A&M Chancellor disses A&M President

I’m not sure what is going on with this situation but I can already tell that I don’t like it.
The Chancellor of Texas A&M University System is apparently having a nasty fight with the new Texas A&M president, who just happens to be the first female and first Hispanic to ever serve in that position.
The chancellor is former Republican State Rep. Mike McKinney, who served for several years as chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry before launching a new career as an academic administrator. The president of A&M is Elsa Murano, the former dean of Agriculture at A&M who was named president after Robert Gates left to become Secretary of Defense.
Now one year into her new job, Murano has apparently run afoul of McKinney and the Board of Regents.

Newsflash for Chancellor McKinney! If you are going to let personnel matters like this splash over into the media, you had better have more than a hand-written five-page review that looks like it was filled out at the last minute to back you up.

The five-page review - which was sent to the A&M system’s board of regents - was done by Texas A&M University System Chancellor Mike McKinney, who wrote that Murano “fails to assume responsibility for decisions” and criticized her for being “too slow” when it came to decisions.
It lacked specifics and was handwritten rather than typed. A page allowing for him to write down goals for the president, as well as a summary of her strengths and areas needing attention, was left blank...

So the part of the evaluation where he was supposed to write out and explain all the poor scores he was giving her was left blank. What is he? A moron!?!? First off, I hate those kinds of stupid evaluations where they assign arbitrary numbers between 1 and 5 in cookie-cutter categories. I hate them. But the worst is getting a low score that is not explained. If McKinney couldn’t be bothered to explain his low scores in full and complete sentences then he is not doing HIS job as a manager.

This sounds to me like the “evaluation” was thrown together at the last minute as a CYA operation by the chancellor.
Murano, meanwhile, did take the time to type up a 10-page response to the poor evaluation and she makes several salient points about the sparcity of the review and its seperation from reality.

“Given the complete disconnection between Dr. McKinney’s perception of my performance as president and all the evidence to the contrary, I can conclude that this review was not based on facts,” Murano wrote. “One need only consider that if it was an actual reflection of the job I have done as president, there would have been an incredible outcry from the entire university community.”

So what is it that Murano did or did not do to merit the wrath of the chancellor? That is not real clear. McKinney apparently scrawled a few comments on the review like
“Does good job on things she likes. Very poor on carrying out board system decisions with which she disagrees.”
So what does that mean? He doesn’t give any examples and no further explanation. Does he think the president is just supposed to roll over and acquiese to any decision by the board regardless of whether she agrees or not? Is the president just a functionary, a step-in-fetch-it for the chancellor and the regents? And when she didn’t immediately jump and say “How high” when he snapped his fingers, he is now ready to throw her out of office and absorb the position of president for himself?
I think McKinney has got some more explaining to do. Because right now I agree with the former speaker of the faculty senate:

“I’m just kind of shocked at the nature of the document,” said R. Douglas Slack, after reading the performance review. He is a former speaker of the faculty senate.
“It looked to be hastily done. It doesn’t look like something that was well thought-out. It’s a contrast to the president’s well thought-out response.”

Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien

I'm sold. I love the new show!

More rightwing filth on the radio thanks to Cox Radio

Are there any syndicated right-wing radio yakkers that do not have an outlet in San Antonio now?
Clear Channel-owned WOAI 1200 gives us daily doses of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Dennis Miller along with locally based wingnut Joe Pags.
KLUP 930, owned by Salem Communications, a company based in California which purports to be a “Christian” broadcaster, gives us a whole slew of rightwing crazies including Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt and Tom Sullivan.
KTSA 550, owned by Border Media, has a host of local rightwingers including Trey Ware, Jack Riccardi and Kevin Wall and then fills out the rest of its schedule with syndicated rightwingers Neal Boortz, Mark Levin, Jim Bohannon and Bill O’Reilly.
And now, Cox Radio has decided to jump into the mix by flipping 106.7 from a hip-hop/urban format to another right-wing talk station featuring Erich “Mancow” Muller, Neal Boortz (again), Laura Ingraham (the first and only women, you will notice) and Michael Savage, among those announced so far. I listened to just a few minutes of this new station and it was making me ill with the mindless stream of blatant lies, smears and venom being directed at our government, our public schools our public officials and anyone who doesn’t share in their selfish, greedy, vindictive, neo-fascist philosophy.
Cox Radio claimed that they made the switch to save money because it allowed them to fire their local radio talent and use an all-syndicated format.

