Trial Lawyers Funding Strayhorn

Interesting story from the Morning News:

In her bid to unseat Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is pursuing an unprecedented strategy of soliciting big-dollar donors with a history of backing Democrats.

The approach carries considerable risk for a candidate trying to woo faithful Republican primary voters, but it may be Mrs. Strayhorn's only option for matching the GOP incumbent's fiscal firepower, analysts say.

Of the Republican comptroller's $7 million campaign account, more than $800,000 has come from some of the Democratic Party's biggest political donors, according to an analysis by The Dallas Morning News.

The donors include dozens of trial lawyers, whose financial largess probably will be a theme in Mr. Perry's campaign against Mrs. Strayhorn in next year's GOP primary. But experts say Mrs. Strayhorn had little choice.

Two things: 1) How sad is it that this is what the Democrat Party has been reduced to in Texas and 2) Is this a viable Strayhorn strategy? Does it have a chance of working?

Oh yeah, and 3) Thanks TTLA. The one thing this article doesn't do is get the trials to say why they're backing Strayhorn (Chris Bell haters?) and if this marks a shift in strategy away from backing Dems and towards backing Republicans that aren't as bad as the bad Republicans.

Or maybe the trial lawyers want Perry to win.

Awesome

Cage fighting is making a comeback, reports the NYT.

Alive and Thriving in the Midwest: Brawling in Cages

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., July 23 - When they rewind the video of the fight in the cage, all the blood will spray back into Gervis Fool Bull's nose, all the screams will be sucked into the collective chest of the sweating crowd, and the fist will snap back toward the big truck driver from Iowa who threw it, a man with a mohawk haircut who grew up fighting his twin brother in the neighborhood junkyard.

But to find where this punch between strangers really began, the rewinding would have to go back almost three weeks, to the Fourth of July in the lakeside tourist town of Okoboji, Iowa, where the twin brothers were prowling around, drinking, not liking tourists.

"My goal that night was to beat up the biggest tourist I could find," said Nate Hawn, 20.

He picked a marine, he said, and beat him in the crowded streets. A stranger approached, and the Hawns wondered if he wanted some, too.

The man said that he worked with a promoter of cage fighting and that the guys should come to Sioux Falls in a few weeks. "He said, 'You guys are exactly what we're looking for,' " the brother with the mohawk, Ryan Hawn, recalled.

[...]

"It's like the hardest core," said Jarod Stevens, 25, a beefy, freckled redhead who works at a Hummer dealership, signing up for his first fight on Saturday in Sioux Falls. "It's proving something to yourself, that you're man enough to be a part of it and do well, hopefully."

By the night's end, Mr. Stevens will be holding a bag of ice to a bluish lump on his forehead.

[...]

"I always say, 'Where's the rule book?' " said Vernon Brown, 37, a former television reporter who joined the Sioux Falls City Council last year and is a critic of cage fighting. "They keep giving me a sheet printed off the Internet that says no eye-gouging, no fishhooks, no fingers in bodily orifices."

He does not foresee banning the sport.

Mr. Christian, 40, who introduces himself as Dog, being examined by nurse Abby Small at a weigh-in before what would have been his first fight. But he is alarmed by a question on the forms — "This being wanted by any law enforcement agencies, what does that mean?" he asks — and ultimately withdraws.

In Sioux Falls and other small cities and towns of the Great Plains, cage fighting is making a comeback, drawing hundreds, even thousands of spectators to fairgrounds, small arenas and, most disturbingly to city officials, the parking lots of bars.

Of course, it's the midwest -- the heartland, the Bible Belt, the red states -- where such naked brutality shines. I guess you have to have something to do while not cheerleading the war in Iraq.

What cage match would you like to see? Ann Coulter vs. a rabid raccoon? Robert Byrd vs Chief Justice Rehnquist? Zell Miller vs Chris Matthews? A kangaroo vs a bear? Jared from Subway vs Ross from Friends? Marvelle vs Bob Dobbs? Pete Laney vs Tom Craddick? Tom DeLay vs a horde of insects? Jesus vs Allah? GWB vs Hillary? Tom Cruise vs a chimp?

Democrats Can Be Such Idiots Online

Allow me a moment to rant. No Democrat, ever, in any way, should ever use Rightclick Strategies to do any Web work. Period. From today's Roll Call (subscription required):

A D.C.-based Internet marketing firm that ran into problems earlier this year with a design pitch giving the impression that the company had done work for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is once again raising eyebrows in Democratic offices.

Pelosi’s office had protested to the company that they had never worked with the firm. But within the past week, sources said Rightclick Strategies made a presentation to the office of Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) in which company representatives displayed Web site designs to staffers that supposedly had been done for other Democratic offices, including that of Rep. Bob Menendez (N.J.).

“In a presentation to Obey’s office they said they had done some work for us,” Menendez spokesman Matt Miller said. “They have never worked for us. ... We have informed other offices that we haven’t done any work with them.”

“We had been informed by a couple Member offices that this company had been representing that they had designed certain Member Web sites and that’s not the case,” Pelosi’s spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said.

Larry Purpuro, founder of Rightclick Strategies — which touts itself as one of the leading Web design companies used on Capitol Hill — said that he couldn’t speak to the specific Obey presentation but he did say that “our guys are up there ... they visit five to 15 offices a week. We have done hundreds of designs, designs for Members that did not engage us but that were conceptual designs.”

