August 04, 2006
Thank You, Patrick Higginbotham & Co., For Reuniting Austin
It's great to see three years after the Republicans in Texas redrew the lines in our state that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, led by Judge Patrick Higginbotham, decided to use common sense rather than partisanship to redraw the boundaries. It was initially looking quite bleak for District 25 congressman Lloyd Doggett after Rick Perry and his attorney general Greg Abbott submitted a map that would excise Austin entirely from his district, leaving the city proper without its own elected representative (unless Doggett had been wily enough to move again and win an election against another Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio). Quite bleak indeed.
When asked by Higginbotham about the state's intentions, attorney Ted Cruz played dumb: "Cruz denied that the state Republican leadership was trying to target Doggett when it drew its map. He said the state did not know Doggett had moved from East Austin and would be paired with Smith under its proposal."
Under the judges redrawn lines, District 25 will now be less of a skinny fajita strip–in fact, it's gained a little weight from eating up Southern Travis and five nearby counties rather than seven counties stretching to the Rio Grande. Southern Texas will comprise two districts, 15 and 28. And the new point "where districts meet" will be about a block west of 29th and Lamar.
To top it off, Tom DeLay, the man who instigated the re-redistricting chaos, hasn't been doing too well in the courts lately, either. Karma can be a bitch.
Now if we could only auf his henchman Rick Perry in this fall's election.
Update: Paul Burka of Texas Monthly has a great in-depth post on the court's decision:
A final word on the two cases I observed this week--this one and the Tom DeLay ballot case before the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans three days earlier. I'm not too enamored of the executive branch of the federal government these days, and who could find anything to like about this Congress, but the much maligned federal judiciary looked great to me. Both cases had significant political implications, but both courts, and especially their presiding judges, displayed intelligence, fairness, restraint, nonpartisanship, and a desire to follow the law. No citizen could ask for more.
Posted by timothompson at 06:22 PM
July 24, 2006
Reasons to Oust Rick Perry
Texas Governor Rick Perry must go. There is no doubt in my mind. I don't care if Kinky, Carole or Chris takes his place. We need to say adios to the well-coifed mofo.
In that spirit, I'm going to try to do my small part by starting a series pointing out reasons to oust Rick Perry.
Reason #1: He wants to fast-track coal plants: "Public advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense and Public Citizen, since January have been pressuring TXU to use cleaner technology. The groups have charged publicly on numerous occasions that Perry approved fast-tracking the permits as a favor to the utilities, in particular TXU, which have contributed to his political campaign. A Perry spokeswoman has denied that, citing a need for additional power supply in the state."
Posted by timothompson at 11:38 PM
July 12, 2006
Mexico: Voto Por Voto
Greg Palast reports on the Bush v. Gore scenario in the recent Mexican election (AlterNet has a counterpoint, noting the ChoicePoint angle is taken from three years ago.).
Posted by timothompson at 08:05 PM
October 30, 2005
Documentary About Arkansas Prison AIDs Scandal
Sunday Herald [via]: "The film, Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal, made by the US film-maker Kelly Duda, will reveal new details about how inmates at a US jail were paid to donate blood despite the authorities knowing they had AIDs and hepatitis. It shows how the US state of Arkansas, under former president and then-governor Bill Clinton, allowed contaminated blood from Aids and hepatitis-infected prisoners to be exported around the world during the 1980s and 1990s to be used in the manufacture of clotting agents for haemophiliacs." More here.Posted by timothompson at 11:24 PM
October 25, 2005
Mission of Burma Reaches Out To A New Audience
How odd to find a post from Roger Miller amongst the political screeds at HuffPo (along with a nice bit of comic relief from Jonah Peretti).Posted by timothompson at 01:47 PM
October 22, 2005
Ben Barnes, Harriet Miers and GTECH
Could the Texas Lottery Commission/National Guard scandal be the time bomb that blows up the Bush administration? More here and here.