This is truly despicable. All of these stations now spew non-stop hatred, blatant lies and mass ignorance over the airwaves everyday. It is like having an open sewer pouring out filth from your radio 24 hours a day. The contempt that these people have for America is shocking. They hate the government. They resent paying taxes for any program that benefits anyone other than themselves. They are disdainful of our schools. They promote radical conspiracy theories and delight in tearing down the weakest segments of our society.

About a year ago or so, Clear Channel made a half-hearted attempt to put up a liberal talk radio station. But they put it on a very low-frequency network which was hard to hear (I would lose the station everytime I drove into the parking garage at my work) and their lineup featured most prominently - Phil Donahue. Golly gee!! And when it didn’t fare well, they just threw up their hands and said “See, we told you that liberal talk radio wouldn’t work.”
And even having this complete monopoly of the airwaves, rightwingers still play the victims and claim that any suggestion that the public airwaves are not being used fairly is censorship.

Protestants on the Supreme Court

This is interesting. If she is confirmed, Sonia Sotomayor will be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. She will join fellow Catholics Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
Two of the justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer - are Jewish.
So that will leave just one sitting justice who is Protestant - John Paul Stevens, who also happens to be the oldest justice on the court at 89.
I’m sure that Protestants probably dominated the court for most of its existence, so it is pretty shocking to suddenly find out that there could soon be no Protestants at all on the the court.
I suppose it is kind of ironic that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who are both Protestants, chose Jewish (Clinton’s picks) and Catholic (Bush’s picks) justices for the Supreme Court. And now we have another Protestant president adding another Catholic.
I suppose this speaks well of our religious tolerance in America today. Or maybe it’s just indifference. But whatever it is, I’m glad that this is not considered a big issue today. But just wait until someone tries to put the first atheist or agnostic on the high court and then watch the fireworks go off.

Who’s the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court?

You can’t tell me that this guy is supposed to be the first Hispanic to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Other than a Hispanic-sounding last name, there is nothing about Benjamin Nathan Cardoza that is even remotely Hispanic. The man was born and raised in New York City. His family had emigrated to the United States 100 years earlier --- from ENGLAND! Oh, but wait, you say, he has some ancestors who reportedly came from Portugal! Yes, that’s right. Portugal. That country next to Spain where they DON’T SPEAK SPANISH! That’s kind of a minimum requirement for being Hispanic, you know. Speaking Spanish. Cardoza couldn’t speak a lick of Spanish, but he did know Yiddish. You see, Cardoza’s ancestors who came from Portugal were part of a Jewish minority group that had settled there. He wasn’t even Catholic!!! Sheesh!
The final straw? If Cardoza was the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, wouldn’t there at least be a school somewhere in Texas named after him? You would think there would be, but no. There are schools named after him in New York, but none in Texas.
So in my opinion, Sonia Sotomayor will most definitely be the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, without a doubt.

American Taliban strikes again

I can’t help but feel deeply disturbed and very angry over this latest instance of domestic terrorism courtesy of the American Taliban (aka Religious Right). The assassination of Dr. George Tiller was not an isolated instance carried out by a single person, but rather the culmination of a calculated and coordianted campaign by the religious right to vilify anybody associated with abortion and put them all under the threat of death before their fanatical, half-crazed minions.
There is not a great deal of difference in mindset between the anti-abortion fanatics who demand absolute subservience to their extremist views and the followers of Islamic radicalism who support the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Ann has been all over this with some excellent links.

Up, Up and Away

Pixar goes 10 for 10
How does Pixar do it? An amazing string of classic, critically-praised, hit films...

Toy Story - 1995
A Bug’s Life - 1998
Toy Story II - 1999
Monsters Inc. - 2001
Finding Nemo* - 2003
The Incredibles* - 2004
Cars - 2006
Ratatouille* - 2007
WALL-E* - 2008
Up - 2009

* Won Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

The Academy Awards didn’t not have a best animated feature category before 2001. That first year they passed over Monsters Inc. to give the first award to Shrek - which was a crime in my opinion.
The Academy messed up again in 2006 when they passed over Cars and gave the Oscar to Happy Feet.