Purpuro, who is a former deputy chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, added that “it’s difficult for me to respond to accusations based on hearsay and I’m somewhat suspicious of their origin given my visibility as a Republican and the large amount of work we have done for GOP Members.”

But a few of the company’s conceptual designs have concerned some Members in the past.

Earlier this year, the offices of Pelosi and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) objected to the use of images of the two Members being used in an advertising campaign by American Digital Campaigns, a subsidiary of Rightclick Strategies. At that time, the two offices had asked the Office of the General Counsel to investigate the matter

“They had said they had created a Web site for our office and that was not true,” Crider said of the February incident.

This is fucking ridiculous. First, Democrats should be supporting Democratic firms, not some fucking former RNC chief of staff. Second, this firm is clearly sleezy and underhanded when it comes to its marketing. And finally, they're called Rightclick Strategies for a reason - they're fucking Republicans.

Here's a list of 10 Democratic/Progressive Web firms that are all 100 times more deserving of Congressional business:

• www.advocacyinc.com
• www.bluestatedigital.com
• www.ctsg.com
• www.echoditto.com
• www.grassroots.com
• www.idi.net
• www.julianmulvey.com
• www.mandatemedia.com
• www.netcampaign.com
• www.plusthree.com

Why Radio Sucks

Great article, despite the foxnews.com site it's posted on:

The internal memos from Sony Music, revealed today in the New York state attorney general's investigation of payola at the company, will be mind blowing to those who are not so jaded to think records are played on the radio because they're good. We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear "hits" on the radio and wonder, "How can this be?"

Now we know. And memos from both Sony's Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 — whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry — spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air.

From Epic, home of J-Lo, a memo from Nov. 12, 2002, a "rate" card that shows radio stations in the Top 23 markets will receive $1000, Markets 23-100 get $800, lower markets $500. "If a record receives less than 75 spins at any given radio station, we will not pay the full rate," the memo to DJs states. "We look forward to breaking many records together in the future."

Take Jennifer Lopez's awful record, "Get Right," with its shrill horn and lifted rap. It's now clear that was a "bought" sensation when it was released last winter. So, too, were her previous "hits" "I'm Glad" and "I'm Real," according to the memos. All were obtained by Sony laying out dough and incentives. It's no surprise. There isn't a person alive who could hum any of those "songs" now. Not even J-Lo herself.

When you've got record companies paying DJs to play music, instead of DJs finding and playing what fans want to hear, you end up with the audio-diarrhea that oozes out of virtually every radio in America these days.No wonder fewer and fewer people are listenting to the radio these days.

In other media-companies-are-screwing-us news, Matt Yglesias has a nice post about a la carte cable - basically the ability to subscribe to individual cable channels instead of buying packages of channels:

Yes, I speak once again of à la carte cable. Hard-core social conservatives like it. Liberal consumer groups like it. So, let's do it. The other thing is that if we had some decent broadband policy or reasonable spectrum management in this country, the cable industry might just feel enough competitive pressure to offer people meaningful choices.

Commit treason, get a raise!

Rove and Scooter Libby just got raises. Did we expect anything less from GDub and company?

50 Most, er, uh, Beautiful...

Just a reminder that a year ago one of our very own was included on this esteemed list. A tip o' the hat to Wonkette for jogging our memory.

Just because G-Dub didn't nominate Satan,

doesn't mean we should shut up about the Supreme Court nominee.

The mainstream media have (as usual) missed a very important point. And that point is that it is the Supreme Court's job to interpret the Constitution. And it can't do a good job interpreting the Constitution unless its members are learned, capable of having an open dialogue, and representative of the full spectrum of political and academic views.

The Republicans like to say that the American judiciary is somehow controlled by a left-wing cabal whose aim is to thwart the will of the people when it overturns measures that deny constitutional rights (e.g., when anti-abortion laws that go farther than Roe v. Wade would allow are enjoined from enforcement or when "protection of marriage" measures that strip rights away from homosexuals are overturned).

We rarely hear it said that YES, it is the judiciary's job to overturn the popular will when that will would deny basic rights and freedoms to members of our society. Without the judiciary to play that role, we are not safe from becoming a fascist nation.

We rarely hear a Republican forced to respond to the fact that the federal judiciary is primarily made up of Reagan and Bush I nominees. There are, in fact, more Republican nominees than Carter/Clinton nominees (and that is due in no small part to the fact that the Republicans denied numerous Clinton nominees the chance to receive a floor vote). Left-wing cabal, huh?

Another point missed by the both the MSM talking heads and the activists on both sides is that we need a full spectrum of views on the Supreme Court. This so-called "5-4" ratio of the current court masks a real truth, and that it that the court no longer has a far left wing. Where we used to have Marshall and Brennan, we now have silence.

The Court is in fact represented this way:
1 Strong Liberal: Stevens
2 Center-Liberals: Breyer and Ginsburg
1 Centrist: Souter
2 Center-Conservatives: Kennedy and O'Connor
1 Strong Conservative: Rehnquist
2 Far Right Wing Reactionaries: Scalia and Thomas

The Court is like a bird trying to fly with half its left wing missing: it simply can't. Decisions are being made without looking at the problem from all sides.

