This website is dedicated to
ground zero for democracy. Thanks to Congressquitter Tom DeLay and
Governor Rick Perry, the good people of the Texas 22nd will soon be the
only Congressional District in America since 1776 to have taxation without
representation. Our forefathers shed blood over this. However, our local
Republicans think it's just hunkey dorey,
and they will hit you if you try to say otherwise.
This site mostly is about local politics. Nevertheless, you
folks from foreign states can better understand what the fool tarnation is
going on down there.
Here's the deal: This ain't a blog. It's a professional political
organization. Send me email - I'll post it if I feel like it.
Meanwhile this beauty shop ain't
charging you a dime, so ADOPT A SIGN, dammit.
Police union demands apology
from 'fancy little football person'
DALLAS The head of the
Dallas police union is demanding an apology from Cowboys receiver Terrell
Owens and his publicist, after what was first described as a suicide
attempt by Owens using painkillers.
The Dallas Police
Association is angry that Owens and the publicist disputed part of a
police report dealing with Owens' trip to the hospital.
The police report that was received by several media outlets made
reference to a suicide attempt. But the publicist has called the report
inaccurate. And Owens told reporters he can't remember what he said to
rescuers.
The union chief says police were doing their job -- and now they're being
criticized by what he calls "some fancy little football person." Senior
Corporal Glenn White says, "Those officers are ten times better than this
man."
He's telling Owens and the publicist to apologize to the officers who
answered the call.
Only after Reynolds's definitive
statement did Hastert concede yesterday that he may have been notified of
some of the questionable activities of Foley, 52, who had co-chaired the
Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. Hastert said,
however, that he knew nothing of the sexually explicit instant messages
that became public Friday when ABC News and other news outlets reported
them. The messages apparently were exchanged with youths other than the
16-year-old.
What other secrets is Hastert keeping? I've always thought that Pete
Sessions is a little creepy. Oh yeah, and that Conrad Burns,
he's a shiver, ain't he?
September 30 -
Republican cronyism raises its
hydra head again.
This time they're using our children's education to stuff their pockets with
tax dollars. Bush Pioneer Randy Best made $360 million by rigging the
Department of Education's Reading First program so states had to buy reading
materials from his company, Voyager.
The centerpiece
of the new research-based approach was Reading First, a $1 billion-a-year
effort to help low-income schools adopt strategies "that have been proven
to prevent or remediate reading failure" through rigorous peer-reviewed
studies. "Quite simply, Reading First focuses on what works, and will
support proven methods of early reading instruction," the Education
Department promised.
Five years
later, an accumulating mound of evidence from reports, interviews and
program documents suggests that Reading First has had little to do with
science or rigor. Instead, the billions have gone to what is effectively a
pilot project for untested programs with friends in high places.
You know that place in hell reserved for the druggist who was diluting the
drugs of cancer patients to make more money? Well, these guys won't be
that low, but they will be able to see him from where they are.
September 29 - Yes, I will post
some pictures of the county fair parade. Hold your horses.
With respect to the campaign finance
charge against Deloach, court records reflect that in 2004, Deloach
learned that PBSJ supported the U.S. Senate campaign of Mel Martinez.
Deloach wrote a personal contribution check to the Martinez campaign and
asked four PBSJ employees to do the same. The four employees, and two of
their spouses, made contributions totaling $11,000, for which each was
unlawfully reimbursed.
The good news is that
should trigger
an investigation here in Fort Bend over both “missing” and “found”
campaign contributions to our county commissioners. The bad news is that we
don’t have an investigator.
And that’s double-dog bad news because the
Miami Herald has this little ditty today.
PBS&J has lawsuits against Garcia, Licata
and at least 19 of their friends and relatives to recoup portions of the
embezzled funds that are still outstanding.
“Our client recognizes her criminal
responsibility and is deeply remorseful,'' said Benson Weintraub, Garcia's
Fort Lauderdale lawyer. ''But equally significant is her commendable
status as a whistle-blower, exposing rampant political corruption and
illegal campaign contributions.'' He credited Garcia for alerting
authorities to the political contributions.
Rampant political corruption and illegal campaign contributions? Our
commissioners sure have themselves some dandy friends, don’t they?
September 29 - I just got home from
the parade to find a delightful email from our friend
Steve that said, "You may
have to change your heading. At this rate, maybe the Dems will take back
Congress before the election."
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) just resigned from
Congress, ABC
reports. Apparently, in addition to his
not-quite-gross-but-certainly-inappropriate emails
revealed yesterday, ABC had obtained "excerpts of instant messages
provided by former pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant
Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and
acts."
Just another Republican sicko.
September 29 - It's Fair
Day and I'm on my way to the parade. We'll be bringing you highlights
from last night's local political debate with the Ladies Auxiliary of the
VFW (maybe even some clips), but last night winner of the Somebody Please
Help Me Shut the Dickens Up Award was Jeff Council - candidate for county
treasurer - who proudly announced that one of his main qualifications was
that he "can handle the ladies in the treasurer's office."
Up until that exact
moment, no one knew the staff of the treasurer's office needed or wanted
handling.
Most people present
thought he was running for pimp.
September 28 - You can put them
at the back of the room, but you can't
make them shuddup.
Trent Lott can't understand civil war in Iraq.
“It’s hard for
Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these
people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of
religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist?
Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do
they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.“
Yeah, I know the problem, Trent. I can't tell the difference between
you and a pig's hiney.
Looks the same to me.
September 28 - Major Political
Announcement: Dick Cheney is coming to Houston to fundraise for
Shelley Sekula Hyphen Gibbs on Wednesday, October 4th -- a day that will go
down in political history as What The Hell Was She Thinking Day.
Although the party has
yet to deliver anywhere near the $3 million once claimed by state
GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkhiser, a spokesman for the National
Republican Congressional Committee confirmed Wednesday that the
group had donated $99,465 to assist the write-in campaign of
Republican candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.
Honey, $99,465 won't even get you a priority appointment here at the beauty
shop. Bless her heart, we need to replace Shelley's campaign manager's
"Sex
on the Beach" t-shirt with one that says, "I'm With Sucker."
Several City
Council members walked out on Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs Wednesday,
saying her rhetoric against a police policy on illegal immigrants
exploited for political gain the death of an officer whose funeral they
had just attended.
The symbolic
move was the only time in recent memory that a group of council members
left the chambers to protest a colleague's comments.
[more stuff here
you might want to read.]
"I was
embarrassed to be in the room with somebody talking like that," said
Councilwoman Toni Lawrence, a Republican and one of the first to leave.
We've been calling her Dip Stick around here because that woman is about a
quart low on estrogen.
Hey, at least we
discovered that Shelley owns something black to wear.
Muse thinks Shelley should have to register her clothes with Mattel.
September 28 - This
headline is not classified as "News" at the Beauty Shop, we don't care if it
is on CNN.
"These
effects of testosterone on neurons will have long-term effects on brain
function," they wrote.
"Next time a muscle-bound guy in a sports car cuts you off on the highway,
don't get mad -- just take a deep breath and realize that it might not be
his fault," Ehrlich said in a statement.
And then in the "No Shoot, Sherlock" Department .......
Ehrlich's team tried the same
thing with the "female" hormone estrogen, just to be fair.
"We were surprised, but it
actually looks like estrogen is neuroprotective. If anything, there is
less cell death in the presence of estrogen," she said.
The study also found that breathing was better than not
breathing, and that Richard Nixon is still dead. Brought to you by:
Your friend, Mr. Science.
September 27 - I could be wrong, but
I'd be willing to bet that this was not what Thomas Jefferson had in mind
....
Couldn't get laid at the Chicken Ranch with a hen under each arm and a
twenty dollar bill taped to their foreheads.
September 27 - Now I'm
not saying that energy companies are so crooked that they could steal the
gorilla from a nightmare, but
TXU is under suspicion for manipulating the market.
TXU Corp. may have manipulated wholesale electricity supplies and prices
last year, according to an annual review of the Texas market.
An outside company hired by the state's Public Utility Commission found
evidence that a power producer shut down some of its generating capacity
on certain days in 2005 in order to squeeze supply and boost prices.
The report doesn't specifically name TXU, but it states that the company
in question had about 13,000 megawatts of available capacity. The only
company in Texas with that much juice is TXU.
The report by Potomac Economics Ltd. highlights a growing concern among
industry insiders around the country that big companies could control
local power generation markets, boost wholesale prices and squash
competition.
The report also comes at a time when TXU is trying to get permits to
increase its generation capacity by about 50 percent. The growth plan is
already a hot political topic ahead of state elections because of
pollution concerns.
Deregulation - brought to you by those same friendly folks who brought you
Enron and TXU.
September 26 - You pay your
money to send your kid to college and all you get is
kinky stuff. Kinky and Jesse – those two couldn’t get a brain neuron
synapse with a jackhammer and two plugs.
September 26 - Okay, so I know that
everybody nods off when I start talking about arithmetic and politics. I
know that most of you think it’s as boring as a school play that your kid
isn’t in.
I’ll try to make this interesting. I have pictures and
everything, so attempt to stay awake. Hey, I put some effort into bringing
you this information so brighten up!
You recall
ARMPAC, Tom DeLay’s little money laundering engine, and full employment
proposal for his wife and daughter, that got him into more trouble than
parachuting into a live volcano?
Heck, even
Fox News fessed-up that maybe DeLay messed-up.
Well, after the Federal Election Commission did an audit on ARMPAC
that resulted in several pencils spontaneously combusting and three CPA’s
falling to their knees in gusts of giggles, ARMPAC agreed to something
called a
Conciliation Agreement between FEC and ARMPAC for violations of the Federal
Election Campaign Act.
In that agreement, ARMPAC agreed to go out of business and quit
breaking the law, pay a $115,000 fine to the FEC, and promise to stop
driving around Washington Dee Cee buck nakkid in their BMW’s yelling, “We
are the golf gods” anymore. Okay, so I made up the golf part, but if I was
writing the agreement, it most certainly would have been in there.
The agreement was signed on July 19th, 2006. They had
30 days to pay to fine.
This is just an amusing picture I threw
in for entertainment value and to keep you awake.
Wake the heck up! The good
part is coming.
Okay, I admit that I am so mean that I make a hornet look cuddly, so I made
an FOIA request at the FEC to see the check ARMPAC used to pay the fine. (I
think I just went over the UIL restrictions on usage of acronyms or glitter
in one English sentence. However, if you don’t know what those things mean,
you wouldn’t be here anyway.)
I was hoping they paid the fine late, but they didn’t.
However, in a charming moment of serendipity, I happened to notice
that the check is a tad shy of $115,000.
In the cover letter, the nice FEC Public Liaison person tells me, “Our
search of FEC records has revealed no other documents responsive to your
request.” So, there’s no other check for the remaining $8,128. owed on the
fine. Republican deadbeats. Oh yeah, they’ve got $350,304 to pay to Tom
DeLay’s wife and daughter, but they’re just a tad shy of being able to pay
their fines. Ain’t that just damn amusing?
And why, oh please tell me, did they use a bank check to pay the
fine instead of the non-federal ARMPAC account? Do you think they’re trying
to hide something? Honey, these boys are slicker than a pocket of banana
pudding. Of course they’re trying to hide something.