A good day at the Texas Legislature

Texas Democratic Senators held together today and rejected the reappointment of rightwing lunatic Don McLeroy to be the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. That is wonderful news for all of Texas’ school children. The bad news is that Rick Perry is still the governor and there is speculation that he will simply try and elevate the equally looney Cynthia Dunbar to the chairmanship now. But nevertheless, I am proud of the Texas Democrats for standing up for public education in our great state. As for the Republicans.... well, there is nothing I can say that is suitable to print on my blog.

In other good news, lawmakers were able to salvage the CHIP expansion legislation and the windstorm insurance legislation by adding them as amendments to House bills. Meanwhile the Republicans Voter ID bill that was the cause of the delays is now dead as is Jeff Wentworth’s criminally moronic guns in schools legislation. Thank GOD!

Knocking down attacks on Sotomayor

While it seems clear that Sonia Sotomayor will sail through her confirmation hearings with little opposition, there will still be concerted efforts by some Republicans to tear down her nomination with the ultimate goal of trying to force President Obama to spend his political capital in her defense. And also as a fundraising tool to help motivate the Republican base, naturally.
To that end I expect we will see a lot of the same attacks repeated over and over again. So here are a few links to help counter some of those attacks.

About that out-of-context quote where she seems to say that Latina women are better at making decisions than white men: Conservative blogger Rod Dreher looked at the whole speech and determined that he was wrong to jump to that conclusion:
I was wrong about Sotomayor speech - Crunchy Con

As for the conservatives on the Supreme Court reversing some of her appeals court rulings: Rachel Maddow obliterates that one completely.

And the charges of being an “activist judge” are taken apart here.

An interesting side note, it turns out that Sotomayor is only the seventh person to be nominated to the Supreme Court by a Democratic President in last 57 years. By contrast, there have been 17 Supreme Court positions filled by Republican presidents during that same period. The current nine-member court has just two justices appointed by a Democrat.

It’s all so clear now!

Thank you Congressman Culberson! It’s all so clear now.
Rep. Culberson Offers Incoherent And Illogical Stance On Gay Marriage

Obama picks Sotomayor

Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials tell The Associated Press that President Barack Obama intends to nominate federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor (SUHN’-ya soh-toh-my-YOR’) as the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor, 54, would succeed retiring Justice David Souter if confirmed by the Senate. The officials spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet announced his decision.

WooHoo! What do you know? Obama took my advice!

This is great news if true because it puts a well qualified person on the Supreme Court while satisfying three key constituencies all at the same time: Women, Hispanics and Liberals.

Texas Lege update

The guns on campus bill in the Texas Lege was declared dead a while back when it failed to meet a key House deadline. And yet, it may have been brought back from the dead like Frankenstein’s monster thanks to a vote in the Senate. It is disheartening to think that 20 state senators kowtowed to the gun nut lobby and supported this monstrosity, but that just shows you the power that the extreme right-wing NRA has over the GOP today.
The bills seeming resurrection has local GOP blogger Andres excited and he is trying to drum up support for its passage. But House sponsor Joe Driver is quoted today saying the bill is on “life support.”
There was a good Letter to the Editor in the Express-News today that said it well:

Putting an unknown number of guns on Texas campuses defies common sense, yet (Sen. Jeff) Wentworth said: “I don’t want Texas college students picked off like sitting ducks by some deranged madman who comes on campus with a weapon.”
Here’s some news for Wentworth: Many Texans believe, as I do, that a person in the 21st century who thinks it is necessary to carry a loaded concealed weapon everywhere he goes is himself pretty “deranged.”
Bottom line: Go to college to teach and learn. Leave your guns at home.

It is inexcusable that lawmakers would allow private schools to opt out of this rule but not give public university officials the same option. I can tell you right now that I won’t be sending my kids to any school that allows non-law enforcement and security people to walk around with loaded guns.

In other news, the Lege will soon take up the reappointment of rightwing lunatic Don McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education. Hopefully, the Democrats in the Senate will stand up for public school children and face down the rightwing ayatollahs who want to turn our public schools into their version of the Taliban.

And speaking of the Religious Right, I just saw this interesting bit of news.
Imagine if a “liberal” university had decided to ban a student Republican organization. Imagine the hue and cry that would result. Will we hear any protests over this move?
Probably not. The “so-called Liberal Media” is too busy covering speeches by Dick Cheney; interviewing Newt Gingrich and following Sarah Palin’s every move to notice.

Local blogger update

Good news from my conservative blogging buddy Nick Marinelli. He is on the mend and could be up and walking again soon after losing part of his left leg. Nick has had some serious health problems recently stemming from kidney disease and diabetes.
Nick also has a good review of the new Star Trek movie.