While I haven't ever agreed with Scalia or Thomas except on that recent Kelo v. New London decision, I honestly would not mind having them on the court if we also had a Marshall and Brennan wing. While I am certain the Court would reach decisions I would rail against, at least I could believe that all views were aired and considered. At least I would have some sort of faith in the decisions. The justices are not supposed to be politicians, they are supposed to be analysts looking at the facts and the law, but if there are too many who come in with the predetermined notion that only the Federal Society view is legitimate, then the Court becomes a joke.

To echo an argument made here earlier this week, Democrats need to stop treating the Court like an extension of the DLC. Everything is NOT going to be OK just because we get somebody who hasn't participated in a lynching in the last 20 years. Roberts is not OK. We need some far left wingers to balance the far right wingers and we need to educate the public about the functions of the Court and the necessity for a wide variety of views, especially by those who be interpreting the Constitution and further abrogating our Fourth Amendment rights (to give just one example).

Unless we expand the discussion about why the judiciary is important and what kind of members it needs, the nebulous middle will continue to be disengaged about it, assuming (wrongly) that it is just about the appointment of pro-choice or anti-choice judges and no more. It is about so much more, and I think we must understand and communicate that more effectively.

The return of Ricky

I guess his career as a holistic healer didn't work out.

Williams apologizes, returns to Dolphins
RB says he doesn't smoke pot anymore; teammates seem to accept him

The Ox-Bow Incident

I think it was the London police gunning down that innocent guy in the subway that made me think of this book I read in high school (middle school?), the Ox-Bow Incident.

Of course it could have been Guantanamo, or Iraq, or the Patriot Act, or ... I gotta stop watching the news.

Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned.

I remember it as a really good read. Lots of moral ambiguity.

It's never good when Texas makes the national news

Yet another example, from the syndicated News of the Weird column:

Leadership in America
According to an Associated Press report, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick told a middle-school class he was visiting in April that the U.S. Congress is different from the Texas legislature, in that in Washington there are "454" members on the House side and "60" in the Senate. (The real numbers are 435 and 100.) And the Kansas City Star, reporting in May on a Missouri legislative debate on the Confederate flag, quoted Rep. Jim Avery as stating that the 1803 Louisiana Purchase involved a fight with France over the territory: "Well, we fought over it. We fought over it, right? You don't think there were any lives lost in that? It was a friendly thing?" (It appears well-settled in history that the Louisiana Purchase was just a land deal.)

Should we be concerned about this?

Awhile back, Marvelle proposed that the evening news should have a segment called "Holy shit, America!" which would report on the outrageous things that for whatever reasons pass without notice in our country. I submit this new report as a story idea.

Presence of Harmful Chemicals
In Humans Is Broad, Common

Legal restrictions have lowered Americans' exposure to certain toxic substances such as lead and cigarette smoke, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But dozens of other potentially dangerous chemicals -- from pesticides to the fragrances in cosmetics -- appear to be nearly ubiquitous in Americans' bloodstreams, the agency found.

Nearly ubiquitous. That can't be good.

The agency reported widespread exposures to dozens of different pesticides, with the highest levels generally reported in children. Among the 38 new chemicals tested in the latest survey, the CDC looked at exposures to a class of common pesticides called pyrethroids -- used in Raid roach killer, among others -- and found that 76% of the population sampled had the chemical in their bodies.

According to preliminary calculations by Margaret Reeves, senior scientist with the advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, children ages 6 to 11 had metabolites of one pesticide in their blood, called chlorpyrifos, that were more than four times as high as the Environmental Protection Agency's safe level for that age group.

For three types of phthalates, a class of chemicals used in various products including cosmetics, pills and plastics, 5% of the population had levels exceeding levels recently associated with genital abnormalities in boys.

Genital abnormalities. That's not good either.

With so many different chemicals in the body, said Johns Hopkins's Dr. Burke, the cocktail effect is still far from understood.

Our bodies are filling with toxic chemicals and it's just a short story on B2 of the WSJ? Holy shit, America. Enjoy your "cocktail."

Grand Theft Auto

Morford has a nice piece today on the latest Grand Theft Auto controversy. Hillary has been pushing for an investigation into the game calling it a "a silent epidemic" and all sorts of other nonsense.

The question I pose to you, dear reader, is this: What the fuck? I seem to recall a certain senator from Connecticut who tried attacking violent video games during a recent Presidential campaign. Suffice to say he did not perform too well is his Party's primary.

Is Hillary really going to keep running to the middle? Is this the 2008 strategy - ignore the base and go for the swing voters before you've won the primary? Is she such a rock star that she can moderate her stance on abortion, attack Hollywood and video games, and the base will still drool all over her?

Tear the bark off the bastard

So maybe I haven't followed it all that closely, but I don't think Roberts is that bad. And by that I mean, it will be hard for the Dems to make a case against the guy. I haven't seen any truly outrageous rulings. He was approved unanimously. And yeah, he's affable. We had such garish abuses with Owens and Rogers to tee off on, with this guy I don't know.