Now I hope I didn’t bore you too much, but Tom DeLay is still a
twit and I’m glad I can prove it again and again.
September 26 - Okay, so
it's not $3 million, but - hey - the NRCC did pay for a fake poll for
Shelley at $12,000. And, - last I heard - they promised to tie Dick
Cheney to his desk to keep him from campaigning for her. That's worth
at least a million right there!
September 24 - As if county
commissioners didn't have enough explaining to do when they return on
Monday, there's this piece of bully strong-arming against a county employee.
It smells of witness tampering. No wait, I'm wrong. It doesn't
smell, it stinks to high hell of witness tampering. It might even be
official misconduct.
The Texas Safari is where
darned near every Republican fundraiser in the county is held. James
Patterson is a county commissioner.
Good on Stephen Palkot
for getting this story. Here's the story in PDF
format because the Herald hasn't put it online.
Had Enough yet? No? Well, there's more coming. County
commissioners aren't the only ones running around abusing their authority.
There's more to come.
September 24 -
I wonder how many more checks the county commissioners will "find" now?
Under the category of
"Lay Down With Dogs, Get Up With Fleas," our county commissioners would take
money from the devil himself and then plead that they didn't recognize those
horns or cloven hoofs.
Let's be kind and naive
and believe the commissioners are telling the truth about not getting money
from the scandal belch called PBS&J. This is the one contribution they
all admit getting
274237
(click it to open in PDF format). Take a look at
the "straw men" all lined up in a row -- just like the investigation in
Florida revealed.
Local investigation?
They'll just sit around and wait for everyone to die or the law to change.
September 24 - Okay,
thanks to Alfredo, we've got a fun toy for you this morning. There's a new
site on the internets called LegiStorm.
You can use this site to
look up the salaries of congressional staff. You know how lazy your
Congressman's caseworker is? Find out what he's making and get really
hacked off.
One of my first stops, of
course, was Tom DeLay. If you check to see what an incompetent twit
like
Chris Homan was making before he quit DeLay's congressman staff to work
for DeLay's political staff, you can understand
why Homan was so darned mad
to be unemployed. Let's face it, there's not a big calling for
"Wrecking Organizers" in the classified this morning. And when there
is a rare opening, usually a 4 year old gets it.
And, Alfredo points out
that
Shannon
Flaherty and Kevin Madden should have charged by the lie - they would
have made far more money. And look who has the lowest salary - DeLay's
General Counsel! Well that makes sense - it’s obvious that DeLay never
consulted him.
And, if you're stuck at
home on a rainy day with nothing to do, hop on over to the
FEC site to compare what these same folks
are making for working on political work when they should have been working
for us.
And here's
a
little ditty about dirty payrolls from Harper's. One party
government is not a good thing. There's no watchdogs.
Sekula-Gibbs is the Republican write-in candidate seeking Tom DeLay's
former seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. But most voting, even
write-in voting, is now done on electronic machines in the 22nd
congressional district of Texas. The machine most commonly used in the
district requires voters to enter the candidate's name letter by letter,
and it doesn't allow hyphens, so Sekula-Gibbs has eliminated the hyphen in
her last name in all her campaign materials.
And, sadly for her, they say she still won't win, hyphen or not.
It appears that voters aren't as hyphenphobic as Shelley suspected.
September 22 - Willie Nelson's public
statement regarding being caught with a bag of
Marijuana earlier this week:
"It's a
good thing I had a bag of Marijuana instead of a bag of spinach. I'd be
dead by now."
I thought for sure that Willie would claim he was saving the grass and the
mushrooms for bio-diesel fuel. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if
that's a valid defense, but if I were on a jury, I could see the wisdom in
it.
Six months ago, the Texas Ethics
Commission ruled that a politician in this state can receive checks, in
this case worth $100,000, and report nothing more than the word "checks"
on his disclosure form. Today the commission will decide whether the same
ridiculous principle applies when someone gives a state official wads of
cash.
Under a draft proposal before the
commission, politicians would be able receive cash gifts worth any amount
over $250 and report only a gift of unvalued "currency." Did they say
"draft" proposal or "daft"?
Well, this morning, Texas' DA, Ronnie Earle, said, "Its kind of
like reporting you just received a wheelbarrow without having to mention it
is filled with cash." Gotta love Ronnie.
The only way I know to
fix this mess is to get rid of the State Legislature or get rid of cash
money. I vote for dumping every darned member of the Lege. And
if the replacement Lege doesn't take care of business, dump them in two
years ... and on and on until some of them catch on and behave themselves.
Good Lord, these guys are
an embarrassment to even thieves. UPDATE: In
Austin this morning, the Texas Ethics Commission has decided to postpone any
decision on gift definition until December. Yes, December - after the
election. Where the dickens is William B. Travis and his courage now
that we really, really need him?
I'll have more on the
meeting later but I gotta scamper over to the Democratic Women's Luncheon
and Dish Fest.
Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson urged top aides to take contractors'
politics into account when handing out grants and deals, an internal
department review has found, though there is no "direct evidence" that
favoritism actually occurred.
The department's inspector general began investigating Mr. Jackson after
he boasted in a Dallas speech that he'd once scuttled a deal because the
would-be contractor disparaged President Bush.
Another Bush incompetent crony fails to see that governmental agencies work
for the people, not "the administration."
Hey, at least this one
admits he shot off his mouth. Play to play, indeed!
I've never seen such a
large collection of men who need to go buy some Viagra instead of trying to
be all hot shot. That includes Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld.
There ya go, Pay to
Play Pizza!
Add this disgusting story in this morning's
New York Times about auditors from the Interior Department being blocked
into checking underpayments, and you've got Crony Stew!
The auditors contend that they were
blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent
underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in
the Gulf of Mexico.
"The agency has lost its sense of mission,
which is to protect American taxpayers,” said Bobby L. Maxwell, who was
formerly in charge of Gulf of Mexico auditing. “These are assets that
belong to the American public, and they are supposed to be used for things
like education, public infrastructure and roadways."
WASHINGTON -- Republican
activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed landed more than 100 meetings
inside the Bush White House, according to documents released Wednesday
that provide the first official accounting of the access and influence the
two presidential allies have enjoyed.
The White House released the
Secret Service visit records to settle a lawsuit by the Democratic Party
and an ethics watchdog group seeking visitors logs for the two GOP
strategists and others who emerged as figures in the Jack Abramoff
lobbying scandal.
Earlier this month, the White
House suggested to the judge in that lawsuit that such records need not be
disclosed because the information was privileged and might reveal how Bush
and his staff get private advice, according to court documents obtained by
The Associated Press
September 21 - For those
of you keeping up with the continuing saga of Roseland, Indiana, the only
place crazzzzier than Fort Bend County, our friend
Kathy sends us an update.
ROSELAND --
Residents concerned about their town came in force Thursday night to an
informational meeting at the Clay Township Civic and Democratic Club.
Everyone was welcome except Dorothy and David Snyder, the married couple
who compose two-thirds of the Roseland Town Council.
--- lotsa good stuff
omitted here because you really need to go read it for yourself ---
When the
meeting started at 7 p.m., the Snyders were standing outside being
interviewed by a television reporter.
They had been denied entry because the membership of the Clay Democrat and
Civic Club had voted a couple of years ago not to allow them in the
facility, according to McCombs.
Kathy comments --- "I think it's time for them to move out of town
if they can't even go to the Democratic Club. Maybe they'll retire to
Texas."
Hey, Kathy, at least no
old men were beat up this time!
September 20 - Our regular
customer, Sam from Pearland, just sent me some very interesting information
that you need to see.
Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released their Second
Annual report on the 20 most corrupt members of Congress.
Two members
have been removed from last year’s list of 13. Rep. Randy “Duke”
Cunningham (R-CA) is now serving an eight-year jail term for bribery and
Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) has agreed to plead guilty to crimes that will likely
result in a minimum two-year prison term.
The website they opened to follow the corruption is named - you're gonna
love this -- www.beyonddelay.org/
Beyond DeLay. I wish I had thought of that.
Yep. There's
Democrats on the list. Texas only has one listing - Pete Sessions, which
comes as a shock to no one. Since we lost Tom DeLay, California seems
to have the franchise for corruption now.
September 20 - Okay, I'm going
to be honest with you. If Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sends
investigators to peek in my bathroom window, there's gonna be some
investigators with buckshot in their rumps.
Texas voter fraud law under fire
AUSTIN — Willie Ray, 69,
said she thought she was teaching her granddaughter civics lessons in
democracy, but instead the two black women in Texarkana ended up with
criminal records for voter fraud.
Gloria Meeks of Fort Worth, also
69, said she stepped out of her morning bath last month and screamed. Two
voter fraud investigators from Attorney General Greg Abbott's office were
peeking in the bathroom window, Meeks said in a sworn statement.
Abbott's office declined to
discuss specifics, but said its investigation of Meeks has been "conducted
professionally and properly, to the full extent allowed by law."
The last time there was voter fraud in this county, it was being
done by a county employee getting votes for his Republican boss by lying to
elderly Black voters about which primary they were voting in. Nobody
looked in his bathroom window. In fact, nobody did nothing. In
fact, it was a Republican County Commissioner who did it and when he retired
his brother Commissioners named the Senior Citizen's Center after him.
They didn't get the irony
of that. They still don't.
I have been mad about
that for 10 years. I may not be able to do much, but Honey, I
can really hold a grudge!
September 20 - Someone asked me how
the Adopt a Sign program is going. We've raised over $1,000 to buy
more signs and we're still going. I thank you. Fort Bend
Democrats thanks you. America thanks you.
I decided to put a few of
the adoptions online for everyone to see. Some
are shown with their happy new owners!
There's still time to get in this deal for as little as $10.
Republicans make one phone call and get $1,000 from a fat cat. We get
ours $20 at a time from people who want America to be America again.
September 20 - My friend
Mike in Austin sent me this email this morning ---
Juanita,
I just got a phone poll call about political issues. The first series of
questions was on a scale of 0-10 how would I rate:
Rick Perry=0
Tom DeLay-I asked if I could use negative numbers and the girl laughed and
said "Unfortunately not"
George Bush=0
My congressman Lloyd Doggett=10
Mike
Okay, so I got to wondering: why would a poll in Austin include
Tom DeLay? It kinda confused me. Hummmmm ..... why would a
pollster want to know about Tom DeLay who's resigned from national office in
disgrace.
And then it hit me!
Tom DeLay, with all his
own felony indictments and the felony indictments of his friends where he'll
have to testify, will have to spend a lot of time in his old haunt - Austin.
Tom DeLay is considering
establishing residency in Austin and running for office there! Think
about it - it makes sense.
He already has name ID
there - it's where he earned the name Hot Tub Tom.
And getting free tickets
to UT football games may be a steep step down from jetting all over the
country for golf, but at least it's something for nothing and he's getting
diddle squat now.
Hey, look at it this way
- he's probably polling better than Dick Cheney right now.
Phoning It In: Attack in Indiana
by New, Well-Funded Conservative Group
Conservative group's
automated calls tar House candidate with voting to let unsavory material
be sold to kids.
Expect Perry to do the same thing here for his friend Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.