Update: Ex-lottery official may testify (unless the nomination is withdrawn). But Opinion Journal says there's no chance this will be invoked during the nomination process.
Posted by timothompson at 12:38 PM
October 20, 2005
He Was Smiling
What they said: "If you saw Congressman DeLay's mugshot, he was smiling," DeGuerin told reporters. "He's eager and he's ready to go."
What I thought: "If you saw Congressman DeLay's mugshot, he was smiling," DeGuerin told reporters. "He's eager and he's ready to go (to jail)."
Related: "I was told to smile for prison photos."
Posted by timothompson at 11:18 PM
October 17, 2005
Our Media Is Being Led By The Nose and Missing the Big Picture
Stanley sums up some good points about Judy Miller and the media in a comment on Huffington Post:
"I did the best I could" and "We tried our best" are often the victim postures of an abuser begging for understanding. Okay, we know she is not a victim and we know she abused her position, but why? It wasn't really because she was a covert agent for the right planted in the left wing NYT. Her track record shows Judy as a hefty lefty. So the conspiracy theory is misguided. What Judy obviously is egotistical. She talks of her top secret clearance as if she was better loved by the journalism angels and preens about it like a child ranting "I got a secret, I got a secret." Her self-importance got in the way of her job and obligation as a journalist. Her problem was she was in as much risk of prosecution for revealing "top secret information" like the identity of Valerie Plame as anyone else being scutinized in government. She is in bed with Scooter and Karl because she was just as much at risk of going to the big house. Like the Ethel Rosenberg of the New Millenium, Judy saw the political football and she was gettin kicked in the teeth and going through the goalposts. She didn't tell any managing editor because she couldn't. She didn't write the story and got scooped by Novak because she couldn't. She didn't reveal her conversations with Skooter because she was waiting for a waiver from him but because she was waiting for a waiver from Fitzgerald, because she couldn't without being in the same boat. Judy is a victim of her own conflict of interest and her egotistical notion of having securtiy clearance as a position of journalistic superiority led her down the path to report the false WMD information verbatim from the disinformation masters at WHIG and the CIA. Why would they convince the world that it was real and then convince the world that it wasn't? Where is the CIA on this now that they are either fools or liars? According to the White House we were all mislead by bad intelligence which is a pardonable offense. But being mislead by purposely bad intelligence is co-opting the Constitution and seperation of powers that require public agreemnet on declarations of war. Harriet Miers isn't on the court to help Roe vs. Wade but is positioned as damage control to basic Constitutional questions that loom in the not to distant future. Judy isn't a conspirator but a preening egotist who got in the middle of the worst mess in a very long time. The misleading of the country to get into war leaves questions open that are without end. Did the anthrax terrorist attack that occurred days after 9/11 which was traced to domestic labs occur as part of a WMD bio/nuclear scare to initiate the connection between terrorists, WMD's and Iraq? Did the CIA take part in this plot or not? What about this forged Niger letter that provoked this controversy...who really wrote it? Why would this administration have such a passion about war with Iraq? Who benefits from such an effort? Let's see so far it's Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, American oil companies, military suppliers and weapons companies, and let's not forget the big drug companies and their huge contracts for Anthrax vaccines and now bird flu. Now lets not jump on the conspiracy theory bandwagon but let's get reasonable. Follow the money and find the reasons for everything. This administration whether knowingly or not has a tremendous talent for communicating fear and having knee jerk reactions that cost huge amounts of money. Their tremendous competence turns into tremendous incompetence, but only after we spend a trillion dollars on stuff we didn't really need. We now have more "boogey men" than I've ever seen. Osama, Anthrax, Terror Alerts, WMDs, Saddam, Al Quaida, Zarquawi, Social Security Insolvency, Insurgents, Katrina, Oil shortages, Bird Flu, etc. All the while the major public debate is on gay marriage, Scott Peterson, ten commandments in public spaces, Michael Jackson, Runaway Bride, intelligent design, etc.