And whatever he believes on choice, he hasn't ruled on it, just wrote a brief for a client -- in this case, the White House as Solicitor General. I just think people are going to say, "Bush is a Republican. This guy is more moderate than others that he's put up. Are you Dems going to fight everyone who isn't Souter?"

That was all a lead in to another post (courtesy of Kos again) that I highly recommend. While I don't think we should do it with Roberts, I think this is how we ought to play:

Defining Mr. Roberts

In fact, if I were running a propaganda campaign to try to soften Judge Roberts up before his confirmation hearings, I'd probably go a hell of a lot further than Moveon. I'd call him a fat cat corporate lawyer who made millions catering to wealthy CEOs. A Washington insider who has spent his entire adult life shuttling back and forth between K Street and Wall Street. An arrogant, out-of-touch Ivy Leaguer who probably vacations at posh resorts with other arrogant, out-of-touch Ivy Leaguers. (And I would say it no matter where he actually vacations -- or even if he takes no vacations at all.)

I would dig up every client that Roberts ever represented, and God help him if any have had even the slightest trouble with the criminal justice system. I'd put together ads juxtaposing pictures of him with photos of Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski and Ken Lay, and run them in selected media markets, just below the national media's radar screen. And if Roberts has ever issued any rulings that in any way, shape or form have made it more difficult to fight crime or terrorism, some of those ads would morph him into Pedro Escobar or Osama bin Ladin.

I'd make a lot of hay out of Roberts' ruling in the infamous french fry case -- using it as a parable for an eggheaded judge who has plenty of book learning but no common sense. If the girl was African American, so much the better for targeted ads on urban radio stations.

Ditto for Roberts's ruling on the POW damage claims. I'd get some disabled Gulf War I vets to do testimonials and hold press conferences: "Saddam only destroyed my health, but Judge Roberts destroyed my faith in my country." Gulf War Veterans for Truth has a nice ring to it.

[...]

In other words, I would run my slime campaign exactly the way the Republicans run theirs. I'd tear the bark off the bastard, to quote Lee Atwater's famous phrase. And let the Republicans and the corporate media howl -- it would only "catapult the propaganda."

Most importantly of all, I would do it energetically and unapologetically. And I would expect every political hack in the Democratic Party to do likewise -- or, at a minimum, keep their whimpy mouths shut. Or else.

Yeah.

Lupe Valdez for Texas Guv

HRC interview with Dallas' female, gay, hispanic sheriff. (Via DailyKos)

Recruiting Tactics in Journalism

A bit of humor via the Washington Post:

Dean Baquet was named yesterday as editor of the Los Angeles Times, which becomes the largest American newspaper ever to be led by a black journalist.

[...]

New York Times editor Bill Keller said: "Dean's a prince -- a world-class investigator, an inspiring editor and a barrel of fun." But Keller said he hoped Baquet would start "fighting fair" in luring staffers [from the NY Times to the LA Times]: "He has this habit of telling recruits there's something in the New York water that makes your penis fall off."

That's why I only drink booze when I'm in NYC.

Baghdad Blog

A friend and former co-worker is in Baghdad helping the Iraqis write their new constitution (and hopefully keeping them from getting screwed by Bush while not starting a civil war). He's got a blog up - it's not frequently posted to but worth reading through if you have some time.

It's 130 degrees. I want a nice cool beverage. I'm specifically craving a tall, cool glass of tropicana orange juice with lots of pulp.

Instead, I'm holding Sac Sac, a product claiming to be made from Mandarin oranges - but unless Mandarain oranges nowadays taste like chalky Tang , I'm pretty sure that I ain't what I'm drinking.

It's purposefully devoid of political commentary - more of a slice-of-life kind of thing. He's a good writer, check it out.

Kind of weird headline

In the WSJ today, Senators Mull New Ways To Make Stem Cells

The article explains how they brought in experts to testify, but I just had the image of the senators doing it themselves, which is sort of what the headline implies.

Frist and Coburn and Kay Bailey and Lieberman are all sitting in white lab coats around a cauldron, stroking their chins, and cackling like witches. "Bwa Ha Ha! We will create new stem cells, more powerful than ever!"

Byrd is wandering around in a tattered robe, mumbling, "Must make new stem cells... must make new stem cells."

John Roberts - Just What Pat Robertson Ordered

Some of background on Roberts from People for the American Way:

• Reproductive and Privacy Rights: Roberts urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade while arguing before the Court as Deputy Solicitor General in a case that did not even directly concern that issue. His brief plainly states that "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
  
• Separation of Church and State: Roberts argued against clear First Amendment protections for religious liberty and in favor of officially sponsored school prayer at graduation ceremonies before the Supreme Court, which rejected his argument.
  
• Environmental Protections: As a judge, Roberts suggested in a dissent that the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional as applied to a California development case.
  
• Veteran Protections: Roberts argued American POWs tortured in Iraq during the Gulf War should not be able to utilize federal courts to pursue their claims.
  
• Excessive Arrest Procedures: Roberts ruled against a 12-year old girl who was handcuffed, arrested and taken away by police for eating a single French fry on the D.C. Metro, even though an adult would only have gotten a paper citation in that situation.

That last one just warms the heart.

Fuck Rove

Molly Ivins has a great article on Rove:

Now it's getting funnier and funnier. There is an elephant in the living room and we're sitting around having a conversation about whether there's an elephant in the living room.