It's probably time to change your phone number before you get assaulted with
Perry-Political-Porn, too.
September 19 - Okay, everybody on your
best behavior. Momma’s back.
I spent the day over at Momma’s house tinkering with her computer
machine. It’s been on the blink for a while so we got her a new one. It
has all the bells and whistles, but all she uses is email and one thing on
her “Favorites” list (that would be me). Momma is
afraid to “surf” because she’s heard about all the pornography on the
internet and she’s afraid that she’ll stumble across some and have a heart
attack right there. “And there y’all would find me dead in my chair with
nasty pictures on my internet machine,” she explains seriously.
Momma don’t take to nasty real well.
She had to ask me what “Mofo” meant when Governor Perry said it.
I explained it gently and clinically but still almost got my butt whipped by
an 80 year old woman. “Hump,” she said to end a conversation she really
didn’t want to have, “I knew he was nasty when I first saw him.”
But Momma comes to my website because some of her lady church
friends do, and she’s more than half scared that I’m gonna say something
outrageous. Momma and her friends are a bunch of Baptist Democrats who pray
for Republicans but really don’t have much hope of Republicans ever acting
like Jesus said to. They don’t have much hope for those “hardshell”
judgmental Southern Baptist either.
It’s a little known fact that my Momma and Aunt Gladys invent all those cute
little “Amazing Women” emails that you get. You know, the ones that have
cute little blinking pictures of puppies and cartoon figures or roses and
canned music. That’s why Momma has email. To exchange those emails with
Aunt Gladys. They just love those things.
Momma now has a $780 computer set up, complete with color printer,
to send Hallmark cards to Aunt Gladys. Momma is happy. Welcome back,
Momma.
The complaint filed in this matter alleged that Congressman Tom DeLay
solicited campaign contributions via phone calls under the guise of an award
program. A review of the public record revealed that the NRCC was the source
of the phone bank. The Commission found reason to believe that the NRCC may
not have included disclaimers in these solicitations after November 2002, in
violation of the law….. The Commission found reason to believe that a
violation occurred.
But then, of
course, they decided not to do anything about it.
However, given the information
indicating that the violations were the result of vendor error and the
subsequent NRCC quality control measures and their apparent effectiveness,
the Commission decided to send an admonishment letter and to take no further
action.
I'm strongly considering changing the FEC and the TEC
"rules" to "suggestions for elected officials."
September 18 - Bob
Ney plead guilty on Friday. On Monday the head of the NRCC is extorting
contributions from corporate PACs:
From
Roll Call (by
subscription only)
DeLay Redux?
A roomful of about 100 high-dollar-donor lobbyists and political action
committee directors huddled late last week with Rep. Tom Reynolds (N.Y.),
chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, for an
election update and strategy session.
According to one source who was
present at the meeting, Reynolds used the election briefing to spread the
word that the endangered House GOP will not look favorably on PACs that
start “hedging their bets” by upping their contributions to Democrats. The
source at the meeting said Reynolds made sure the attendees know that the
NRCC would have no choice but to report back to all House Republicans
details of any PACs or companies that shift their giving.
“That’s an old [former Rep. Tom]
DeLay (R-Texas) tactic,” said the source, who attended the meeting at the
American Trucking Associations on Sept. 14. “Isn’t it that heavy-handed
stuff that backfired and got him in trouble?”
NRCC spokesman Carl Forti
said only, “We don’t discuss things that go on in private meetings.”
You can smell the fear. Hey, keep it up guys, and Tom won't be lonely
in Club Fed.
September 18 - Who would have ever
thought that the terrorists were going to get us by using spinach?
I mean, it makes sense
once you think about it.
They probably saw those
Popeye cartoons and figured that if they kill off all our vegans and healthy
people, it's just be a snap to invade this country. I will not let the
terrorists win! That's why I had a Hershey bar and a Diet Coke for
lunch. If you eat healthy, you're just playing right into their hands.
And they're even sending trucks full of it. (I do not know how Bob
wrote this story with a straight face. You'd have to see the San
Bernard River this time of year to know how funny this is.)
A California man has been arrested after being caught dumping more than
100 boxes of bagged spinach and salad near the San Barnard River southwest
of Needville.
The arrest comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to
warn consumers against eating fresh spinach or products that contain fresh
spinach.
You have to go read the whole story. You really, really do.
Especially if you're from Texas.
Attorney General Steve Carter has filed a lawsuit today in Brown County
Circuit Court against a group making automated phone calls targeting
Democratic congressional candidate Baron Hill
Carter also is seeking a preliminary injunction against the
California-based group, Economic Freedom Fund, which is financed by Bob J.
Perry, a Texas homebuilder with close ties to White House adviser Karl
Rove. Perry also bankrolled the Swift Boat attack ads against the war
record of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004
Carter, a Republican, began investigating the calls after receiving
complaints about them from people who live in the 9th Congressional
District in southeastern Indiana. Hill is running to represent the
district, against Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Sorrel and Libertarian Eric
Schonberg
Bob Perry? Not being able to buy his way around the law? When
did that happen?
September 18 - Our
friend Rich, out in Kentucky, gave us a heads-up this morning for some
Republicans who haven't drank the Kool-aid. The
Washington Monthly says ---
Now
seven prominent conservatives dare to speak the unspeakable: They hope the
Republicans lose in 2006. Well, let’s be diplomatic and say they’d prefer
divided government—soon. (Perhaps that formulation will fool Dennis
Hastert.) Of course, all of them wish for the long-term health of
conservatism, and most are loyal to the GOP. What they also believe,
however, is that even if a Speaker Pelosi looms in the wings, sometimes the
best remedy for a party gone astray is to give it a session in the time-out
chair.
Everything they say is true for our local races, too. County
government has become bloated, self-serving, lazy, and Cronyville under
Republican dominance.
And, as luck would have
it, four of the creepiest local Republicans have opponents this election.
September 17 - Reason #487 why I can’t be
a Republican.
I got an email from a local Republican big time political activist
who we shall call A.D. who lives in Katy, Texas – a part of Fort Bend
County. I won’t embarrass A.D. worldwide by saying his last name right
here, but locals know who he is. If any of you locals don’t know who he is,
ask Sheriff Milton Wright and depending on which side of Milton’s mouth he’s
using that day, A.D. is either a great guy or a total idiot. I kinda stand
in the middle of those opinions.
So, Ole A.D. sends me this email last Friday:
Don’t forget about Katy.
What do you local guys have for us? We had the first women to run for
County Judge. The local democrats are stuck on ethnics.
Now, first I’m going with the obvious. Ethnics?
I spent a whole mess of time and money at Rita Mae’s College of Cosmetology
and Shakespearian Studies, but I have no idea what an “ethnics” is.
Best I can figure, it might be misspelling a character trait of
somebody with a lot of morals, like maybe, “I’d trust Rev. Jim to take cash
to the bank for me. He’s got a lot of ethnics.”
If that is what A.D. meant – then yeah, local Democrats are a
little concerned about the ethics of some elected Republicans and you should
be, too. Thank you for reminding everyone.
However, I am pretty darned sure that A.D. sat at his computer and
mulled over an enlightened word for “colored people” for a long time. Can’t
you just see him at a backyard bar-be-que saying, “Hey, I’ve got nothing
against ethnics. Some of them are my best friends.”
I’m going with the second explanation. After a frightening
primary, our local Republicans elected what we refer to as the Fluffy White
Male Slate. Any minority or woman who went up against a white male in the
GOP primary got whipped. Badly. I don’t know why they just didn’t send
Dick Cheney down here to shoot them in the face – it would have been less
humiliating and could have looked like an accident. But, having every
single woman and minority lose in the primary looks pretty much looks like
it was done by Republicans on purpose.
Yes, local Democrats have highly qualified minorities and women
running for elective office in this county. In county wide races, they a
female Hispanic, a male Hispanic, a female South Asian, and – ta da! – a
white male, and he’s Czech so that makes him especially white in this
county.
The bottom line is that the GOP has the all fluffy white male
ticket and the Democrat’s ticket reflects the population of this county.
YOU tell ME who’s stuck, Honey.
Now we get to the other conservative radio talk show talking
points in the email.
Yes, Katy did have the first woman to run for County Judge. She
got whipped. Twice. In the GOP primary. By fluffy white fellas. Your
point is ……?
Not one single county elected official comes from Katy. That
heavily Republican area has not elected even one person to a county office.
All of them have been beaten in the Republican primary.
However, there is a very qualified Democratic candidate running
for Justice of the Peace from Katy. His name is
Farhan Shamsi – oh dear, an
ethnics.
I can't help but feel sorry for
my old Republican friends in Congress who are fighting for their political
lives. After all, it must be tough explaining to voters at their local
Baptist church's Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party
that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400
billion deficit.
How exactly does one convince the
teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching
a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff,
fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at
record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke
Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their
House majority leader?
How does a God-fearing Reagan
Republican explain all that away?
Easy. Blame George W. Bush.
Escaping political death by
attacking an unpopular president is hardly new -- especially since most
endangered politicians have the loyalty of a starving billy goat. But this
is Dubya's Washington, where the White House has pushed around, bullied
and betrayed GOP lawmakers for years.
And Shelley Sekula Gibbs is bringing Dick Cheney to Houston to
fundraise for her. Has any Republican thought this though? I
mean, why don't they just say, "Dick Cheney is coming to dinner and spinach
salad will be served."
If local Republicans get
any nuttier, we need to replace all those railroad coal cars running through
here with Prozac trains.
September 17 - As we all
know, Bob “As Innocent As Tom DeLay” plead guilty. Buried deep in Bob Ney's
plea agreement is the fact that Bob Ney tried to insert an amendment in the
Help America Vote Act to allow Stolichnaya vodka to label its product "Made
in Russia" when in fact it is made in another country.
Stoli kicked in $25,000 for Ney's St. Andrews golf trip. Wait a minute.
Let me think ..... Crooked politician. Crooked liquor company who wants to
label its product as coming from one place when its made in another. I've
heard this song before.
Oh, yeah -
Bacardi stole the "Havana Club" trademark the same way. And who's been
helping Bacardi steal the Havana Club label? Mel Martinez. But that's only
fair - Bacardi held an illegal fundraising event for
Mel that brought in over $60,000. Hmmm, maybe
Martinez gave Ney the idea - there's big money to be made stealing famous
trademarks . . . Just ask Tom DeLay, the inventor of pay to play.
Good thing our county
commissioners and county judge can’t sell trademarks. They have to settle
for selling out the taxpayers’ money instead.
And speaking of crooked
politicians ...
Rick Casey in today's Houston Chronicle is tired of "lifestyles," too.
September 16 - Okay, so
thanks to Tom DeLay and Rick Perry we've got two elections going on at the
same time here, about a half dozen write-in candidates for one of those
elections - none with easy names, a brand spankin' new election
administrator, and we're using electronic voting machines for the first time
in a major election.
On top of that, last I
heard Vegas was giving even odds that something is going to leak or break or
go kerplunk in Fort Bend on election day.
Add all that together and
you've got - a damn mess bigger than pre-school fingerpainting day.
Yes, you do.
