James O'Keefe, a conservative activist who had posed as a pimp in order to set up ACORN has been arrested by the FBI for having attempted to commit a felony. O'Keefe and two others, wearing telephone company uniforms, were busted last night for allegedly wiretapping the phones in Senator Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.
Landrieu said: "This is a very unusual situation and somewhat unsettling for me and my staff. The individuals responsible have been charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony. I am as interested as everyone else about their motives and purpose, which I hope will become clear as the investigation moves forward."
Brace yourselves folks as the list of Texas Republicans who honored James O'Keefe is quite long. My U.S. House Rep. John Culberson is on the list. Is your representative? See the list below the fold.
Rick Perry has turned down the federal government's Race to the Top program in which Texas could have entered into a competition to bring up to $700 million home to improve our schools.
The Race to the Top Program is part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The purpose of this initiative is not only to improve our state's K-12 schools but it also promises to save thousands of jobs.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides approximately $100 billion for education, creating a historic opportunity to save hundreds of thousands of jobs, support states and school districts, and advance reforms and improvements that will create long-lasting results for our students and our nation including early learning, K-12, and post-secondary education.
Rick Perry, however, has decided Texas is better off by continuing its race to the bottom.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece about BAE Systems in Sealy and its recently lost federal contract. I had reported on an article that had been written in the Houston Chronicle about this issue.
The Pentagon's decision to shift the production of Army trucks from Texas to Wisconsin after 17 years caught Texas' elected officials by surprise, raising questions about overconfidence, a loss of political clout and the impact of economic incentives provided to the winning company by Wisconsin's Democratic governor.
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry and the 34-member Senate-House delegation are rallying to salvage a deal for BAE Systems that could be worth $2.6 billion and sustain 10,000 direct and indirect jobs around the sprawling truck manufacturing plant in Sealy.
Houston's Channel 13 News recently reported on the grim outcome for Sealy as well.
PDiddie over at Brains and Eggs had also written about the Sealy situation on November 27.
McCaul failed to enlist Democrats in Texas' congressional delegation such as Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, to help protect the contract in a Democratic administration, says Matt Angle, a longtime Democratic operative who heads the political action committee known as the Lone Star Project.
On Tuesday, Phillip Martin over at The Burnt Orange Report wrote that Rep. Michael McCaul (TX-10) had fumbled away over 3,000 jobs in his district. The Lone Star Project revealed that indeed, McCaul had failed to advocate on behalf of BAE Systems and the folks in Sealy.
An official letter from the Department of Defense obtained by the Lone Star Project states that no record exists of Michael McCaul contacting the Department of Defense during the contract review process to advocate for BAE systems or to request fair consideration that the contract be renewed. (Source: DOD Freedom of Information Act Request, 10/14/2009 ) Additional research shows that McCaul also failed to take other basic steps Members of Congress normally take when trying to win support from their colleagues to protect District jobs.
McCaul, of course, will take no responsibility for his failure to act on behalf of BAE Systems.
The Chronicle had also disclosed that Governor Rick Perry, U.S. House Rep. Michael McCaul and top aides for Senators Cornyn and Hutchison said they felt sucker punched and blind sided by Sealy's lost federal contract.
One congressional aide said Texas lawmakers should have been more alert to the possibility of losing a contract that Oshkosh had tried to win in 2001. "It just wasn't on anybody's radar," the aide said.
Sucker punched and blind sided?!
Wait a minute. These lawmakers who had completely forgotten about the serious and potential job loss in their state felt sucker punched and blind sided? Please.
If anyone has been sucker punched and blind sided it is the employees of BAE System and the folks in Sealy who will know a new world of hurt if the plant closes.
As an administrator for a scientific laboratory at an academic institution that is awarded a great number of federal grants, I can tell you that if BAE System's executives, Rick Perry, Michael McCaul, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison forgot about the potential for a 10,000 job loss in Texas, all are grossly and hopelessly negligent.
As we know Senator Arlen Specter changed his Party affiliation yesterday from Republican to Democrat. In his remarks the Senator had said the Republican Party had been recently "purified" by the right. Needless to say Specter's switch delivered a devastating blow to an already wounded GOP.
According to Gail Collins of the New York Times (see below) Rick Perry and other Republicans are behaving like gerbils that just bit an electric wire.
I don't think anyone could have said it better. Ms. Collins is absolutely right and she is not the only one who thinks so.
The words "looney talk" "nuts" and "whacko world" are the terms used by Hardball's Chris Matthews when he refers to Rick Perry and Tom Delay's views on secession and state sovereignty.