"I think there's an elephant in the living room."

"Well, there's a lot of elephant poop around, but that doesn't prove there's an elephant in the living room."

The entire Republican Party is shocked (!) anyone would think that Karl Rove (!!) would leak a story to damage a political opponent. Oh, the horror. And Karl has always been such a sweet guy. Just to give you an idea, one time Rove was displeased with the job done by a political advance man and said, "We will f--- him. Do you hear me? We will f--- him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f---ed him!" (From an article by Ron Suskind). And that was a guy who was on his side.

SCOTUS Rumor

Rumor has it on the Hill that Edith Brown Clement will be nominated today.

Press Laughs at Bush

Spitballs, indeed.

No One Believes You

From the latest ABC News poll:

Just a quarter of Americans think the White House is fully cooperating in the federal investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, a number that's declined sharply since the investigation began. And three-quarters say that if presidential adviser Karl Rove was responsible for leaking classified information, it should cost him his job.

Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.

[...]

The leak investigation is seen as a meaningful issue: About three-quarters call it a serious matter, and just over four in 10 see it as "very" serious. These are down slightly, however, by five and six points respectively, from their level in September 2003.

Fifty-three percent are following the issue closely — a fairly broad level of attention. Those paying close attention (who include about as many Republicans as Democrats) are more likely than others to call it very serious, to say the White House is not cooperating, to say Rove should be fired if he leaked, and to say Miller is doing the right thing.

The power of a good insult

Frank Rich has a few this week:

Bob Novak?

"more of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to be"

Scott McClellan?

"almost poignantly clownish"

Ha!

The column is, as always, excellent. Says Wilson is just a MacGuffin, let's get back to talking about this bogus war.

This is just freaky.

Panel: Use caution in stem cell study of monkey brains

Scientists hope to grow embryonic stem cells into replacement brain cells to treat neurological disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. Safety tests of these treatments would require first implanting the cells in animals, perhaps including primates. However, whether implanting such cells might raise the consciousness of the animals to a higher level, changing the ethics of experimentation, raises some awkward questions, Greely says.

Part human, part animal: research raises concerns

RENO — On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.

[...]

In the past two years, scientists have created pigs with human blood, fused rabbit eggs with human DNA and injected human stem cells to make paralyzed mice walk.

Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep's head?

How to create a shadow state party online

Want to replace the TDP? Here's a perfect case study on how to do it online. Read this post for some background.

GOP "apologizes" for race-baiting

You got to hand it to Mehlman for some brilliant political jujitsu:

GOP: 'We were wrong' to play racial politics

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman apologized to one of the nation's largest black civil rights groups Thursday, saying Republicans had not done enough to court blacks in the past and had exploited racial strife to court white voters, particularly in the South.

Apologizing for something YOU'RE STILL DOING?!? Can we get a pre-emptive apology for what will go down in the TN Senate race? Will he condemn the abhorrent race-baiting that just occured in Texas over the driver's license bill? (I guess that will be a separate Hispanic fake apology startegy).

A welcome return

Calvin and Hobbes are coming back.

Alcoholic Advocacy

From www.knowyourdrink.com:

Alcohol beverages are the only consumable product that are by law not permitted to include Serving Fact information such as alcohol content, calories, carbs, fat and protein on all of their labels. Why? Because the government agency that regulates the beverage alcohol industry, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) won't let Diageo, the world's leading spirits, beer and wine company, voluntarily provide you with that information.

I don't know squat about this issue - either why the gov't won't let liquor companies include this info or why liquor companies actually want to include it - but the good people at Johnnie Walker sent me an email about it and I'm inclined to support 'em.

Anybody out there know more?

From terrorism to transsexualism

The Daily Texan has a great feature on everyone's favorite candidate (well, after Leslie), Jennifer Gale

Choice excerpts:

Jennifer Lauren Gale, professional public office candidate, poet, regular Austin City Council meeting attendee, daily park cleaner, frequenter of the Texas Union, Dobie Mall and all Austin public libraries, constant seeker of answers and friends, and now candidate for governor, is ready for a vacation.

She is preparing travel to Madison, Wisc., her birthplace and nostalgic "paradise." She plans to travel via commercial 18-wheeler.

[...]

She does not have a job. Many would call her homeless. She prefers "living outside." Gale has lived outside since 1991, the same year she first ran for public office.

[...]

Stalder said he "bent over backwards" to investigate the situation, and he eventually supported Gale's use of the restroom because he had confirmed a sex-change operation she had in Galveston. She is legally a female.

[...]

"I don't know if you know about me at all, but I wear sweatshirts," she says, pulling out a yellow T-shirt depicting Martin Luther King Jr. A dark gray-blue long-sleeved T-shirt is already pulled through the sleeves of the yellow shirt.

She also carries a keychain stick of Hawaiian Tropic Barbie-themed sunscreen and a brightly colored umbrella, which she opens while we walk.

This should be interesting

Santorum Senior Staffer Gay? This blog has outed gay staff members of Right-Wingers in the past.

Updated (7/15/05): Here's the full story. I wonder how this will play with the radical right Santorum has been courting?

In a phone call recorded by PageOneQ and blogACTIVE.com, Robert Traynham, Director of Communications for United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has said he is an out gay man who completely supports the Senator.