Finding Beatles music

I’m back on a Beatles kick again. For about a year, I had almost no Beatles tunes on my iPod, having excised them to make room for newer music. I have one of the original iPods with just 4 GB of space. That’s room enough for about 1,000 songs, which is plenty, but when I fill it up with every Beatles song, every Bing Crosby song and all my jazz stuff it leaves little room for everything else.
So this week I redid my song list and put most of my Beatles music back on the iPod. I have what I consider to be most of the essential Beatles recordings on cd - Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers, White Album, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Help!, Hard Day’s Night, Let It Be, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour - and in addition I have all three volumes of the Beatles Anthology series and the two-disc Beatles Live at the BBC collection. But that still leaves out a lot of their early music including some of my favorite songs on the Rock & Roll Music compilation that got me hooked on the Beatles in the first place.
This is the track listing for Rock and Roll Music:

1. “Twist and Shout” (Medley-Russell)
2. “I Saw Her Standing There”
3. “You Can’t Do That”
4. “I Wanna Be Your Man”
5. “I Call Your Name”
6. “Boys” (Dixon-Farrell)
7. “Long Tall Sally” (Johnson/Penniman/Blackwell)
8. “Rock and Roll Music” (Berry)
9. “Slow Down” (Williams)
10. Medley: “Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (Leiber/Stoller)/(Penniman)
11. “Money (That’s What I Want)” (Bradford/Gordy)
12. “Bad Boy” (Williams)
13. “Matchbox” (Perkins)
14. “Roll Over Beethoven” (Berry)
15. “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” (Williams)
16. “Any Time at All”
17. “Drive My Car”
18. “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” (Perkins)
19. “The Night Before”
20. “I’m Down”
21. “Revolution”
22. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
23. “Helter Skelter”
24. “Taxman” (Harrison)
25. “Got to Get You into My Life”
26. “Hey Bulldog”
27. “Birthday”
28. “Get Back” (album version)

I have mentioned my facination with the Beatles before and particularly my introduction to the band through the Rock and Roll Music compilation. The songs are all fast-paced and upbeat and full of energy. Some of the best rock vocal performances of all time are here in my opinion - John Lennon on Twist and Shout and Slow Down - Paul McCartney on Long Tall Sally and I’m Down. And even the tunes sung by George and Ringo simply give John and Paul ample opportunity for excited screaming and background harmonies.
I wore that album out a long time ago and have been trying to replicate it ever since. Of course, being a cheapskate I didn’t want to spend $20 a pop buying the albums I would need to get all of those songs, so I have scoured the used cd bins at Half Price Books and searched online. Alas, Beatles recordings rarely show up in the used record shops and the songs are conspicuously unavailable on iTunes. Although many of the songs I needed are on the Anthology collection or the BBC Live series, they are alternate recordings and not the ones I remembered listening to over and over and over again.
So I finally decided to break it all down and see what I would need to buy to get the songs I wanted. As it turned out, I really only needed to to get two more albums - Please Please Me, the Beatles first album which has Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There; and Past Masters Vol. 1 which collects all the songs that were issued as singles or EPs and never appeared on any of the Beatles’ albums. Using some Barnes and Nobles gift cards I got for Christmas, I was able to finally get the cds I needed. There are still a handful of songs I don’t have, but the alternate versions on the Anthology or BBC recordings are satisfactory for right now.

Why I’m not bothered by Obama’s recent “flip-flops”