Posted by timothompson at 12:20 PM
September 15, 2005
"Bring Us His Head on a Platter!"
Not really, but my favorite congressman Lloyd Doggett is calling for an independent Hurricane Katrina inquiry:
Calling this partisan Republican scheme "bipartisan" reminds me of those tinhorn dictators who attempt to mask their authoritarian regimes by calling their countries "Democratic."
We need an independent citizens' commission, like the 9-11 Commission, to explore the failures of every level and every branch of government.
The Administration and its House Republican cohorts oppose this independent citizen commission just as they opposed the 9-11 Commission where the Administration erected roadblocks to that Commission's work at every turn. I say to them, "Save the stonewall for rebuilding the levees."
With thousands stranded, this Administration would not lead, but now it wants its buddies here in the Congress to lead the cover-up.
As with the formation of the 9-11 Commission, if enough informed Americans demand a genuine independent investigation, then we can end this Republican charade.
Our safety demands real accountability. What reason is there to believe that what we witnessed might not happen in our own backyard? That the fate of those we saw in New Orleans would not be the fate of others, such as poor folks in the Rio Grande Valley from hurricane flooding or other disasters – be it a human-caused, natural disasters, or both?
Without knowing, objectively, what, why, and how the rescue mission failed, there is no way to ensure that this horror would not be repeated in our communities.
There is nothing to prevent the House Republicans from having all the Congressional investigations and all the budget hearings that they want to have. What we are asking for here today is that you not have a sham "bi-partisan" commission. You should bring in citizens from around the country and have the kind of independent inquiries that led to a best-selling book exploring 9-11 -- the 9-11 Commission Report.
We owe it to the dead, to the displaced, and to all who could become the next victims of a catastrophe to support a true and genuine independent inquiry.
Sincerely,
LloydU.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett
201 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-4865, (956) 687-5921, (512) 916-5921
http://www.house.gov/doggett
Posted by timothompson at 04:00 PM
September 02, 2005
Won't Soul Music Change Now That Our Souls Have Turned Strange?
I started thinking about Michael Ventura's recent article in the Austin Chronicle on America ("$4 A Gallon") today. Apparently, a few others have as well.Posted by timothompson at 05:21 PM
September 01, 2005
Gambit Weekly: A Disaster Waiting to Happen
It happened ("As FEMA weathers Bush administration policy changes, some insiders fear that concerns over terrorism are trumping protection from hurricanes and other natural hazards"). [via]Posted by timothompson at 04:03 PM
August 18, 2005
Kinky Friedman for Texas Governor
The New Yorker: Kinky Friedman on the Campaign Trail [via]:
"I'm for you," (Ace) Cook said, sitting down to write the campaign a check. "I'm sick of these assholes who don't represent me, or represent people." By now, this sentiment had become a common refrain. "They represent A.T. & T. and Enron. How you gonna come and beg for my vote and then have nothing to do with me? Did Enron elect you or did I? I'm paying your salary, hoss. How'd it be if someone went up to the capitol and did what they said they would?"
Posted by timothompson at 06:25 PM
July 26, 2005
What was the Relationship between Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon
"Is Bush Wired?" wonders if Jeff Gannon be the key to the Plame case: "How did James Dale Guckert, an auto body shop office manager and male escort in his mid-40s, who seems never to have written anything in all his life -- who was said never even to bring up politics in casual conversation -- arrive in Washington, and within a few months become an eloquent political writer/operative, channeling with exactitude Karl Rove's worldview, rhetoric, and interests (especially his desire to defeat Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle)?"Posted by timothompson at 01:47 PM
July 12, 2005
The Simon: What's Behind the London Attacks?
"Think about it. The attack only benefits empires desperate to maintain a foothold in the Middle East without further eroding public opinion. Will Parliament shrug their shoulders and push their soldiers into longer tours of duty because of this? Obviously it's too early to tell, but if that happens, insurgents and rebels will have lost more than they could have ever possibly gained in destroying part of the Underground."