It appears that while the
rest of the country is not experiencing all the difficulties we are,
they are still predicting chaos.
An overhaul in
how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the
Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could
trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's
Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.
In the Nov. 7
election, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting
machines, and a third of all precincts this year are using the technology
for the first time. The changes are part of a national wave, prompted by
the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 and numerous revisions of state
laws, that led to the replacement of outdated voting machines with
computer-based electronic machines, along with centralized databases of
registered voters and other steps to refine the administration of
elections.
But in Maryland
last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches
caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which
followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other
states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the
new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately
prepared to use them
Me? I'm voting early and often.
September 15 - Well, local Democrats
have some people fooled. They are working hard, but they're not nearly
as well-funded as you'd suspect. (If you'll adopt a
sign, it'll help.)
The local newspaper says -----
The
Democratic Party in Fort Bend County this year is well-funded and has been
highly active, said more than one Republican candidate at the Fort Bend
County Republican Party Executive Committee meeting on Thursday.
Fort Bend County has long been considered solidly Republican, but several
contested candidates on Thursday evening told fellow Republicans that
without a unified party and adequate funding, county-wide Democratic
candidates could be elected into some offices for the first time in years.
Read the whole article. The tide is turning and it's starting here.
Local Democrats in Fort
Bend aren't funded by the big boys, corporations, or the national party.
They are funded through bar-be-ques, garage sales, adopt-a-sign, and
donations from members. They are serious about this, and work like the
dickens. The Fort
Bend Democrats Club has led the way in putting Democrats back on the map
in this county.
Be a part of something
that will make history - donate to
Fort Bend DemocratsAdopt a Sign or
Send a check.
The FBCTRA [Fort Bend County Toll
Road Authority] selected the Brown & Gay (BGE)/PBS&J team due to BGE’s
local knowledge and PBS&J’s general engineering consultant (GEC) and
program management experience
Guess who appoints the Board of Directors of the Toll Road Authority?
No, seriously, guess. Okay, you're starting to hack me off. This
game isn't any fun if you always know the answer.
A stone slab
found in the state of Veracruz in Mexico bears 3,000-year-old writing
previously unknown to scholars, according to
archaeologists
who say it is an example of the oldest script ever discovered in the
Western Hemisphere.
The order and
pattern of carved symbols appeared to be that of a true writing system,
according to the Mexican scientists who have studied the slab and
colleagues from the United States. It has characteristics strikingly
similar to imagery of the Olmec civilization, considered the earliest in
pre-Columbian America, they said.
We here at the beauty shop figured it out very quickly. It’s
clearly a campaign contribution receipt. According to our multi-linguist
manicurist, Darleen, the receipt says Congressman Jotec Tslaque has been
awarded a contribution of 4,523 rocks in exchange for his vote to give dart
gun contracts to Halliburton.
Some things never change.
September 14 -
And the beat goes on.
Okay, somebody ain't telling the truth.
PBJ&S Engineering firm
says they are giving money to our county commissioners and the county judge.
Bob Dunn checked and found that - uh oh - most of them aren't
reporting that money.
Somebody is violating
campaign finance laws, either in Florida or here. I'm certain that Bob
will keep on it like oxygen on air.
I wish I had a friend at
the IRS to check all these "charitable contributions" that commissioners
give and the re-imbursement checks they write to themselves. There is
so much room for hanky-panky and these boys are so darned greedy.
By the way, you, too, can
be an investigative reporter. Check the
materials here
against the reports here.
September 14 - I know you're
gonna say, "What's the odd of this originating in Texas again?" but there's
another religious cult who has buried themselves in bunkers because the
world was gonna go kaboom in a nuclear explosion on September 12 but they
forgot about the International Time Zone deal so now it's gonna happen
September 13 which has already passed but there's no way to let them know
because they built bunkers in Kenya and ain't coming out because we could be
the devil just trying to fool them when we say everything is okay.
Abilene. I've been
to Abilene. If the world ended, Abilene wouldn't get the news for
years. I guess they figured that bunkers in Abilene would be too hard
to build.
September 14 - The House of
Representatives just voted to build a 700 mile fence along the border with
Mexico. They didn't say if that was horizontal or vertical.
Neither way won't do any good.
I think we should just
dig a big hole and pour money in it. Oh wait; we did. We call it
Congress.
I heard someone say that
they only thing a 10 foot fence would help is the 11 foot ladder industry.
September 14 - I always
wanted to live in a world with Ann Richards in it.
Here's a great Ann story
as told by Molly Ivins, and a picture of Ann dancing with one of my sons
during happy days.
Several
years ago there was a big political do at Scholz Beer Garten in Austin and
everybody who was anybody in political Texas was there, meetin' and greetin'
at a furious pace. About halfway through the evening, a little group of us
got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table by the back
wall of the Garten. Like birds in a row were perched Bob Bullock, the state
comptroller; me; Charlie Miles, a black man who was then head of Bullock's
personnel department (and the reason Bullock had such a good record on
minority hiring); and Ms. Ann Richards.
Bullock, having been in Texas politics for thirty some-odd years,
consequently knew every living sorry, no-account sumbitch who ever held
office. A dreadful old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my
boy, how are yew?" The two of them commenced to clap one another on the back
and have a big greetin'.
"Judge," said Bullock. "I want you to meet my friends. This is Molly Ivins
with the Texas Observer."
The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"
"This is Charles Miles, who heads my personnel department." Charlie stuck
out his hand and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had
just stepped into a fresh cowpie. It took him a long minute before he
reached out, barely touched Charlie's hand and said, "How you, boy?" Then he
turned with great relief to pretty, blue-eyed Ann Richards and said, "And
who is this lovely lady?"
Ann beamed and said, "I am Mrs. Miles."
September 13 - Bob Dunn at Fort
Bend Now is real smart. He took the PBS&J
story one step further than I did and called the county commissioners to
see if they were willing to talk. I'd say that they played dumb,
except it's not playing for them.
You can read Bob's amazing story by clicking here.
In its most recent
local activity, PBS&J PAC made political contributions of $800, $2,000 and
$2,500, respectively, to Stavinoha, Meyers and Hebert, all on March 6,
2006.
A week before the
contributions were made, Hebert, Meyers and Stavinoha joined Prestage and
Patterson in unanimously voting to extend an engineering services contract
for PBS&J.
According to
information from the Fort Bend County Engineer’s office, the contract
involves preliminary engineering and right-of-way acquisition services for
a Texas Department of Transportation project to widen F.M. 359 near
Richmond.
However, no
information obtained in preparing this report suggests the timing of the
contribution is more than coincidence.
There are more coincidences at Commissioner's Court than legally allowed by
the fiction section of your local library. That many coincidences in a
story moves it to the fantasy section.
It appears that
Commissioner Andy Meyers got his talking points straight from Jack Abramoff,
Bob Ney, and the K Street crooks.
Meyers said
engineering firms wanting to do business with the county all have been
told the same thing by commissioners – “at some point…it will be your
turn.”
Yes, it'll be your turn as soon as you give Andy some money.
And you thought I was
upset over their 17% payraise? Oh Honey. You ain't even seen
upset yet. I'm boot kicking mad.
September 13 - Tom DeLay's
sub-career of changing America one Dancing with Stars
episode at a time has fallen on hard times.
Today's Dallas Morning
News reports that the evil dance-o-fascists have intervened with Texas's
highest criminal appeals court to conspire against Tom DeLay and his idol,
Sara Evans
AUSTIN - Texas' highest criminal appeals court said Wednesday it would
consider reinstating a dropped conspiracy charge against former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, further delaying his trial on felony money
laundering and conspiracy counts.
Dirty rotten dancing-hating Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals. They are obviously
Harry
Hamlim fans and they hate Tom DeLay and his American dancing values!
The Belles of Heaven
Republican Women's Club will be all atwitter over this. They will be
some strongly worded letters written, I can assure you of that!
September 13 - This is kinda an
important story so stick with me.
The Miami Herald has
broken a story that goes to the core of corrupt pay to play politics and, of
course, there’s a Fort Bend County connection.
The Miami Herald tells the story of a company – PBS&J – who gave illegal
campaign contributions to secure lucrative government contracts. Their
investigation centers on Miami’s connection, but, the Herald contends, this
appears to have happened all over the Unites States.
The Miami-based engineering company being investigated for alleged
campaign law violations has been a prolific giver to election campaigns,
handing out more than $500,000 in political contributions since 2003, The
Miami Herald has found.
PBS & J and its leadership have backed scores of candidates across the
country, Republicans and Democrats, for offices with influence over the
kinds of lucrative government contracts the company often seeks.
Fort Bend County is included on that list of shame.
Our four county commissioners and the county judge have eagerly taken
political contributions – some even yearly – from PBS&J. And PBS&J got their
money’s worth.
According to the Fort Bend County Auditor, Fort Bend County itself
does a moderate amount of business with PBS&J. I filed an open records request
to see how much business Fort Bend does with PBS&J
After that, it was a short trip to see if our county
commissioners and county judge, the body that decides which engineering
firms get county business with non-bid contracts, are taking campaign
contributions from PBS&J. As I suspected, every one of them is a PBS&J slut
– a couple of them just get a better price than others. It’s merely a call
girl versus street vendor situation.
To no one’s shock, County Judge Bob Hebert and Commissioner Andy
Meyers are the worse offenders. The two beasts of greed, Meyers and Hebert,
are the reason that check writing machines were invented – you simply cannot
write checks to them fast enough by hand.
County
Judge Bob Hebert's political contributions from PBS&J are below:
And Andy Meyers, our
Christian Coalition Commissioner? He's a high priced hooker, too.
Take a look.
I used to always
complain that I didn't mind that our County Commissioners are for sale.
Heck, everybody is for sale. I just minded that they are for sale
so damn cheap. Some are. Here's Grady Prestage, James Patterson,
and Tom Stavinoha.
You know, being a county commissioner is the best paying job any of
these guys have ever had. They make $100,000 a year of your
money with great benefits that you pay for. You'd think they'd
try their darnest to keep from embarrassing you by doing
pay-for-play business with crooks.
Check out the chart in
the Miami Herald article. They are concerned with much smaller
contributions than these.
There's more to
come......
September 12 - Since
this is a beauty salon, we occasionally feel the need to link to
beauty sites. And since this is also a professional political
organization, we often link to political sites, too.
Sometimes we kill two birds with one stone.
Raw Story comments on
the eight worst trends in congressional coifs.
We are strongly
considering doing the same story for local politics. Be
afraid. Be very afraid.
Pictured:
A splendidly
coifed Andy Meyers
September 12 - Throwing in
the towel and dissing David. Republicans come to their senses.
Texas Insider has their own Jason Kriss heave the big sigh and
wave the white flag. In discussing what the GOP should do in
DeLay's old district, Kriss grabs hold of some sanity and tries to
spoon feed it to those who are still delusional ----
Second, no amount of money
will win the race. It wouldn’t matter if the Republicans sent $10
million dollars to the Gibbs Campaign. She couldn’t spend it in a
manner to get any bang for the buck. Television and radio time
have already been bought up by candidates for Governor, Congress,
State Representative, Senate, and other offices. Voters getting 2
direct mail pieces every day from now until the election would
still not overcome the margin needed to make a credible showing.