Markos Moulitsas ("Kos") founder of Daily Kos recently observed that his two year old daughter had reached a Republican stage in her development because the majority her vocabulary consisted of two words: "NO!" and "MINE!"
Indeed. At least Markos understands that his two year old will grow out of her stubborn and selfish phase.
But those of us who live in Republican run states do not have the luxury of believing in or hoping for the evolution of maturity where our childlike NO! and MINE! lawmakers are concerned.
According to a source cited over at Daily Kos Kay Bailey Hutchison will not give up her U.S. Senate seat while running for governor.
He said the federal provisions would require unprecedented changes in state rules on who is eligible for unemployment payments. He also argued that the funds - which Democrats say would update benefits so that more women, elderly and student workers could qualify - would place additional burdens on businesses, leaving them to pay the added costs when the federal money ran out.
So, dude, you just admitted you have a problem with women, the elderly and students.
Perry blatantly promotes the needs and desires of business over those of the jobless.
Instead, businesses should be able to use the money to create jobs, Perry said.
Like additions to the private toll road 25 miles outside of Houston, with zip population to speak of, that would benefit your fat cat land developer contributors, Guv?
Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News points to Perry's political rationale for turning down the federal stimulus money.
I watched the U.S. Senate debate on the stimulus package on and off on Saturday. Bored, frustrated and disgusted, I finally had enough. I've seen this old washed up rerun before. It has been playing in a crumbling 50-year-old movie house that should have been condemned a very long time ago. As if in a black and white movie with scratched and uneven sound, the Republicans, bad actors that they are, droned on and on, spouting their old failed ideologies and dark aged policies. The Party is mired in centuries old mindsets and technologies and it seems unable or unwilling to see or move past the mid 20th Century.
Where energy is concerned Republicans want to continue to drill for an economically and globally volatile and finite resource. It should be glaringly apparent, thank you, that we needed to develop new, less finite and green energy resources, e.g. capture it from the wind and sun, at least 30 years ago. Somehow Republicans forgot about the 1973 energy crisis and oil embargo. They obviously fail to recall the long lines at the gas stations.
The Republican whacko trickle down economics does not work and yet Republicans continue to consult its 101 textbook. The reality of the trickle down voodoo magic that failed during the Reagan Administration and has proved a catastrophe under W., is now on a rampage, wielding a devastating wrecking ball throughout the U.S., and other countries, too, destroying jobs, homes and retirement accounts 24/7. 600,000 jobs were lost last month alone. There is no is in sight for the relentless wrecking machine. It is on an almost unstoppable and insatiable roll.
(I suck. I really, really do. Libby has graciously agreed to join us regularly on the TK front page. I'm very excited by this addition to our staff of writers, and thank her for her patience with my sluggish updating of her profiles.
It seems that some of these naughty, nasty boys charged their palling-around-with-call-girl activities on their corporate credit cards.
Uh oh. Are these guys still in charge of their businesses? Are they the ones who received the bailout money?
The scandal may have happened pre-TARP, but this kind of behavior should make us wonder about what kinds of scumbags and whackos we have bailed out.
According to Raw Story and ABC News today these boys used a $2,000 per hour call girl service where the "firm's" Madam disguised the charges as business related, e.g. "computer consulting, "roofing construction," etc.
Kristin Davis, the madam in question, went public to ABC News this week; ABC will be broadcasting her interview Friday at 10 pm. Davis says she has a list of 9,800 clients, many of whom she says New York prosecutors deliberately avoided when taking her case, even though she offered them her annotated client list.
In what's sure to create a media firestorm parallel to that of when a Washington, DC madam announced that she was publishing her client list (which included at least one senator), Davis' comments come at a time where incredible ire is already focused on Wall Street and banking executives. The pressure for her to release the list will certainly be immense.
Once again, John Cornyn demonstrates his cruel and coldhearted contempt for the children of struggling families. The last time Senator Cornyn voted against The State Children's Health Insurance Program, he said he did so because W. would have vetoed the bill. This time there is no excuse for Senator Scrooge's vote. Cornyn continues to serve as a lackey to the country's absolute worst President's ideologies that took us straight to hell.
Predictably, Cornyn voted with his soul mates in the Senate who also refuse to work for the best interests and well being of their constituents. People who belong in the Right Wing Extremists' Gallery of Rogues such as Senators McConnell, Barrasso, Chambliss, Crapo, Enzi, Ensign, Graham, Vitter, Sessions, Thune and Kyle.
Fortunately, despite the efforts of these goons, the SCHIP Bill passed.
According to an article in today's The Washington Post lawmakers voted 66 to 32 to renew the bill and to spend an additional $32.8 billion to expand coverage to four million more children. Cornyn has a problem with this?