Not plausible? Let's read this passage Ron Kraybill wrote in 2001 on the Mennonite site:
Two generations ago, revolutionaries throughout the world confronted a similar problem in their struggle against colonial powers. The answer, argued Che Guevera, icon of revolution in Latin America, is not direct conventional engagement with the enemy. Instead extremists must engage in surprise guerilla actions that outrage the enemy, and then disappear into the civilian population.
The enemy will be so angry that he will strike wherever he thinks the extremists are located, inflicting casualties on innocent civilians in the process. This will accomplish what the extremists themselves were unable to accomplish, for now the civilian populace will hate the enemy as well. Some will go in anger to join the extremists and the less courageous will quietly acquiesce. Voices of moderation will go silent. Instead of being on the margins of their own communities, extremists will be strengthened and catapulted into the mainstream, from where they can organize the next and bigger phase of battle.
Sound familiar?
Posted by timothompson at 11:37 AM
July 09, 2005
New School Finance Plan: Tax Breaks Only for The Wealthiest Texans
That's what the latest change to the tax plan by the Texas Legislature has in store for us:
Comparisons of House legislation that has cleared that chamber and Senate legislation scheduled for debate Sunday.
Sales tax
House: Raises state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 7.25 percent, expands it to car repairs, bottled water and computer programming.
Senate: Raises sales tax to 6.75 percent; expands it to some computer repairs; grants sales tax rebates to low-income Texans who use Lone Star Cards to buy food.
'Sin taxes'
House: Raises cigarette taxes $1 per pack. Senate: Raises cigarette taxes $1 per pack over several years; raises some alcohol taxes paid by businesses.
Business taxes
(This is the part of the bills Gov. Goodhair Perry is against.)
House: Forces about 10,000 more companies to pay franchise tax.
Senate: Forces about 10,000 more companies to pay corporate franchise tax. With voter approval, also lowers tax rate but requires that it cover at least 10 percent of a company's payroll.
School property taxes(for maintenance and operations)
House: Cuts maximum rate from $1.50 per $100 in assessed value to $1.23 this fall and $1.12 next year.
Senate: Cuts maximum rate to $1.30 this fall. With voter approval, drops to $1.11 next year.
What it means to you
How the tax proposals would affect the cost of various items
Widescreen plasma TV(List price of $2,999.99)
Now: $3,187.49(includes 6.25% state sales tax) Proposed: $3,202.49 under Senate plan (with 6.75% state sales tax); $3,217.49 under House plan (with 7.25% state sales tax)Pack of cigarettes
Now: $4 (includes 41-cent tax)
Proposed: $5 (with $1.41 tax)
School property tax bill*
(For home assessed at $200,000)
Now: $2,775
Proposed: $2,053.50 under Senate plan; $2,072 under House plan
*In districts that tax at maximum rate for maintenance and operations
Tax breaks for a few
The House plan will result in lower tax bills for only the highest-earning 20 percent of Texans, according an analysis by the Legislative Budget Board. No similar analysis has been done for the Senate proposal.
Family income range Change in total tax bill
Up to $13,415 4.36%
$13,415 to $22,833 3.74%
$22,833 to $31,735 3.84%
$31,735 to $41,463 3.65%
$41,463 to $51,750 3.42%
$51,750 to $64,325 2.98%
$64,325 to $79,271 2.11%
$79,271 to $100,593 1.32%
$100,593 to $140,853 -0.44%
More than $140,853 -2.38%
If the House version endorsed by Perry and Texas business lobbyists passes, Texas will have one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation.
Posted by timothompson at 03:30 PM
June 28, 2005
So Now We Know What the A&M Stand For
The fact that our (un)esteemed Texas governor has a potty mouth is old news. I still find this image utterly hilarious.