Any money the state or national party sends to this district would
be better spent defending our majorities in the Congress, and
Texas House and Senate.
In suggesting
who the GOP should run in 2008, Kriss says,
The first names that come to
mind would be Eckels, Bettencourt and Talton.
And then to rub salt in the wound, their qualifications are based on
the exact things that Wallace lacks.
All three of these men are
conservatives who have a reputation for being honorable leaders
that at the same time can have a record of conservative principles
to stand on.
All three of these men know
how to campaign and raise money.
All three also know how
important it is to help grow the party at the local and state
level.
But they don't have great hair! Wallace gets to keep the great
hair title. Hey, if you gotta have something, great hair ain't
a bad thing to have.
September 12 - And in an
about-face of State Rep
Gene Seaman blaming his wife for political troubles, maybe Nandy
Berry has justification for spousal blame. Nandy’s husband, Houston
City Councilman
Michael Berry, has declared war on cats.
Nandy has been mentioned as a replacement candidate for
Shelley Sekula-Gibbs since Shelley got suckered into the special
election race.
Berry occasionally suffers from that disease where your
mouth gets about half a mile ahead of your good sense.
Now in his
third and final term on council, Berry risked raising the hackles
of a good chunk of the electorate by describing cat owners as
"un-American" and proposing an ordinance to allow diners to bring
their dogs onto restaurants' outdoor patio.
According to
Berry, no invitation will be issued to feline owners. "Cats are
not cool," Berry told Chronicle columnist Ken Hoffman. "They don't
belong in restaurants or near people food. Cats aren't even good
pets. You don't own a cat; a cat owns you.”
Michael, if you want your wife to stay home and cook instead of
running for city council, maybe you could insult the San Jacinto
Monument next.
September 12 - It appears
that County Judge Bob Hebert has back-up lights on that tricycle
he’s riding down the sidewalk on Money Street.
Remember how the County Judge waited until 2 members of
Commissioners Court were absent to shove through a
17% payraise while giving county employees 3%? People present
said that the next agenda item was to tie a widow lady to a railroad
track, but extra rope wasn’t in the budget so they sent it back to
committee for further study to see if they could use barbed wire to
tie her up instead.
Much to the County Judge’s shock, some people think that
making Bob Hebert needlessly rich ain’t real high on the taxpayer’s
agenda.
It’s really not Hebert’s fault for thinking this. There’s
so many people blowing smoke up his butt that the poor man has to go
to a fat farm every couple of years just to be able to fit in a
chair. Nadine thinks that he had bypass surgery during his last fat
farm visit so now all that smoke is going straight to his head.
Anyhow, I guess enough county employees made oinking
sounds as he walked by, because now
he’s spinning like a windmill in a tornado.
He and other elected officials
furthermore said another raise for the elected officials in
question would not happen until the Texas Legislature votes to
increase the salaries of district judges.
On Monday, however, Hebert denied that is the county's policy when
asked to clarify an Aug. 11 e-mail by one of his staff members,
which stated that "the court may consider a COLA (cost of living
adjustment) adjustment if the legislature delays an extended
period of years."
Stay tuned. You’ll
want to be around when his pants catch fire and nobody notices
because they thought it was just more smoke.
September 11 - My Muse
of all things fashionista and politicalite has a story of tragic
proportions ---
a Congressional campaign song. According to My Muse, she
has links and everything. Shelley is making news already, but
it's not good news.
You remember I told you about
how I saw her at the
Shrimp Fest accosting people
and telling them that they had to vote for her twice, holding up
first one finger, then the other while she told them about the
special and general elections. I knew there was a detail I
omitted. She did this in a SING SONG voice.
It's a downhill side from there.
September 11-
Poor Sugar Land
Mayor David Wallace. I mean, the guy just can’t catch a break.
First, he gets suckered by the Sekula-Gibbs campaign into
dropping out of the race for CD22, now his campaign manager’s law
firm looses another courtroom battle.
Remember back when David filed an
amicus brief with the Court of Appeals? Of course you
remember. The brief was so bad that it was arguably the one thing
that threw the whole tamale in the Democrats' favor.
Next thing we knew, Wallace’s lawyer (who also happened to
be his campaign manager)
asked the FEC if they had report their legal work as a corporation
donation to Wallace.
Soooo, while Wallace was trying to pretend he was the
Knight on a White Horse who’d come to save the Republican party from
the horrors of the rule of law here at home by spending $10,000 from
his campaign account to pay for this wondrous magical brief, he was
playing a different fiddle at the FEC. He was trying not to pay the
$10,000.
The advisory opinion came today. They said, “Yo, Bub, no
corporate contributions means no corporate contributions. What is
it about NO that you and your legal eagles don’t comprede?”
Well, they said it nicer than that, but that’s what they
said. Here’s the paperwork. While this is
just an advisory opinion ( the final opinion comes on Thursday), the
odds of the FEC disagreeing are about the same as Wallace winning a
write-in in Clear Lake. Zero.
Poor Sugar Land mayor David Wallace. The guy just can’t
catch a break. Here or there. He's gotta pay his lawyers ten
thousand dollars - for something that didn't work.
September 11 - Okay, everybody
get one. Don’t be showing up at the beauty shop without one. My
friend Julie in California just went into the Café Press business
and has the
best darned tee-shirt and bumper sticker I’ve seen so far. You
gotta go get your own ‘cuz I ain’t letting you borrow mine.
The good news here is that it's nice to see a
Republican getting involved in the arts. The bad news is that if
this is the arts, then Sponge Bob is cinema.
But the interest in television doesn't surprise
me. Hey, if there's cash in it for the Republican Party, DeLay
would go on "Queer Eye" to get a wax job and his eyebrows plucked.
It was worth waiting for, wasn't it?
September 11 - Looks like
Ole Kinky is promising a cop on every corner, which don’t say
much for the state of affairs he thinks Texas will be in if he’s
elected.
I wonder if he’s heard about Sheriff Milton Wright’s “Hole-up
in a Winnebego” plan? By the way, a friend told me yesterday
that everybody around town is calling it the Hoochy Coupe. Dang, I
wish I had thought of that.
September 11 - Okay,
okay. This is so great. You remember the
Joe Reasbeck guy from Travis County who up and decided to run as
a write-in for Texas 22? None of us could find out anything about
him – he wouldn’t even answer his phone when I called him to find
out who he is.
Well, my friend
Bob found him. Candidate Reasbeck has a MySpace blog. No, I am
not lying. He does. Take a deep breath and
give it a quick click before you lose your nerve.
On the upside, he’s got a real pretty wife. And issues.
I mean, you gotta hand it to him, he has issues. That’s more than
Shelley has. He’s a Aries and his wife is a Gemini for those of you
who base your vote on Astrological signs instead of issues.
On the downside, he’s 37 years old and he has a MySpace
blog.
September 10 - I am so sorry
to report that Texas’s own Jake Johnson has gone on to the great
House Chamber in the Sky. San Antonio lost a legend and Texas
politics lost one of it’s biggest fans.
He once suckered 22 Texas
House members into voting against the Bill of Rights. Of course
that was back when it was unpopular to oppose the Bill of Rights.
You can tell if somebody
has been around Texas politics for a long time if they can tell you
why the best sound bite ever is "The land commissioner is choking
me."
Great story.
September 10 - Yesterday I was
honored to get to hear everybody’s favorite Texas Democratic Party
County Chairman, Evelyn Burleson of Calhoon County, speak in Edna,
Texas. Honey, Evelyn can part the waters with words. A true Texas
lady, Evelyn has a lifetime of wisdom, wit, and the most slow sweet
Texas drawl that ever slid into your ear.
Evelyn’s message is that
Republicans are too darned mean-spirited to be in charge of
anything. She smiled and made the word “mean” have three syllables
when she told stories of just pure orneriness that Republicans in
her county exhibit, including but not limited to, sending people to
pester her at church.
But the quote that send
the crowd to their feet was when she slowly but confidently
explained that, “Conservatism is just a political justification for
being stingy!” Amen, Evelyn.
Right here is Evelyn with three
gentlemen admirers. The picture, of course, was taken right
before the football game so Evelyn had her trademark "Hook 'Em" in
every picture taken. If you ever get a chance to hear her
speak, hurry fast and get a front row seat!
Thanks to my friend Stephen Jabbour, Chairman of Victoria County
Democratic Party, for helping put this event together. If you
want to read more about it,
check my favorite blogger.
September 10 -
Texas Weekly (subscription only) has a nifty article this week
about Texas lawmakers buying property in Austin, putting it in their
wives’ names and then paying “rent” to their wives from political
campaign accounts.
It’s a hitch in the law
against enriching themselves with campaign funds, but it’s
apparently legal under the theory that you can never make anything
foolproof because there will always be a bigger, better fool.
What this amounts to is
that lobbyists buy lawmakers’ spouses a fancy condo. It’s a cool
gig if you can get it.
Texas Weekly's research
found 4 members of the Texas Lege taking advantage of this new home
financing scheme, all Republicans.
However, one of our
favorite Bob Perryista candidates,
Gene Seaman, Republican – Corpus Christi, got his tongue stuck
to an ice pole when trying to explain other odd financial happenings
---
Seaman has a problem the
others don't have: He and his wife are claiming homestead and
over-65 exemptions on properties in both Nueces and Travis
Counties. Seaman didn't return our calls himself. Mac
McCall, a campaign consultant to Seaman, says the
double-exemptions are a mistake that the couple didn't even know
about until we asked. And he puts the blame squarely on the
candidate's wife: "Ellen owns the property. She made an honest
mistake and was totally unaware of it until you raised the
question. This is not a Gene Seaman mistake."
Republican men do not make mistakes. Ever. Well, except for
marrying mistake-prone women. And their mothers made them do that
so it really doesn’t count.
Texas Weekly does a great
job of breaking down the numbers on the properties. There's really
embarrassing greed involved.
Seaman’s opponent,
Juan Garcia, is leading Seaman in fundraising and poll numbers.
By the way, the only challenge to
Shane Sklar's cammo
campaign shirts to being the Best in Texas are Garcia's "Army
of Juan." Close call. If you're smart like me,
you'll add both to your collection.
September 9 - I accidentally
heard Tucker Carlson say on teevee last night that there is no irony
in Tom DeLayLand.
Tucker was referring to
the Tom DeLay
political email in support of his favorite dancer on a teevee
reality show and the sad lack of reality that DeLay has become.
Well, Rev. Al Sharpton
has jumped into the dancing fray and, as he is apt to do, made fun
of making fun.
Now the
Rev. Al
Sharpton,
a staunch Democrat, has thrown his support behind conservative
MSNBC pundit Tucker
Carlson.
"We are living in trying and uncertain times," the
good reverend writes, tongue in cheek. "That's why now, more than
ever, we need a strong leader who will stand up for what we
believe. Better yet, we need a leader who will dance for what we
believe. Tucker Carlson is just such a dancer
I don't care who you are, that's funny.
September 9 - In
Texas, she would have taken her
SUV and shotgun, ran him over a couple of times and then filled his
butt with more lead than a sinker factory.
Thanks to my friend Carol in Vermont for reminding us that sometimes
the best way to get even is to be gracious.