President Obama has done a number of things recently that have alarmed and troubled many of his supporters on the left. He has opposed efforts to establish a “truth commission” that would delve into Bush administration abuses and alleged crimes surrounding the torture and detention of prisoners in our custody; he has changed his mind about releasing graphic photos of the mistreatment of prisoners under U.S. control; he has decided to restart the military tribunals at Guantanamo that he had earlier condemned under Bush/Cheney (albeit with better protections for the accused) and he has continued to prosecute the war in Afghanistan in an aggressive manner, even calling back a general to take charge who still has a cloud hanging over him from the scandal over the above-mentioned abuses.
I’m not going to defend all these decisions or say that they are the correct moves. They could very well prove to be mistakes on his part. I don’t know.
But what I find refreshing and reassuring about these moves is that it demonstrates that, unlike Bush, Obama is NOT an ideologue following an agenda chiseled in stone. What it shows me is that Obama is not so filled with self-assurance as Bush was that he cannot be persuaded to change his mind when presented with compelling evidence. I may not like all the decisions on their face, but I have to accept that he has a lot more information than I do.
Bush, as you may recall, never seemed to change his mind about anything. Commentators frequently acted like this was a good thing, but it clearly was not. Bush was a die-hard ideologue and a true believer in his own righteousness who lived inside a bubble of like-minded people providing continuous positive support and feedback. Bush never changed his mind because he rarely, if ever, was exposed to contrary or competing information and even if he was tended to disregard it as false or heretical.
Obama, on the other hand, is not afraid to engage people with differeing views and constantly strives to find common ground. I like the fact that his views are not set in stone and that he will make the best decision at the time based on the best possible information. I did not vote for Obama because I agreed with him on every single position and I do not expect that he will always do everything just the way I think he should. I voted for Obama because I respect his intellect and his judgement and I want him to use it while he is in office. If he makes some bad decisions and some mistakes, that is to be expected. He can also correct those mistakes more quickly if he is not locked into a misguided ideology.
People who supported Bush, however, did not want him making his own decisions. They wanted him to go strictly by the book - that being the wingnut playbook which has failed miserably everytime it has been enacted. And Bush did just what they wanted in spades. He followed their playbook to a T. Unfortunately for Bush, and all the rest of us as well, the playbook led us into our current economic disaster as well as our foreign policy quagmire. And even more unfortunately for Bush, he has now been abandoned by all the true believers who refuse to accept that their ideas don’t work and now claim that Bush was not a “true” conservative and did not follow their playbook faithfully enough.
I would much rather have a president who is willing to “flip-flop” on occasion rather than staying the course even when it means driving us over a cliff.

Bad bills

A lot of bad bills bit the dust last night up in Austin and I couldn’t be happier.

Casino gambling crapped out. Texas hold ’em had to fold ’em. Hands-free cell phones in cars crashed. And handguns on campus bit the bullet as the first major legislative deadline started killing bills.
All were pieces of House legislation that had to be debated by midnight Thursday or else hope of passage in this year’s legislative session vanished under House rules heading toward the June 1 closing.

I’m most especially happy to see the heinous “Guns and Campus” legislation get deep-sixed. I’m am terribly frustrated with Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, for sponsoring the Seante version of that bill. Wentworth is someone who I have long respected in spite of his being on the other side of the political aisle from myself. But this bill was too much. My wife teaches on a college campus and the last thing I want is for her to have to be in a classroom with a lot of stressed-out, gun-toting students.
I am also no fan of gambling because far from being a panacea of resources for cash-strapped governments, it tends to prey on the poor, the desperate and the downtrodden. And social problems aside, it does nothing to contribute to the economy other than suck up discretionary spending money that people might have used more beneficially elsewhere.

I once thought Texas was kind of backwards for having just a part-time Legislature that meets only every other year. But seeing the bad bills that come out of Austin these days, I am thankful that they don’t have more time to get stuff like this passed.

Being realistic, cold and clear-eyed

Steve Benen points to a comment on Andrew Sullivan’s site which does a good job of spelling out my take on the whole torture prosecutions debate:

Imagine what such prosecutions would entail: years of courtroom drama, depositions, lawsuits and counter-suits; the long parade of powerful and high ranking ex- and current members of government, including a goodly number of Democrats, being called on the carpet and having to testify against one another; the enormous rancor and bitterness. This would be Watergate on steroids. And imagine the shot in the arm this would give the zombified Limbaugh Right.
The prosecutions you are asking for would simply swallow the Obama presidency whole. It is the kind of energy draining, oxygen consuming drama that is the nightmare of every president. It would come to define his presidency in the same way the Hostage Crisis defined Carter’s and there is zero chance he will opt for this.
President Obama is making a realistic, cold, clear-eyed cost-benefit analysis. This is the choice: Does he fix the economy, fix healthcare, get a handle on the two wars he’s dealing with, or does he prosecute Bush era war crimes? He has chosen his agenda and is asking us to choose that to.

I agree. Obama can’t allow his agenda to be sidetracked by the inevitable media circus that would result from launching such prosecutorial pursuits. I don’t care if Congress conducts its own investigations - which they are already doing - but Obama needs to keep his focus on the problems at hand. There will be plenty of time later to deal with this. Heck, we’re still deporting Nazis from WWII!
But the last thing I want is for Obama’s efforts to fix the economy to be impeded and have him not be able to accomplish the things he needs to do during his first term. The worst thing that could happen is to have Obama get bogged down in something like this, accomplish nothing and then we end up with a Republican Congress and President Mitt Romney in four years.