[Image via PinkDome.com.]
Posted by timothompson at 06:27 PM
June 24, 2005
Drug Companies May Be Causing Autism
Robert Kennedy has written an article in the latest Rolling Stone about the government and drug companies colluding to cover up a possible link between mercury (thimerosal) being used as a preservative in vaccines and autism.Posted by timothompson at 01:56 PM
June 05, 2005
Governor Goodhair With Ted Nugent
The man on the right is the governor of Texas. No, really. [via]
Posted by timothompson at 10:49 PM
March 15, 2005
Texas Legislature Screws the Middle Class
I don't have much to say about HB3, the recent Texas Legislature bill that shifts the tax burden from the wealthiest among us to the poor and middle class (and increases taxation on luxuries like smoking and plastic surgery). I'll just quote from DriveDemocracy.org:
Dear DriveDemocracy Member,They’re already here. That’s the advertising slogan for the upcoming Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise remake of H.G. Welles’ classic tale, War of the Worlds. And that’s how it feels watching the Texas House of Representatives. They’re already here.
For those of you not in Texas, you should pay attention to what's happening to us because we're on the bleeding edge of the Bush GOP agenda. Everything Bush is bringing to the US as a whole has already been rolled out here and what's happening in Texas now, a huge tax hike for the working and middle classes accompanied by tax cuts for the wealthiest.
When Orson Wells narrated the story on national radio in 1938, many Americans believed his alarmed exclamations about attacking Martians were an authentic newsman’s reactions to a real invasion from outer space. Now “real” newsmen give us fake reactions to real invasions and we believe the fakery just the same. And while we are distracted, the real invaders, cannily dressed as undertakers, sneak into town and steal the future from us, the undertaken.
How else is one to look at the Republican-dominated Texas State House passing a tax bill that 1) raises taxes on 80 percent of the population; 2) doesn’t put a dime into public education, where everyone thinks the money should go; 3) gives huge tax breaks to companies that have been indicted for (or are under suspicion of) participating in a criminal campaign financing scheme to take over the world, I mean, the Texas House?
Footnote: Apparently, the tax bill was drafted by a conservative think tank in California [via].
Update: Quorum Report had posted the revised property tax tables last week. (PDF)
Posted by timothompson at 01:48 PM
February 21, 2005
Bill Maher on the Youth of Today
In the first episode of this season's “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO this weekend, Maher closed with a great screed against high schoolers who don't believe in freedom of speech without government approval. Here's what he said [via]:
A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions.Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.
Now, to those of you who think I'm overreacting: Yes, I understand that when you're in high school you're still very young and that no one really cares what kids say anyway — it's not like priests are dating them for their brains.
But the younger generation is supposed to rage against the machine, not for it; they're supposed to question authority, not question those who question authority.
And what's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation — the kids who first became aware of the news under an "Americans need to watch what they say" administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment — or the loss of your show on ABC.
President Bush once asked, "Is our children learning?" No — they isn't. A more appropriate question might be, "Is our teachers teaching?" In four years, you can teach a gorilla sign language. Is it too much to ask that in the same amount of time a kid be taught what those crazy hippies who founded this country had in mind?
I know the Morals & Values folks want us to take time out of the school day for prayer and the Ten Commandments and abstinence training and at least two theories of evolution — the one agreed upon by every scientist in the world and the one that involves naked ladies and snakes — but, lest we forget, last month the people of Iraq risked death and danger to send a simple, inspiring message: America, get out of our country. But also, we want the freedoms you take for granted.
Now, I didn't mind being on the losing side of the last election. But as a loser, I guess I have some "unpopular" opinions — and I'd like to keep them. I'd even like to continue to say them right out loud on TV, because if I just get up there every Friday night and spout the Bush administration's approved talking points, that's not freedom or entertainment. It's Fox News.
Classic.
Posted by timothompson at 12:34 PM