When asked how a gay man could speak for one of the nation's most notorious homophobes, Traynham, left, protested that has "been with the Senator for eight years." Traynham went on to say "Senator Santorum is a man of principle, he is a man who sticks up for what he believes in, I strongly do support Senator Santorum."

When pressed on whether he supported the Senator's stands on lesbian and gay issues, Mr. Traynham abruptly ended the phone call by saying "Senator Santorum is a family man. I have been with Senator Santorum for eight years and I am very proud to be with him."

An attempt to follow-up with a question was met with Mr. Traynham hanging up the phone.

Senator Santorum, who trails the presumptive Democratic nominee by double digits in a recent Quinnipiac College poll, has been a staunch opponent of lesbian and gay rights and one of the Senate's strongest supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment. The amendment would prohibit lesbian and gay couples from ever achieving marriage equality in the United States by requiring that all marriages be between one man and one woman.

"Isn't that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?" asked Senator Santorum during last year's debate on the cloture motion to force a vote on the Amendment. The statement was seen by many gay and lesbian community members as a way to tie the struggle for lesbian and gay equality to the President's "war on terror."

That little bow-tied idiot

This internet ad campaign for Tucker Carlson's new show is ridiculous. I can't go anywhere online today without seeing his smug little face.

Jon Stewart to Carlson: "You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

TDP Close to Broke

I didn't know how to react when I first read that the Texas Democratic Party is "short on funds." Translation: they may not be able to make payroll.

My first thought was -- how fucking pathetic. Add to the list of incompetences and humiliations of the state party a new one. For whatever you think about the job Texas Democrats have done in the last few elections collectively, the state party has been an organizational disaster, at least throughout the Molly Beth Malcolm years. I don't know how Schoeting is doing, but this article doesn't reflect well.

They had a hard time keeping staff when they actually had the money to pay them!

My second thought was -- good. The resurgence of the Dems will come from outside the party structure. To the extent that has happened nationally, the new force has been MoveOn and the Dean campaign. Let TDP fade away and let some real grassroots organization grow up -- or, hell, let Fred Baron pony up for the new non-party party/527 that everyone is rumoring about, and let's get going.

The party has had less influence than TTLA for years anyway (though as I write this I remember I should give Schoeting props for going after Craddick Dems in the primaries -- for that alone he is a far better success than MBM) and less influence than Laney's Texas Partnership or Frost's organization. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. This just makes it official.

Finally I actually read the story, and I saw this quote from Mike Lavigne:

"We're Democrats. We're never going to match the big-money operations the Republicans can mount," Lavigne said. "But at least the money we do raise is legal."

And finally I thought, great fucking line. If we're going down, let's at least pop the other guy in the chin on our way to the mat.

Katherine Harris is on Crack

Is this an absurd bid to pander to Florida's Jewish voters or just incredibly stupid?

Rep. Katherine Harris, the Republican best known for her controversial role in the Florida recount battle, is at the center of a new flap — over a report that she pressed the state to treat trees with Holy Water.

Harris reportedly helped associates of the Kabbalah Centre to get officials in Florida's agriculture department to test the water as a potential curative to the canker disease then plaguing orange groves. At the time, in 2001, Harris was still serving as Florida's secretary of state, the same post she had held during the post-election fight in 2000.

[...]

In a statement to the Forward, Harris asserted that she decided to recommend Celestial Drops after being told that "Israeli scientists" had produced the product. She made a statement: "I deeply value Israeli technology, as it helped save my family's groves through drip irrigation technology decades ago, which is why I forwarded the information to the Department of Agriculture, as I frequently do with constituent interests and requests."

The Sentinel obtained memos and letters detailing a six-month discussion among scientists and officials over the Celestial Drops. Among the documents was a warning from Wayne Dixon, the state's chief of entomology, nematology and plant pathology, in which he declared that the "product is a hoax and not based on any credible known science."

Borf!

Borf revealed.

"Growing up is giving up"

More on Santorum

To follow up on PoliJunk's earlier post, basically Santorum says that the Catholic pedophilia scandal happened because Boston is a city full of liberals who have bad values. Using his twisted and totally fucked up logic the DSCC put out some great research on other places that have had pedophilia scandals. Namely:

What about your homestate of Pennsylvania, Senator Santorum? Since 2002, “At least 23 active priests accused of abuse have been removed from assignments … as a result of reviews by diocesan officials and new claims by alleged victims.” Additionally, following the Philadelphia “archdiocese revealed that it had evidence 35 priests had abused about 50 children over the past several decades, Cardinal Bevilacqua apologized to the victims, calling sexual abuse by priests ‘among the most depraved of moral aberrations’ and ‘an affront to the sanctity of the priesthood.’”

Click here to see a full listing of red states that must have really bad morals and shit because they've created sex offenders out the wazoo... so to speak.

Santorum at it Again!

This guy is so bigoted and closed-minded that he has become a ridiculous, out of control, and absurd mockery of what it once meant to be a "socially conservative Republican." Not wanting to participate in things like pre-marital sex and advocating that others join in your self-denial is one thing. Saying that "liberal culture" (whatever that is -- is that anything or is it Orwellian Newspeak?) caused Catholic priests, who are socially conservative by definition, to become child molesters is off-the-charts WACKO. Santorum is a caricature sandwich that half the country is eating with relish.