New filibuster rules needed

Today the Republicans in the U.S. Senate managed to filibuster President Obama’s nominee for the No. 2 post at the U.S. Department of Interior. The nominee, David Hayes, previously served in the Clinton administration and is well qualified for the post. There is nothing controversial about him whatsoever. And yet, Republicans voted in lockstep to filibuster Hayes’ nomination because some Western state Republicans are upset with the Obama administration’s decision to cancel some oil and gas leases in Western states.
First off, this nonsense has got to stop. The filibuster was once a weapon of last resort for the minority party that would be trotted out only on very rare occasions. But in recent years, it has become common place to the point that every single vote in the Senate now has to be passed with a super-majority of 60 votes.
This just isn’t right. In fact, it is completely upside down. Let’s look at the vote on the Hayes nomination. It was 57 to 39 - thus Democrats were three votes short of breaking the filibuster - Ted Kennedy is out sick, John Kerry was attending a U.S. soldier’s funeral, and Al Franken is being blocked by sore loser Republicans in Minnesota.
But what about this 39 votes on the Republican side?!? They couldn’t come up with 41 votes in opposition? And yet they still succeeded in blocking the nomination?? How is that fair?
At a bare minimum the rules for filibusters should be changed to put the onus on the minority party to come up with 41 votes to support the filibuster, rather than always forcing the majority to line up 60 votes to knock it down. If the minority party can’t muster 41 votes on a cloture rule, the filibuster should be declared void and the nomination should immediately go to a full up-or-down vote. End of story.
It is simply unfair and undemocratic to do it any other way.

A senseless tragedy

There was a truly horrific story in the Houston Chronicle over the weekend. A family that had gone out on a dirt road to swim at a levy were shot at by a couple who claimed they were trespassing. A 7-year-old boy is dead now as a result.
The story is infuriating because it was so senseless. You look at the picture of the couple that did the shooting and the place where they were living - complete with Confederate Flag and a grammatically-challenged sign that reads “Trespassers will be shot. Survivers will be reshot!! Smile I will.” - and one is immediately struck with the worst stereotypes of backward, ignorant, Redneck, white trash.
Where did these people get the idea that they could just go up and shoot anybody who stumbles onto their property? Do they sit around all day listening to rightwing hate radio? Do they get riled up by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and then feel justified to go out and do exactly what their misspelled sign says?
What is the difference between this couple and some minority gangbangers in an urban slum who shoot at people for being in their “territory” without permission?
This was a horribly senseless tragedy. A boy is dead. A family is devestated and this couple will now spend the rest of their worthless lives in jail, assuming they don’t get the death penalty.

Local talk radio radicals

Sometimes I am shocked by how radical the local wingnut radio talk show hosts are. This morning while driving in to work I was desperately flipping the dial trying to avoid the bi-annual NPR pledge drive and ended up on the Trey Ware morning show on KTSA. I’ve always assumed KTSA was the more moderate alternative to the Fox-affiliated WOAI, which broadcasts Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck, but after listening to Trey Ware talk about the U.S. tax system for 30 minutes I am no longer so sure. First, it is maddening to hear Ware, who has absolutely no formal education in economics or government, lecture his audience about the marvels of tax cuts. I wanted to throttle the guy and scream “What do you think Bush did for the past eight years!?! Tax cuts and more tax cuts and all we got was massive deficits and a weak economy that nosedived into a major recession.

Republican death spiral

Political Wire points to the latest cover story from Time Republicans in the Wilderness: Is the Party Over?

“As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base’s biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues -- even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence -- and the death spiral continues.”

Historians, scientists and economists...... Ha! All LIBERALS!!!!!
Or so says the Republican Party’s “base” today, the ones that party leaders are pandering to.

And this headline that has been on CNN for the past two days really struck me -- Colin Powell comment angers Limbaugh
Like, WHO cares what Rush Limbaugh thinks??? Here you have a former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is one of the most admired men in America and CNN is running a headline like anyone should care that a rightwing radio blowhard didn’t like something he had to say???
But then one has to remember that Rush Limbaugh is now the defacto leader of the Republican Party and so his efforts to drum people like Powell and Olympia Snowe out of the party is newsworthy under the circumstances.
But if this goes on for too much longer, the Republican Party will be so small and insignificant that it won’t matter even then.