For the past few days I have been reading about Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick's fall in the Houston Chronicle and The Burnt Orange Report. The Burnt Orange Report has provided excellent moment-by-moment coverage of this fascinating drama. The blogosphere is a great place to read about these kinds of developments because it affords lively discussion and debate among the bloggers and their readers.
Yesterday morning the Houston Chronicle's Lisa Falkenberg wrote an excellent and very revealing commentary on how Houston would benefit from a House Speaker who is from a large urban area.
After reading the article this life-long urban dweller and native of NYC who has lived in Houston for over 20 years, finally understands why I have been so frustrated by how our Austin lawmakers operate. Falkenberg's article nailed it for me. Texas has been run by a bunch of country boys who are more concerned about boll weevil eradication and transporting hogs to markets than they are a big city's crammed prisons, crumbling inner city schools, over-extended hospitals, torn up roads and gridlocked freeways.
First step: Stop believing in the myths and the lies. Think of the zealots who embrace faith based free markets as the embodiment of the host of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire show in Slum Dog Millionaire - a complex film that covers the spectrums of fantasy, hope, love, renewal, abject poverty, cruelty, hate, murder, evil, greed, torture, lawlessness, corruption and suffering. Fast forward to the great gambling houses of Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, to name just two of many. Do not forget about Sarah Palin who squandered 200K of other folk's money on her personal spending sprees. And the crowning jewel of free market insanity, Bernard Madoff, gets the prize for one of the worst spawned by the ideologues who extol the virtues of Republican voodoo economics.
Second Step: Stop being stupid.
In a New York Times editorial entitled
Stop Being Stupid Bob Herbert reminds us of just how downright brainless and clueless we have become over the last several years.
(Voting is open until Nov 20. David is the only progressive blogger in the competition. So, what are ya waiting for? Go VOTE!!! - promoted by boadicea)
(David is a finalist for a blogger college scholarship.)
Kos is asking Kossacks to vote for David under "midday open thread" today.
David Mauro of the Burnt Orange Report is closing on a chance to win a $10,000 college scholarship. Take 30 seconds and vote for him so we can help one of our own get through college. I thought this thing wrapped up today, but now I'm hearing it goes until Thursday. Either way, take 10 seconds to help out one of our own.
Burnt Orange Report staff writer, David Mauro, AKA TexasDemocrat06 here at Daily Kos, is a finalist in a blogger contest which gives a prize of a $10,000 scholarship. Take just a few seconds to go to this link and vote for David Mauro.
David is in second place - he is approximately 2,000. votes behind the front runner. Please vote below.
UPDATE: FOLKS ARE VOTING TWICE. A friend told me she voted from work and from her phone. We are going to have to double our efforts for David.
Daily Kos also posted a great testimonial:
David Mauro continues the Mauro legacy of dedicated, passionate, and compassionate service to and for the people. I cast my vote and urge others to support this fine young man. He is talented, driven, and committed. JUST DO IT! Bonny Terry
By Bonny Terry on November 14th, 2008
You can also help by posting a diary about David over at Daily Kos. They're trying to keep the diaries going until he wins.
(Good news to go along with Rick's selection in the Hell To Pay Fundraiser! Go lend a few bucks to the cause. - promoted by boadicea)
Today's Houston Chronicle reports that Rick Noriega and Barack Obama are up by seven percent in Harris County. For the first time in forty-four years, Harris County voters are on the verge of favoring a Democratic Presidential candidate.
WOW.
Hats off to the Noriega campaign and the Harris County Democrats for their exhaustive efforts.
They gave Barack Obama the edge over Republican John McCain by 7 percentage points this week, with very few undecided or backing another contender.
Voters also favored Democrat Rick Noriega of Houston against Republican Sen. John Cornyn by the same amount - with 13 percent undecided or committed to another candidate.
The survey results were compiled by Zogby International as early voting got under way for the Nov. 4 election.
Come on folks, give a large group of struggling Democratic activists in Texas a hand. There is a group of us spanning the vast state of Texas that have been working day and night to send Rick to Washington. We're grassroots every day folks who have given as much as our little piggy banks hold. And our go to Big Dogs are maxed out.
We cannot take 6 more years of a right winger who serves as the puppet for the fat cats in big oil, big insurance, big banking and big everything with money.
And neither can you.
Why?
If elected John Cornyn will block every single thing a Democratic President and Congress will try to accomplish. Mark my words, folks. Corn Dog will rally any Republican buddies who are left in Congress to do likewise. He will reach out to the right wing media to demonize the Democratic Administration. And the right wing media, like FOX "News," will be more than happy to oblige.