And the media goes after Howard Dean for relatively uninflammatory and true statements such as "the Republican party is made up of rich white folks?"

Make it stop!!!!!

Please!!!!

"Accountability" in the Bush White House

Wow. NYT in a news story really lays it out:

Mr. Rove can take heart in one fact: so far every other senior official caught up by the cascading series of questions that were touched off by 16 words in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address has survived, even prospered. Three of Mr. Bush's closest advisers were involved in the drafting or reviewing of the now-discredited language, which said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The most senior of them, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, accused the Central Intelligence Agency of feeding bad information to the White House. In an interview earlier this year, she said that "I was the national security adviser and the president said something that probably shouldn't have been in the speech, and it was as much my responsibility" as anyone else's. Mr. Bush not only stuck by her, he made her secretary of state.

Stephen P. Hadley, Ms. Rice's deputy, stepped into the Oval Office in August of that summer to tell the president that he, not Ms. Rice, was the one responsible for letting the language into the speech, and by several accounts he offered to resign. Mr. Bush refused, and gave him Ms. Rice's old job late last year.

And George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, who had been sent a copy of the speech but did not read it before it was delivered, reluctantly issued a statement two years ago this week saying that "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president." He later resigned, for unrelated reasons. Last December Mr. Bush rewarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I wonder if I fuck up spectacularly at my job if I can ask for a promotion? I'd settle for just a raise, to buy more Country Club malt liquor.

Hey ladies, Denny's off the market!

Yes, at long last, confirmed bachelor Dennis Kucinich (a true hero of contemporary American politics) is getting married. And he's marrying a Brit no less. What, good ol' corn-fed American women aren't good enough for him?

Maybe he really does hate America. ;-)

Single liberal females (and gay males), take heart. Patrick Kennedy and Anthony Weiner are still single.

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Strayhorn/Rylander/One-Tough-Name-to-Remember

According to the National Journal's Last Call, she's doing pretty well:

TX Compt. Carole Keeton Strayhorn (R) has raised "an unprecedented" $1.5M in 10 days, giving her $7M COH for her GOV bid (release).

This Rove Shit is Blowing Up

The transcript from today's press briefing is a great read (tip o' the hat to AmericaBlog):

Q: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.

Q: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

Q: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

Q: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.
You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

Doggett seeks Environmental Justice

The EPA's 1982 solution to toxic chemical site in Mission, Texas was to put a one-inch asphalt cap on the contaminated soil. Of course the EPA's primary motivation was to protect the neighbors (who just coincidentally happen to be poor, Hispanic folks) and to save money by doing the clean-up on the cheap

Twenty-three years later, people are still getting cancer. Lloyd Doggett's persistence has finally gotten the EPA to agree to retest the site and remediate if necessary. Which it is.

I'm sure a one-inch is a completely responsible way to deal with toxic pollution. Or is it?

The original Love Canal families might have some suggestions.

When to spread lies and when to STFU

Apparently, the White House is busy mastering this distinction. McClellan, our favorite mouthpiece, has stopped saying that he knows that Karl Rove did not leak the Valerie Plame story. Now, he simply won't comment.

Remember folks, Bushco cares about our safety and security. Unless of course, our spouse pisses them off.

Another reason the LAPD is the worst PD in the nation

As the LA Times reported this morning, the LAPD shot and killed a 17-month old little girl in stand-off with an armed man.

The charges? Waving his arms and behaving aggressively.

Hmmm, seems serious enough that one not only ought to kill the suspect and a little girl, but perhaps everyone within a 100 yard radius.

The police spokesperson said, ''We showed a tremendous amount of restraint, but unfortunately the suspect's actions dictated this."

A tremendous amount of restraint? What is the proper amount of restraint that ones shows before shooting an innocent child?

Bratton was supposed to be the saviour of this department.

Take my word for it, nothing will clean up the LAPD except destroying it utterly and rebuilding from the ground up.

Frist's company profiteering on medical malpractice insurance?

See this post at Daily Kos:

Healthcare Indemnity, Inc. (HCI), an affiliate of HCA corporation, increased its premiums by $173 million, or 88%, while its claims payments fell by $74 million, or 32%. As a result, in 2004 it paid out only 43 cents in claims for each premium dollar it collected.

That's Frist's family's company! The same one that was fined by the federal government for ripping off Medicare. Should Frist recuse himself from the Republican medical malpractice bill that would directly, financially benefit HCI's med mal insurance division?

Pete Laney Getting Drafted For Guv

I'm shocked, just shocked that the entire Texas Democratic Party hasn't united around Chris Bell's campaign. Really. I swear.

Yet another potential opponent for Bell:

The last time Pete Laney got swept up in a political draft was when the longtime Democratic state lawmaker was called on to introduce Republican George W. Bush to the nation as president-elect in 2000.

But now, the former Texas House speaker who still represents a sprawling swath of the Panhandle in Austin, might be feeling a draft from inside his own party.

On the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, was showing off a T-shirt touting Laney as a candidate for governor. Several members sidled up to Thompson asking where they could get one.