September 8 - - Honey, we’ve got law in this state against torturing
cockroaches,
but what we really need are laws against torturing language or twisting
logic to death.
As I predicted
on Tuesday, Shelley’s push poll has actual results.
--Sekula
Gibbs is at 46% versus Lampson's 35%, and the generic ballot in this
district provides a Republican with an 11-point lead.
The second half the sentence ain’t even related by marriage to the first
half of the sentence. There’s a reason why Shelley didn’t release the poll
questions or information about where the calls were placed. There’s also
reason why the terms “generic ballot” were used in the press release. Nobody with a brain cell collection believes that Shelley leads
Lampson by 11%. Goodness sakes, DeLay only won by 5%. Bizarro, indeed. There’s more -----
--85% of voters know that there is a
Republican write-in candidate; furthermore, more than 50% recognize the nominee to be Shelley Sekula Gibbs.
But, the poll wasn’t meant for people who live here in the
district. It was sent all over Washington, DeeCee, to impress the
pay-for-play politics of corruption guys. Hey, maybe the Sex on the Beach
tee-shirt would have impressed them more!
September 7 - Sweet Holy Mother of
Government Waste. Sheriff Milton Wright has a
mobile unit for his special prisoners! No, no, wait .... I can't
stand it. Let's think on this. Okay, Milton Wright has a
customized Winnebago just in time
for hunting season! You're gonna have to
click on the little picture for the full effect because this sucker is wider
than your computer screen. Why, a picture of this wasted money weighs
15 pounds!
And he put his name on
it! Honey, you gotta have a real tiny little dinky to need your name
on that sucker! We taxpayers already spent a boatload of money getting
a ruling that Milton can't go around putting his name on things, even if
it's something he can use for a tailgate party. I'm going to ponder
tomorrow on what you could do with this behemoth and who the hell is gonna
pay for the gas? I give them a week to put
spinners on it. Okay, the humor gods have
smiled on me once again. I'll get a month out of this. Sorry,
taxpayers. If they needed a mobile
communications unit, couldn't we have just bought them a pre-paid boost
mobile calling plan to say, "Where yat?" If our commander
lacks mobility, wouldn't a souped-up
Rascal
do the trick? You know the saying ---
One Texas Ranger; one hideous hyperbole. The last time I saw
anything this funny, it was in the movie Stripes. I have to quit. I
need to save some for next week.
By giving adequate pay to the people
who do the real work of the county, our offices will run more efficiently
and better serve the people of Fort Bend County.
That's a novel concept: pay the people who do the actual work.
Religious leaders in North Texas have been pleading to
the heavens for rain for a long time -- in fact, the minister who gave the
invocation before the Aug. 31 council meeting said a prayer for rain, he
said.
Doherty also pointed to recent weather as evidence that
prayer works.
"The resolution passed Thursday, and on Friday, we got a
good rain," he said. "We had the day of prayer Sunday, and we got another
good rain Monday."
It all started when the city council met in an illegal closed session,
confiscated public record documents, and took a reporter's notes. Fun
story. Reminds me of the time that one of County Attorney Bud
Childers' lawyers grabbed papers out of my hand and ran into the restroom to
hide. She was a woman. So am I. There's only one door in
and out. Dumb. So Aledo wants to
challenge Roseland, huh?
September 7 - Prediction:
this will be the next major scandal to hit Fort Bend County, and, of
course, it involves Tom DeLay's friends. Tom's plan was to get all his
friends in legal trouble, too, so he wouldn't be lonely in prison. I have never been a fan
of the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, but now we may be looking at
some rich-off-the-taxpayer's-teat-good-ole-boys in deep hurt. For at
least 10 years, the EDC has been given full rein and a free ride in this
county. Reckoning time may well be here. However, disgrace and
resignation may be the best we can hope for because our District Attorney
can't, won't, is too dumb to, has too many Republican friends, is a scared
little boy, whatever ....
Is the Texas Energy Center a
taxpayer-financed boondoggle for the oil and gas industry, or an economic
development driver of new jobs and cutting-edge technology? Consider these
facts:
•
The TEC has received $3.6 million from Gov. Rick Perry's economic
development slush fund and is guaranteed federal funding over the next
decade as the "host facility" of a nonprofit consortium called the
Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, whose members include
Halliburton and Fluor Corp. Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay is credited with
slipping the consortium provision into an omnibus energy bill that
Congress passed in 2005.
•
The founders of the TEC hold strong ties to former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.
•
The TEC is managed by DeLay's friends at the Greater Fort Bend Economic
Development Council. The TEC has no executive director, no Web site (the
original Web site was taken down in 2005), and no proof of the 365 jobs it
claims to have created.
•
The TEC, the Fort Bend economic development council, the Fluor Corp., and
a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, all lease office space at
the same prestigious address (along with Sunoco Logistics and a TXU call
center) – One Fluor Daniel Drive in Delay's hometown of Sugar Land.
September 6 -
So she was all like, “I’m not speaking to you,
Missy”, and I was all like, “So, don’t get all up in my grill, McKenzie,”
and
then
she said that Dane was taking Bethany to Starbucks and I was soooo all like
don’t even start that and she was soooo like shaking her neck all green and
then you-know-who comes by and …… Tell me this is a mistake even though Palkot usually gets things right.
Tell me that Shelley didn’t refer to her opponent as “you know who.”
Sekula-Gibbs, who by circumstance
seeks the 2006 term as a write-in candidate, referred to her Democratic
opponent, Nick Lampson, as "you-know-who.”
Look, people, you cannot expect me to last until November if this stuff
keeps up. I’m serious. No, really, she's gotta quit this stuff.
September 6 - Oh. Dear.
Now Tom DeLay is using his Congressional email list to pimp for country
western singers. You think I make this
stuff up, don't you?
Click on this sucker to see it full sized. You're gonna
wanna read this.
As you know, Tom spent 20
years in Congress pimping for lobbyists. As you probably don't know,
United Pimps of America, Local 346, will revoke your pimp license if you
don't use it for more than 6 months.
So, all of you sending me
email asking if Tom is crazy, the answer is, "like a fox, my friend."
He's just keeping his pimp license current. You never know what
licenses you're gonna need in the pokey.
I could not make this stuff up. I couldn't. I'm not talented
enough. You might ask how I know
it's his Congressional email list. Well, smart person that I am, I
sign-up for email lists using different combinations of my name. I
signed up for Tom's with "s" as my first name.
September 6 - More
Republican family values from the Wall Street Journal. Tom DeLay
may not be going to jail alone. That's the downside. The upside
is that conjugal visits would be more convenient.
The Justice Department's congressional
lobbying-and-bribery investigation is looking into whether former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay's wife received money from a lobbying firm for a
no-show job, recent FBI interviews indicate.
The two-year investigation is
examining whether lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others sought legislative
favors for their clients by offering expensive meals, sports tickets, golf
outings and other gifts to about a dozen lawmakers and congressional
aides.
For the past 20 years, Tom DeLay has blamed his wife for everything.
Remember the hot check scandal? And even recently he blamed Christine
for his withdrawal from Congress. I will bet you a crawfish
dinner that Tom tries to make Christine take the fall for the entire
Abramoff disgrace. There's more.
In last month's interviews,
investigators also asked about $144,000 that Mrs. DeLay received from one
of Mr. DeLay's fund-raising committees, the Americans for a Republican
Majority Political Action Committee, which was housed at the lobbying
firm's offices. Investigators also inquired about fees paid to Mr. DeLay's
daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, a longtime political consultant to her father.
Shelley! Listen-up, Babe! It's probably okay that you're
following Tom's advise right now. But, for the love of Hershey Bars,
do not let him drag your family into this. He gives a whole new
meaning to jail bait.
September 5 -You
know, I don’t mean to be tacky, but this certainly falls under the “Bless
her heart” category. Ladies in
Texas don’t talk trash. We just don’t. When we
see a woman making a fool of herself, we preface it by saying, “Bless her
heart,” as in “Bless her heart, she ain’t been quite right since the pig ate
her prom queen tiara.” Or , “Bless her heart, all of her mirrors must have
broken last night or else she wouldn’t be wearing that frightful color of
eye shadow.” Bless her heart, Shelley
Sekula Gibbs ain’t from around here. She thinks this is our first rodeo and
them spangles on her barrel racing outfit can distract us from poor riding. Last week, Shelley ran a
push-poll. You know, one of those things where they call you and ask,
“Well, if you knew that Bubba Frontage likes to drown little baby kittens,
especially the cute ones, but his opponent, Lorilee Hitch, is so holy that
while she cannot walk on water quite yet, she can make it across a ditch in
four steps, who would you vote for?” One of my good friends
got one of those calls. She told them, “Bless your heart, you ain’t from
around here, are ya?” They kept asking
questions about which of the two she’d vote for until my friend feared the
next question was going to claim that Nick Lampson is wants to legislate
against putting stars on top of
Texas monuments. Now, anybody with the
sense that the good Lord gave a field mouse knows that this is called
“wasting money trying to look good.” I ain’t hollering about that.
Goodness knows, I’ve spent plenty of money that way. I probably have 280
tubes of lipstick that were all gonna make me look like Angelina Jolie and
didn’t. And I can’t blame Shelley
for trying to look like a serious candidate, especially after that
unfortunate
Sex
on the Beach incident and the whole
pink leggings thing.
But, Honey, this ain’t our first rodeo. As any barrel racing woman will
tell you, “work on your riding, not on your sequins.” I suspect she'll release
the poll this week. I also suspect she'll be leading the race, with
Lampson in a distance fifth behind Stockman, Richardson, Smithers, and a
player to be named later. I'm just saying.
September 5 - The
Fort Worth Star Telegram
has called the Texas CD22 race for the Democrats, and explains why Shelley's
three million dollars got stuck on a train right outside of College Station.
Republicans are making another run, in what some say
could be one of the costliest congressional races this year, at the
House district represented by veteran Democrat Chet Edwards.
Gaining this seat could help Republicans keep their
House majority, a task made more difficult considering that many
expect another key Texas district -- the 22nd, formerly held by Tom
DeLay of Sugar Land -- to go to a Democrat.
Psssst. Shelley, David, over here. Shhhh..... I think maybe Tina
Benkiser may have lied to you about the three million big ones. Another
hint that y'all have been suckered? This line ...
The National Republican Congressional Committee last
month reserved more than $40 million in TV advertising time this fall,
mostly for seats already held by the GOP. Republican officials say
they plan to spend at least $1 million in an effort to unseat Edwards.
If they're only spending one million in 17 - a seat they think they can win -
why would they spend 3 million here for a shot so long that it would take a
curved bullet to fly the horizon?
September 4 -
Okay, Murlene and I have changed the rules. Listen
up. You know how you weren’t
supposed to wear white after Labor Day? We changed that rule. We decided that
you can wear white any day that’s over 90 degrees. This is official. We’ve
announced it to the proper authorities and had the media notified. You can
refer your Momma to us for re-education. And, yes, the rumors
you've heard are true. I'm going to start a shoe blog as soon as I get
tired of this political stuff.