Get it? Even if you do not live in Texas John Cornyn will work against your best interests.
I have to admit I have been admiring Palin's taste in clothing, especially the red leather jacket she wore the other day. Thanks to recent news reports now I know why I've been paying attention to her wardrobe. Palin's outfits have been created by the finest designers in the world of haute couture. Sigh. Guess I'd better forget about ever owning that red leather jacket unless I can find a knock off at Chico's.
Sarah sure has exquisite taste in clothes. Price seems to be no limit when someone else is footing the bill. And like "Joe the Plumber" who is not a plumber, Palin does not like to pay her fair share of taxes, either.
Another grim lesson I have learned from Republicans who are running for office is that when they demonize something or something or attack someone for doing something they should not be doing, chances are the Republican is doing the very thing they are hyperventilating about.
Lately Sarah Palin has been stomping across the so-called red parts of America in her $600 a pop high heels and $12,000. suits while attacking Barack Obama whom she calls a socialist b/c he wants to redistribute the wealth. Duh, isn't that what taxes are supposed to do? Never mind.
According to Palin, Obama wants to steal money from the small business owners like Joe the Plumber who is not a plumber, nor does he own a business, and give it to other Americans who are very likely fake or anti-American.
The truth of the matter is Sarah Palin is the real socialist. Aside from the $150K wardrobe handout, as the governor of oil rich Alaska Sarah taxes the oil companies and transfers the revenues to her and the people of Alaska.
The Houston Chronicle is hitting them out of the park. For the first time since 1964, the newspaper supported a Democratic candidate for U.S. President. On Sunday it endorsed Senator Barack Obama.
This morning I opened the newspaper and saw more great news. This endorsement is no tentative, mild mannered one, either. The Houston Chronicle wrote a glowing commentary about Rick Noriega, his background, his impeccable record and his distinguished accomplishments.
It will be especially important for Texans to have a strong, respected voice inside the expected Democratic majority in the Senate. Rick Noriega offers such a voice, with a distinctive Lone Star tone and perspective.
The Chronicle endorses Noriega for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican John Cornyn.
Noriega, a Houstonian, describes himself as a Texas Democrat. That term, once common currency in the state's political conversation, seems to have fallen out of favor over the past several Republican-dominated years. But it resonates once more in this season of voter discontent with partisanship uber alles. Some old-fashioned moderate bipartisanship, Texas style, should be much welcomed in the Washington debate, particularly on overheated topics such as energy and immigration. Rick Noriega can provide it.
This has been a very long election cycle that started almost two years ago. As an outside observer, while cruising alongside this very long and winding road in politics, I have to say I have learned an awful lot about so many things. I have seen inspirational and electrifying candidates and I have witnessed some mighty disingenious and dishonest ones.
The political pundits informed me about their notions of political history and demographics. I did not know another state of Alabama existed between Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Nor did I know New Hampshire is the Alabama of New England. I think it was Joe Scarborough who informed me about the coastal regions of Alabama, Mississippi and some of northwestern Florida. This area is known as The Redneck Riviera.
I had to scratch my head a few times when Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan would refer to working class "ethnic whites" in the northeastern U.S. Then my memory took me back to a 1970's sitcom called All in the Family whose central character was Archie Bunker, a bigoted white working class guy who lived in Queens, NY. Archie must be the guy they are talking about, I thought. Archie referred to his fictional Polish-American son-in-law as "Meat Head" and "Pollock." He had other choice names for his daughter and son-in-law's ethnically and/or racially mixed friends as well. The creator of All in the Family had intended for the show to be a comical satire but this was lost on much of the viewing public.
I never knew a place like Wasilla existed nor did I know there is fringe political independent parties scattered across the U.S. from Wasilla, Alaska to Georgia (that would be U.S. Georgia) that want to secede from the U.S.
I learned a lot about narratives, closing the deal, pie, orange juice, coffee, hair styles, make up, gender, age, one's disposition, mavericks, mavericky, SNL, non-mavericks, a family in Texas who are the true Mavericks, Joe Six Pack and Joe the plumber who is worried about the 250K he saved to buy his boss's plumbing company. Since I have a brother-in-law in Ohio who is a plumber I called him to ask if he had socked away 250K in his piggy bank. Karl the real plumber in Ohio asked me if I was on drugs. Next I learned that Joe is not a plumber and Joe's first name is Sam. I also learned that there is a pastor in Alaska who will perform witch exorcisms. I learned the straight talk express alternates between a virtual hate talk express and/or lying express, depending upon on McCain's polling numbers and his and his campaign mangers' mood swings or the media spin cycles.