"The Draft Laney campaign starts here. I sold 50 of these T-shirts in 10 minutes," said Thompson, holding up the shirt with the message: "Save Texas, Laney for Gov -- 06."

[...]

Asked whether he'd encourage or even accept a draft for the Democratic nomination for governor, Laney remained coy.

"It'll take a lot more than a T-shirt," he said with a grin.

DeLay Going Down?

I hate to get my hopes up, but this sounds like the beginning of the end:

A company indicted in a Texas campaign fundraising case says it was told that by giving a Tom DeLay political committee $25,000, company officials would get access to the U.S. House majority leader to influence legislation.

In court documents, Westar Energy of Kansas says that to meet with Mr. DeLay in 2002, company officials "were told they needed to write a check for $25,000" to Texans for a Republican Majority, known as TRMPAC.

It's the first time a company has said it donated to the Texas committee created by Mr. DeLay in exchange for a meeting and legislative help.

Brit Hume Sucks

Via Media Matters:

I mean, my first thought when I heard -- just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, "Hmmm, time to buy."

Texas Republicans Can't Be Trusted

The latest craziness from the special (and when I say special, I mean fucking retarded) session that's going on in Tejas:

A House Republican (Jim Pitts) who told Rep. Dawnna Dukes before she left for France that he would not vote on a major piece of tax legislation changed his mind and cast the deciding vote anyway.

[...]

House rules allow lawmakers to "pair" their votes and make the kind of arrangement that Pitts and Dukes had. They signed a written agreement, but it was never officially filed with House clerks. Pitts said he did not have the paperwork after he signed it.

"I felt bad about this," Pitts said. "But this is something that I understand is done all the time, that people change their minds, that the other person that's out of town changes their mind."

First of all, Dukes should have known better than to fly off to France and trust a Republican to keep his word. Having said that, what a fucking bullshit thing to do - Pitts actually signed a written agreement. The Statesman even has an scanned version of it posted online (see below, mad props to the Statesman for putting actual source material online, btw).

Pitts is a liar who can't be trusted. You can send him an email telling him where to shove it on his official Web site.

Hope in Alabama?

Listening to NPR in a cab at about 2:15 AM last night, I heard an interview with a relatively new Dem Congressman from Alabama, Artur Davis.

In short, he rocked. Defended his vote against the flag-burning amendment in a way that made the opposition seem like wusses.

When he got the question about his rumored statwide ambitions, and whether Alambama would ever elect a Black guy, he turned it into a "Why are northerners always underestimating us here in Alabama?" non-racial state pride sort of thing.

The interview is worth a listen. He expressed the Democratic message far better than I've heard the leadership do recently.

My comment to the cabbie, who looked at me like I was drunk, "Wow, this guy's really on-message. Are you listening to this?" Cabbie: "Where are you going again?"

Kinky volunteers needed

The Dallas Observer has a serious cover story about Kinky's race. I'm starting to believe:

"My old pal Evan Smith [editor of Texas Monthly] told me, 'Kinky, enough of the one-liners. Where's the real substance?'" Friedman says. "Yet he listens to Kay Bailey [Hutchison] or Rick Perry or John Sharp or Chris Bell and he thinks he's hearing substance, and that's ludicrous. I'll tell ya about one-liners. The kings of one-liners are probably Kinky Friedman, Henny Youngman and Oscar Wilde throughout history, but the defense of a good one-liner is that the cowboy uses one line between his saddle horn and the steer he's roped, and hopefully that one line is true and strong. Travis at the Alamo drew one line in the sand for the men to walk across. Jesus had one line on the cross: 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.' So if a one-liner is true and strong, it can save a soul. That's my defense of the one-liner. And I'm telling you, the campaign with the most substance is ours, merely because the candidate and the people around him don't come from politics."

More on Santorum's Book

A dedicated reader forwarded this link to the hilarious reviews of Santorum's new book on Amazon. One might even be tempted to leave a sarcastic review of their own...

Santorum is a nut

Republican nut-job Rick Santorum has a new book out called It Takes a Family (a rebuttal to Hillary's It Takes a Village). CapitolBuzz has been publishing some of the excerpts (see below) and noted that "Santorum makes at least three references to the Lord of the Rings movies in the first 39 pages of the book."

• Who Needs College? "The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong." (It Takes a Family, 138)
  
  
• Keep The Mom At Home: "In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home." (It Takes a Family, 94)
  
  
• Slavery Wasn't So Bad: "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave." (It Takes a Family, 241)

A Senator in the midst of a tough re-election fight thinks it's a good idea to publish a book like this? He should lose based on his political stupidity alone.

Rove

While everyone was out getting hammered this weekend in honor of our nation's birth, Karl Rove was busy bobbing and weaving on the Plame leak:

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years. The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

The whole thing, including the links, is worth a read.

What?? No One's Talking about the Supreme Court?

Or is the news of Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement so before lunch? There are things you can do (even if you know they won't work). If you stop fighting them, you might as well join them, so quit being a side-liner and stand up for just a few things that are about to go down the tubes, including:

right to an abortion
right to birth control
right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure (goodbye warrant requirement)
right to freedom of religion
right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment
right of communities to create Greenbelt and smart growth without paying off landowners
class action law suits
environmental regulations
right to buy GMO-free food

Did I miss anything??