WASHINGTON -- They called it the
"Congressional Cruise Series," featuring lovely evenings on a luxury yacht
complete with "two large staterooms ... a deluxe entertainment center and an
airy comfortable salon." They billed it, unabashedly, as a way for lobbyists
to develop relationships with influential politicians.
By all appearances, the National Marine Manufacturers Association's program of
taking members of Congress and their staffs on cruises--and hosting
fundraisers for lawmakers aboard the same boat--succeeded quite nicely.
The cruises have yielded photos of a
congressman at the helm of the yacht and group shots of other lawmakers posed
on the boat with their smiling aides, all posted on the association's Web
site. At least one of those congressmen later proposed legislation that the
association strongly favored.
Too bad the NMMA took down their web site (www.nmma.org)
after the Chicago Tribune reported that it contained pictures of Members of
Congress lounging on the NMMA's yacht. They had a nice report on a
fundraising event they held for party-boy Pete Sessions at a marina.
September 4 - The Washington Post ran an article saying the the number of seat the GOP is
projected to lose in the House has doubled over the summer. Duh. Pardon me for
interrupting big time professional journalism, but you don't have to have a
complete Mr. Science Weather Station to know which way the wind is blowing.
You can just stick you head out the window and see the disgust circling
overhead. Honey, after reading that
article, I wouldn't stand down at the corner on a cold day in a light sweater
waiting for the National GOP to come riding in with an infusion of $3 million
dollars to help someone win both a write-in vote and a special election, plus
run-off.
By the way, the more I
think about Sheriff Milton Wright having "Who's Your Daddy"
justice at the jailhouse and running a Visitor's Room out of his public office,
I just get madder than a wet hen. I've been trying to tell y'all for years
that he's worthless as a four card flush, and he's set about to prove it one
more time.
The answers were so good, Republican candidates
wanted to use them as their own. The embarrassment was at least seven did.
Republicans in House races copied their party's talking
points and included parts of the answers as their own for an AARP survey. The
answers related to Medicare, Social Security, insurance plans and retirement.
Candidates in Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, South Carolina
and Texas all submitted the sometimes word-for-word responses, which originated
with the National Republican Congressional Committee
Or maybe they
couldn’t spell, “Whatever Fox News and Donald Rumsfeld tell me.” But, of
course, the candidate with the most embarrassing statement about the situation
comes from Texas, dammit.
Van Taylor's campaign in Texas said the language
helps the candidate understand the issues.
"It's only natural when we were running for Congress,
he wanted to become as knowledgeable as he could on the issues," said Casey
Phillips, Taylor's campaign manager.
You used talking points to understand the
issues? Oh Lord, Mr. Taylor, do you get your religious experience from bumper
stickers?
September 1 - Tom DeLay's culture of
corruption has trickled down to the Fort Bend County elected officials.
Star reporter
LeaAnne Klentzman has done an excellent investigative reporting piece ('bout
time the The Star does something investigative!) on Sheriff Milton Wright
disobeying court orders and giving special privileges to one female inmate.
The inmate's father has made many large campaign contributions to Wright.
The story also reveals
that our Republican Far Right Christian Coalition so-called-tough-on-crime State
Representative Charlie Howard charges $1,000 for a letter to a judge requesting
leniency for your adult child. Tom DeLay taught them
that "pay to play" is perfectly okay and they are doing it to the hilt. Our county judge and
commissioners give lucrative non-bid contracts to their large campaign
contributors and then they expect the sheriff to take care of business properly?
Our Republican District
Attorney took thousands of dollars from The Bob Perry family (yes, of swift boat
fame), a well-known DeLay and David Wallace protector, and then refused to get a
special prosecutor for this event. We have Judge Brady
Elliott, bought and paid for by personal injury lawyers, and disturbingly
lenient to sex offenders. If even one local
Republican expresses shock or concern over what Milton Wright did, then they
better be ready to explain where their mouths have been for the past 4 years as
pay-to-play became the GOP norm here. Had enough? I'm not
even wound up yet, Honey. Milton Wright is
incompetent and his integrity is shot to heck. He needs to admit that this
job is way over his head and resign immediately. He should take the county
judge and commissioners with him. Sorry this ain't funny.
But I'm having a real hard time laughing at this. I am, however, getting
wound-up. Damn Republicans. They made me a yellow dog Democrat.
September 1 - There has to be a
real special place in hell for people who rip-off our fighting men and women.
A report on the
Predatory lending practices to members of the Armed
Forces was released this month and, almost amusingly, one of the offenders
was the Texas-basedRent-A-Center.
The Rent-A-Center
folks take their rent-to-own philosophy right to Congress, where
Tom DeLay spent hours on their corporate airplane jetting around to golf
matches. If you can rent a refrigerator to own, then surely you can rent a
congressman to own, right? Their new Rent-To-Own
Congressman is Texas CD5’s
Republican Jeb Hensarling. Thankfully, retired Naval Aviator and Vietnam
Veteran
Charlie Thompson of Dallas is running against him. A Vet won't sell the
sole of his brothers and sisters for an private jet ride. You can donate a
couple of bucks to Charlie on his
website if you've had enough of this stuff. As if its rent-to-own
scam wasn't bad enough,
Rent-A-Center just got into the payday loan business. There are many ways
to profit off the Iraq war. You can rip-off the Pentagon - or you can just
rip-off our soldiers. Either way, you’re going
to hell. In fact, I’m insisting on it.
September 1 - Oh no, I spent 6
years of my life in elementary school learning to read
for this?
WASHINGTON - Former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, with his career in elective office behind him, said
Thursday he has a deal to publish a book.
“This is a book that's
going to be the history of my career, how it furthered the conservative cause,
with my spiritual walk and what I think the conservative cause ought to do
next," DeLay, a born-again Christian, told The Associated Press.
DeLay said he'll explain
how "everything I've done in my career furthered the conservative cause" and
helped change the culture of Washington.
DeLay said the working
title is "No Retreat, No Surrender: The American Passion of Tom DeLay."
He declined to reveal how much he'll be paid. "Not as much as I wanted," he
quipped.
“Not as much as I wanted.” Why, what a coincidence, those were the same exact
words that Saint Paul used about his chapters of the Bible. Come to think of it, Tom
is a whole lot like Saint Paul. The only difference is that Saint Paul
wasn't a money-grubbing, arrogant, golf-addicted jerk who spent other people's
money to fill his belly with the most expensive food and wines in the world
while profiting off of slave labor and forced abortions in the Marianas Islands.
Other than that, they both have two legs. You gotta ask yourself -
how delusional do you have to be to think that withdrawing from an election that
you were going to loose is not retreating? Bless his heart, he's over the
edge. At least now all the
newspapers have to say, "Tom DeLay of Virginia!" Gets us off the hook.
August 31 - Nick Lampson has decided not to enter the special election. I think
it's a wise choice on his part. The Republicans can fight it out on their
own, and hopefully save us all the time and expense of a run-off. It's common knowledge
that practically nobody in the GOP wants Shelley to win the special election.
Winning it would make her the presumptive Republican nominee in 2 years.
She was nobody's first choice, and only a few people had her as second choice.
Talton, Wallace, and Howard are all cheering for her to get whipped. Let's
see which one of them is willing to get out and help her win. With three candidates
already, it's gonna be a mess. Charles
Kuffner has a great take on this, too.
August 31 - For those of you following
the continuing saga of Roseland, Indiana, the only place crazier than here, our
Indiana foreign correspondent, Kathy,
updates us. The latest news includes
an "internationally known horrific religious cult" that runs around painting
things purple, an update on the vicious bloody handcuffing of 82 year old Louis
Krueper, Sr. for talking about antennas during a city council meeting, and David
and Dorothy's outdoor decor choices. I accused one of the
reporters of making this stuff up. He accused me of making up stuff about
here. You know, if Mayor Alan Owen would do his part and say something
crazy today, we could beat Roseland in the International Nuttiest Places To Live
category. Lord knows we have a lot of elected officials contributing to
the cause.
August 31 - First he says he is, then he
says he ain't, then he says he does, then he says .... no telling what. County Judge Bob Hebert
is no longer a judge. Want to know how I know that? Because he
changed his website and the county website. Remember how it used to say "Judicial
Duties Include ..."? Well, now it says "Other Duties Include." Here's the BEFORE
website:
Click here to see the
new and improved (and less filling, too!) Bob Hebert "Other"
responsibilities. Same responsibilities, new name. Cute, huh?
I hate cute. You know, calling monkey
poop a diamond necklace don't mean it's something I'd wear around my neck.
I wanted to give Bob that warning just in case he ever tried that trick on my
birthday or something. Just because you change the name of something don't
change the something. So, if Bob doesn't have
judicial duties and he's not a judge in any way, shape, or form, then I'm real
worried about him insisting on having his photo displayed at the courthouse
wearing a danged dress.
Now I am not saying that the county judge is a transvestite. But, if he's not
a judge then he's just one big blonde wig and a pink boa away from being Roberta
and worrying the Belles of Heaven Republican Women's Club into holding some
prayer meetings. Bob just wants the
increased salary and prestige of being a judge but none of the duties or
responsibilities. Consider this fair
warning: the first person who tries to tell me what Hebert is wearing under his
dress is gonna get slapped. I mean it. Right upside the head.
There are some things even I don't want to know.
August 31 - Okay, heads up.
We now have three write-in candidates for the general election, and tomorrow is
the deadline for filing for the special election. Our off-poll betting
window will open at noon today. I've crunched the numbers
and my bet is that 67 people, three from Abilene and at least seven from Lufkin,
will file for the special election. Instead of calling for a
special election when Tom DeLay left Congress, our political-tricks-junky
Governor decided to hold the special election the same date as the real
election. The winner of the special election (which will include a
run-off) will serve from election day until December 31st - a couple of weeks at
best if there's a run-off. It's colossally stoopid
to have a special election and possibly an expensive run-off to decide who
represents us for a couple of weeks, but the Gov is .... well, you know it as
well as I do .... colossally stupid. I'll be your score card.
Breaking news will break here or near-bouts.
By the way, Andy Meyers and his hinkey campaign finance reports did not make the
end of the world show last night. However, black holes did and they're
about the same.
August 30 - Momma just called and told
me to watch something on teevee tonight. Momma says that Diane Sawyer -
Momma just loves Diane Sawyer because she's "such a lady" - is doing a show
about how the world's gonna end. Momma says the show is
gonna have scientists and everything so it should be real. (Momma is a
Baptist but she doesn't believe in that Armageddon stuff.) My thought:
Unless the end of the world includes Commissioner Andy Meyers publically
rectifying his campaign contribution and expenditure report, it ain't real. I
don't care how many scientists you've got.
August 30 - Okay, so who is Joe
Reasbeck and why does he want to be your
Congressman? There's been a
third name
filed to run in CD22 as a write-in. Click and scroll down to CD22. I
guess that makes 12 million, 257 thousand, 416 hundred, and 2 who never believed
that the national GOP was ever going to dump $4 million into this race.
You gotta kinda feel bad for David Wallace - poor guy was the only person on
God's green earth who believed it. By the way, Joe Reasbeck
is not registered to vote in Fort Bend, so maybe he's Sekula-Gibb's neighbor. ON EDIT: I
checked with the Secretary of States office and Joe is a valid write-in
candidate. According to the
best information I could find, Joe lives in Lago Vista, Texas, and is 37 years
old. He has no primary voting history in Texas, so we don't know if he's a
Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Whig.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — State Department investigators have
found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to
foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and
that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a
report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.
