonation just doesn’t exist

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I mean, if Greg Abbott can’t find it, who possibly could? Since taking office in 2001, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called voter fraud an “epidemic,” and made cracking down on it a top priority. Now, as he runs for … Continue reading →

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Pot polling

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Our favorite pollsters aren’t optimistic about pot legalization despite some good looking poll numbers for it. In the February 2014 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, we asked respondents for their opinions on marijuana possession and gave them four options to … Continue reading →

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The backlash to marriage equality

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s been almost two weeks since a federal judge struck down Texas’ anti-gay marriage law. The sky hasn’t fallen, rivers continue to run downstream, dogs and cats are not cohabitating, and strangest of all, the Republican Party of Texas has … Continue reading →

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Perry’s No Jobs Tour continues

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

TrailBlazers takes the bait. Rick Perry is on the road again. But then, he’s rarely off it these days. This weekend, he’s in Western Kentucky at Murray State University to headline a Republican Party fundraiser. Then, it’s off to California … Continue reading →

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Once again, the cost of not expanding Medicaid

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Short answer: It’s a lot. A team of Harvard researchers recently released a deeply sobering study quantifying how many Americans stand to die needlessly in the unflinching states hellbent on denying Medicaid expansion, as provided by the Affordable Care Act. … Continue reading →

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More Obamacare enrollments, still lots more needed

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

That’s pretty much the story. Texas enrollment in the online insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act rose steadily in February but did not meet expectations set forth by the Obama administration, according to figures that the U.S. Department … Continue reading →

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The Texas Future Project

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Very interesting. High-powered Democrats from Texas and California have joined with national labor unions in an effort to mobilize out-of-state donors and raise millions of dollars to build a progressive majority in the Lone Star State that could change state … Continue reading →

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Harris County GOP to yell at cloud on Monday

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Lone Star Q: Calling gay people “sodomites” and U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia a “would-be dictator,” the Harris County Republican Party announced it will host a news conference Monday morning in response to Garcia’s ruling Wednesday striking down Texas’ bans … Continue reading →

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Don’t worry, Abbott and The Nuge are still besties

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Everyone who thinks what happened last week was bad for his campaign is just too stupid to see the big picture. Right about the time Nugent was firing up the second crowd of North Texas voters last week in Wichita … Continue reading →

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BGT fires back

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Good for them. Allegations that Battleground Texas broke the law during its voter registration activities are “entirely without foundation,” the Democratic group wrote in a letter to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Tuesday. Dewhurst, citing a secretly recorded video of … Continue reading →

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ACA enrollments top 200K in Texas

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Despite continued fierce resistance from state leadership, people keep signing up for health insurance in Texas via the Healthcare.Gov exchange. Enrollment in the federal health insurance marketplace continued to steadily climb in January, according to data the U.S. Department of … Continue reading →

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Montgomery County voting shenanigans

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Fascinating story out of Montgomery County in which a handful of self-styled activists in Montgomery County attempt to register to vote in a Road Utility District (RUD), a taxing entity that has literally almost no voters, and wind up getting … Continue reading →

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Gallup’s poll of Latinos in Texas

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I have four things to say about this. Texas Hispanics are decidedly Democratic in their political party preferences, 46% to 27%, but that 19-percentage-point Democratic advantage is much smaller in Texas than the average 30-point gap Democrats enjoy among the … Continue reading →

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More on Texas Left Me Out

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Observer reports on the launch of Texas Left Me Out. Members of the coalition pointed to two different studies that estimate that thousands of uninsured Texans with chronic conditions are likely to die as a result of not expanding Medicaid. A Harvard … Continue reading →

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The coverage gap

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

As you may know, the intent of the Affordable Care Act was to get people below a certain income level onto Medicaid, with people at or above that income level receiving subsidized health insurance via the exchanges. Unfortunately, when the … Continue reading →

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Cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face isn’t a matter of principle

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s just stupid and self-destructive. Lots of conservative lawmakers hate Obamacare. Rep. Louie Gohmert is putting his money where his mouth is. The Tyler Republican gave up his health insurance for 2014, asserting that the president’s signature health care law, … Continue reading →

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