Gov. Perry betrays public education

The San Antonio Express-News had a good editorial this weekend criticizing Gov. Rick Perry’s boneheaded decision to reappoint Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. McLeroy is a certifiable nutcase who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible — the Earth is thousands of years old and not millions, he says — and uses his position on the SBOE to tout creationist nonsense and to undercut the public education system in favor of homeschooling at every opportunity.
The fact that Perry appointed this rightwing nutjob to the chairmanship in the first place is bad enough, but now he wants to extend his term as chairman through 2011. Fortunately, there seems to be some resistance to this move in the Texas Legislature. But I would also remind the Express-News editorial writers that they are once again being hypocritical on this matter since they were the ones who endorsed Perry for governor everytime he has run for office. Perhaps they are setting themselves up to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary next year, but I’m not convinced that she would have been any better. Hutchison just cast a vote against Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius becoming Secretary of Health and Human Services simply to appease the Religious Right because they oppose anyone who doesn’t favor criminalizing abortion.
I am greatly offended that Perry thinks so poorly of our public education system that he would promote this fox in the henhouse as chairman of the SBOE, which oversees textbooks in our schools. I only wish that the vast majority of Texans who support public education would see this as the betrayal that it is and vote to cast Perry out of office next year.

Sotomayor for Supreme Court!

You saw it here first!
Back in 2005, I recommended on my blog that President Bush tap Federal Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor is considered to be a moderate and was first appointed to the bench by Bush’s father. And it would have given him the distinction of appointing the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court.
To his great detriment, Bush did not heed my advice and instead chose yet another far-right wing Antonin Scalia clone for the court vacancy. He did this to try and please the extremist, looney-tune, right-wing whacko-base of his party, which today accounts for 99.999999 percent of the GOP. And what did that ultimately get him? Nada. Today he is still spat on by the wingnuts and dismissed as a “liberal” because they can never accept the reality that their nutjob political ideas, which Bush faithfully executed, DON’T WORK!
But anyhow, it now appears that President Obama will have the opportunity to pick up where Bush missed the boat and nominate Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She is currently being touted as a front-runner for the nomination.
In case you missed it, the sudden talk of Supreme Court nominations was prompted by Justice David Souter’s surprise announcement that he will step down after the current court term. Even though Souter was appointed by Bush the Elder, he is considered to be part of the moderate-liberal wing of the court today. Replacing him with Sotomayor would change the ethnic and gender makeup of the court more than it would shift the court ideologically. But that won’t matter to the nutjobs on the far-right who will gear up for a huge wild-eyed hissy fit as soon as Obama makes his pick known.
That is why it is a good thing that the Democrats will likely have their 60-vote majority in the Senate by the time this nomination comes up for consideration. There is no point in trying to make bi-partisan concessions with an extremist minority party that has no interest in governing the country. Obama should just concentrate on picking the best qualified people and then moving forward with the other important business that he has to deal with (i.e. continuing to work on fixing the huge mess that the Republicans left him with.)
There is a good chance that Souter won’t be the only court appointment Obama will get to make. Justice John Paul Stevens is almost 90 years old and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has some major health issues she is dealing with. But even if Obama gets to replace all three of them it still would not shift the court from its current right-wing bent because all of them are from the moderate-liberal side. But hopefully Obama will take the opportunity to pick at least one justice who can serve as the intellectual leader of the court on the left, much the way that Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan used to do and the way that Antonin Scalia currently does for the rightwing majority on the court.

Brushes with fame

As a journalist I have had many opportunities to meet and interview famous people over the years. Combined with the random encounters I’ve had with famous people outside of my work experience it makes for an interesting list. 

 Autographs sought and found: 

Lyndon Johnson - Found autographed copy of his biography “Vantage Point” at a Library book sale in Connecticut. 

George McGovern - Had him autograph my program after listening to him speak at Texas A&M when he was running for president in 1984. 

Al Gore - Saw him at an airport campaign rally in College Station in 1988 and had him sign a slip of paper. 

Molly Ivins - I have two of her books autographed - one by mail and one in person.

Barney Frank - Found an autographed copy of his book at a used book store.  