Putting your friends on the payroll is illegal? Not in the
Independent Republic of Fort Bend. This is a true story.
About 8 years ago, I asked about a good-ole-boy who works at the courthouse.
Every time I'd see him, he'd just be walking around doing diddle squat. He
was moved from office to office, so I think sometimes he'd forget where his
office was. So, I up and asked the
Republican county judge at the time what this guy did for a living. I mean
it was obvious that he worked for the county but nobody seemed to know what it
was he did. The county judge admitted
that they really didn't need this guy, but - and get ready for this - they
couldn't fire him because his wife was sick and needed the county insurance.
That kinda got away with
me. "Has Hillary Clinton heard about this health care plan?" I asked with
no small level of sarcasm and loudness. So, from that day forward
I referred to this guy as "The Republican Health Care Plan." Yep, he still works for
the county.
August 29 - Press Release from the Gov.
We will have a special election!
Perry
Calls Special Elections for Delay, Luna and Madla Seats on Nov. 7
AUSTIN Gov. Rick Perry today ordered special elections to be held
concurrently with the Nov. 7 general election for the U.S. congressional
seat vacated by Congressman Tom Delay, R-Sugar Land, who has resigned and
removed his name from the ballot; and for state Rep. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus
Christi, and state Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, both of whom have
resigned their positions in the Texas Legislature.
In his proclamation setting the special election for Delay's seat, Perry
noted that the U.S. Constitution requires that a special election be held
and state law requires that it be held on the next uniform state election
date, which is Nov. 7. Delay represented the 22nd Congressional District,
which consists of parts of Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston and Harris
counties.
Luna represents the Texas House of Representatives District No. 33, which
consists of part of Nueces County. Madla represents Texas State Senate
District No. 19, which consists of Bandera, Brewster, Crockett, Culberson,
Edwards, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Kinney, Loving, Maverick, Medina, Pecos,
Presidio, Real, Reeves, Sutton, Terrell, Uvalde, Val Verde, Ward, Winkler
and parts of Bexar and El Paso counties.
Candidates who want to place their names on the ballot for Delay's, Luna’s
or Madla’s district must file with the Secretary of state by 5 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 1.
August 29 – Remember when
Alfredo brought us up to speed on PBS&J, a Florida Engineering Company that
scammed the State of Texas for the past six years with a multiplier? Remember
how their CEO W. Scott DeLoach embezzled $36 million from the company? The Miami Herald
has the story this morning. The Herald story is about how PBS&J used corporate
money to reimburse its employees for contributions to candidates. Such indirect
corporate contributions are illegal under both federal and Texas law. It’s bad enough that
PBS&J swiped money from Texas taxpayers that they flipped and gave to Tom
DeLay’s ARMPAC, but PBS&J didn't stop there. Uh oh. Shelley Sekula
Gibbs. What a way to start your write-in campaign! This is just my
opinion, but running through Sugar Creek wearing only a neon orange Hari Krishna
robe emblazoned with peacock feathers while yodeling loudly might have been a
wiser kick-off choice. Right here - $250 from PBS&J. Just like Tom.
Click on the above picture and it'll take you to a PDF of the actual filing by
PBS&J. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs -
same political friends as Tom DeLay.
August 29 – Reason #864 why I
could never be a Republican. County Judge Bob Hebert, who claims to be “independently wealthy”,
voted to give himself an 18% pay raise from $87,000 to $105,000.
And to those who actually do the work around here?
In
a separate vote, the court voted for a 3.35 percent pay raise for the county's
non-elected employees.
Hebert also receives $7,200 for serving on the Juvenile Board and will get
$5,500 on top of that for the Probate Court. That’s $117,700 a year for cutting
ribbons and attending meetings one afternoon a week, where he's been known to
treat citizens with more disregard than most people give junk mail. And that’s not even
counting his political tax-free slush fund that mostly comes from taxpayers
pockets. He's embarrassingly
money-grubby.
August 28
- Governor Rick Perry has until tomorrow to decide
if
we will have two additional months of taxation without representation. No,
seriously. They're are gonna let Gov. Mofo make a decision about my
constitutional right to representation for the months of November and December
of this year. Jefferson help us. Nobody has ever seen the
Gov make a decision without Bob Perry's money and a consultation with the
French, so this should be interesting. It's a well-know fact that the Gov
is at his intellectual best when he just tosses a coin. The Gov passed on calling
a special election earlier this year because he was scared a Democrat might win
it.
The next deadline is tomorrow.
In April, Perry said he would call
a special election to fill the final two months of DeLay’s term.
But spokeswoman Kathy Walt indicated Friday that Perry was weighing his
options.
“The matter is being reviewed, and no decision has been made at this time,”
Walt said in an e-mail response to The Daily News.
[but there's more!]
Having a special election and the
general election poses some risks. That’s especially true for Sekula-Gibbs,
who must not only convince voters she is the best candidate, but also must
convince them to write in her name.
[and then the
clincher!]
Sekula-Gibbs would not speculate
about what she’d do. Her spokeswoman, Lisa Dimond, noted that the governor had
not called a special election.
So there's your answer. The Gov is still playing politics with our
Congressional seat. I hope he plans on paying for our morning-after pill.
August 28 -
I usually put two months worth of snark per webpage but I've been hitting too
many keys lately and my friends with Pilots or Trios are hollering at me.
Yes, I have friends.
So I've decided to start
a new page what with almost a whole week left in August and me having plenty to
say. I left the weekend stuff
here just in case you were playing this weekend.
The Texas Department of Transportation has stopped granting
new contracts to a Florida engineering company that has overcharged the state
and clients nationwide because of accounting irregularities.
......
The accounting improprieties had the effect of
increasing what is called an overhead rate, or multiplier, in the
construction industry. That multiplier is applied to base rates for
engineering and design services to determine billings to clients.
Officials with the agency could not say Monday how
much the state may have been overcharged. But Saenz, in a May 24 memo
to his chief engineers in the department's districts around the state,
said the overcharges had run from as early as 2000 to the present
"Accounting irregularities." Yeah, I'd say - the company's CFO, W. Scott DeLoach,
is going down for embezzling $36 million. To reduce his sentence, he's about to
reveal that the company reimbursed him and others for campaign contributions.
DeLoach gave $5,000 to ARMPAC. So, when the rubber hits
the road, PBS&J stole money from Texans and used it to bribe DeLay. Alfredo concludes, "Kinda
poetic, don't you think?"
Had enough yet? Not that I'm keeping count or
anything, but Tom Harrington of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma has yet to adopt a sign.
Tom, we're counting on you, Bub.
August
27 - I need to get me a bumper stickers that says, “Local Republicans
Made Me A Yellow Dog Democrat. Give Them Another Two Years and and They’ll Make
You One, Too.” The perfume called Eau de
Arrogance in this county rises off the GOP like a strong whiff of cow pattie on
a humid day. They just can’t seem to get enough of your money, your misplaced
trust or your patience.
Some
folks have been pondering on County Judge
Bob Hebert’s Texas Two-Step on
whether or not he has judicial duties. First he said he did and then he
said he didn’t, but when direct written information was found
on the county site and on his
personal political website, his judging went from “Now In A Theater Near
You” to “Featured Attractions” in less time than it takes to pop the popcorn. Even if ya held his bare
feet to parking lot asphalt at about 3:00 tomorrow afternoon, he probably
couldn’t tell ya the truth because he’s had to concoct so many stories to cover
his ample rump that keeping one on top of his thinking mechanism is hard to do.
Now, never mind that he
just copied the county website’s information into his own personal political
website even though somebody was paid county tax money to write it in the first
place. That’s just a small example of how this county is his, his I tell you!
It’s Bob Hebertville, dammit! It’s easy to see how this
happened. Bob wanted to have judicial duties so he could prance around in a
judge’s robe, hit people with a gavel, and be addressed as Your Honor. But when
it comes to wanting to help his good-ole-boys, he can change clothes faster than
Superman in a doublewide phone booth. The currently operative story is that he’s
not a judge now but he will be one in January, so he'll start acting like a
judge in January. What happens in January?
Are they gonna take him down to The Brazos River and dunk him in the holy
judicial waters of wisdom and integrity? Does he graduate law school? No,
siree. January is when he gets a courtroom. Oh for Pete’s Sake. (Do not buy
his nice little story about how he's saving the county money. There's far
more to this story that I'll tell you later.) Hebert, like his co-heart
Republican white males, cannot admit to ever making a mistake. Endorsing
candidates was a mistake and a misuse of his office. But could he simply say
that and ask forgiveness? No. He. Cannot. Let me give you another
little tiny, hardly even significant example of Hebert’s arrogance.
Take a look at his campaign finance report. He’s sitting on $120,000. of
tax-free money in a campaign warchest with no opponent. You’d think he could
spare $25 for a notary public to notarize his political campaign expense report
other than his own Executive Assistant, who works for the taxpayers, not Bob
Hebert or Bob Hebert’s campaign. He’s not supposed to even
have these campaign finance forms in his county office. They were notarized on
a Monday – they day they were due. Does he care how that looks? Of course
not. He’s Bob Hebert and he helped make me a Democrat. Coming soon - how Judge
Brady Elliott pushed me over the edge.
Now
seven prominent conservatives dare to speak the unspeakable: They hope the
Republicans lose in 2006. Well, let’s be diplomatic and say they’d prefer
divided government—soon. (Perhaps that formulation will fool Dennis
Hastert.) Of course, all of them wish for the long-term health of
conservatism, and most are loyal to the GOP. What they also believe,
however, is that even if a Speaker Pelosi looms in the wings, sometimes the
best remedy for a party gone astray is to give it a session in the time-out
chair.
archaeologists
who say it is an example of the oldest script ever discovered in the
Western Hemisphere.
Several
years ago there was a big political do at Scholz Beer Garten in Austin and
everybody who was anybody in political Texas was there, meetin' and greetin'
at a furious pace. About halfway through the evening, a little group of us
got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table by the back
wall of the Garten. Like birds in a row were perched Bob Bullock, the state
comptroller; me; Charlie Miles, a black man who was then head of Bullock's
personnel department (and the reason Bullock had such a good record on
minority hiring); and Ms. Ann Richards.
Remember how the County Judge waited until 2 members of
Commissioners Court were absent to shove through a
cockroaches,
but what we really need are laws against torturing language or twisting
logic to death.
then
she said that Dane was taking Bethany to Starbucks and I was soooo all like
don’t even start that and she was soooo like shaking her neck all green and
then you-know-who comes by and ……
But, Honey, this ain’t our first rodeo. As any barrel racing woman will
tell you, “work on your riding, not on your sequins.” 
You know how you weren’t
supposed to wear white after Labor Day? We changed that rule. We decided that
you can wear white any day that’s over 90 degrees. 
if
we will have two additional months of taxation without representation. No,
seriously. They're are gonna let Gov. Mofo make a decision about my
constitutional right to representation for the months of November and December
of this year. Jefferson help us.