Burt Ward (Robin) - Parents took me to see him during a promotional gig at a car dealership in Indiana in the early 1970s. He autographed a promotional photo for me. Bob (Cowboy Bob) Glaze - Parents took me to see him at some event in Indiana in the early 1970s. Got a signed promotional photo of him on his horse. 

Luis Tiant - Former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox signed autographs at Missions baseball game in San Antonio last year. 

E. Gary Gygax - Had him autograph my program while attending Gen Con, a gaming convention in Madison, Wisconsin in 1983. 

Al Warden - NASA astronaut my dad took me to see at Grissom AFB in Indiana. Dave Scott - NASA astronaut (Same as above.) 

Eddie Albert - Actor signed autographs to promote dedication of Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas. 

Cliff Robertson - Same as above. 

Dolph Briscoe - Former governor of Texas. Had him autograph a book after I interviewed him. 

Robert Earle Keen - Purchased a CD that he had signed. 

Tish Hinojosa - Had her sign a CD at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1993. 

Dalhart Windberg - Had him sign a print of one of his paintings I purchased at the Kerrville State Arts and Crafts Festival in 1994. 

Alabama band members - Had all the band members sign a publicity photo after a concert in San Marcos in 1982. 

Joe Diffie - Bought an autographed copy of his CD after watching him perform at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. 

Max Lucado - Autographed a book for me after an interview. 

Sister Helen Prejean - Bought her book "Dead Man Walking" and had her sign it at a book show. 

Nelson Wolf - Former Mayor of San Antonio and Bexar County Judge signed a copy of his book. 

 Interviewed: 

George W. Bush - Multiple interviews before and after he became governor, but not after he became president. 

Rick Perry - While running for Lt. Gov. and again after he became governor. 

John Sharp - While running for Lt. Gov. 

Phil Gramm - Came to Lubbock to promote something at Texas Tech shortly before launching his presidential campaign. 

Victor Morales - The guy with the white pickup truck came to Lubbock during his Quixotic bid for the U.S. Senate. 

John Cornyn - When he was a moderate Republican running for attorney general, before he became a crazy wingnut senator. 

Kay Bailey Hutchison - At some event in Lubbock. 

Laura Bush - Promoting reading or something in Lubbock. 

George Stephanopolous - On a speaking tour in Lubbock. 

James Carville - Same as above. 

Ken Starr - Gave the commencement address for the Law School at Texas Tech and then ducked out the back and breezed past me with a smile and a nod while ignoring my questions. 

Gary Mauro - While running for governor. 

Susan Combs - While running for Ag Commissioner. 

David Dewhurst - While running for Land Commissioner. 

Barney Frank - Interviewed him on the phone about the Superfund toxic waste cleanup issue when I was in Connecticut. 

Bob Bullock - Interviewed him on the phone when I was in Kerrville. 

Chris Dodd - Spoke with him at a pubicity event at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. 

Lowell Weicker - Talked with him after a speaking engagement in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. 

Clayton Williams - Interviewed him on the phone after he was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. 

Dolph Briscoe - Interviewed him for a feature story at his bank office in Uvalde. Max Lucado - Wrote a feature story on him in 2006. 

Rick Riordan - Wrote a feature story on him in 2007. 

Other Congress critters I’ve interviewed at one time or another: Ciro Rodriguez; Lamar Smith; Charlie Gonzalez; Larry Combest; Mac Thornberry; Henry Bonilla; Charles Stenholm; Sam Gejdenson; Rosa DeLauro 

 Met at social event: 

Ann Richards - Saw her at political mixer at A&M during her first gubernatorial campaign. 

Carol Channing - Was campaigning for Ann Richards at same event as above. Victor Navasky - Publisher of Nation Magazine held a mixer in New York during the 1992 Democratic National Convention. My wife and I rode the train in from Connecticut and attended. Saw Ralph Nader and Molly Ivins there. 

 Chance encounter: 

Jackie Sherrill - Texas A&M football coach. I rode an elevator with him at Rudder Tower - just the two of us - about 1985 or so. Didn’t say a word. 

Drew Gooden - Basketball player currently with the Spurs. Rode an elevator with him at a hotel downtown when he was still with the Cavaliers. 

David Robinson - Walked into Wal-Mart at I-10 and DeZavala one time and saw this really tall guy who turned out to be David Robinson. 

Greg Oden - Walked into McDonalds at I-10 and Wurzbach during the Final Four Playoffs and stood in line behind this really tall guy who turned out to be (I figured out the next day) Greg Oden, who would go on to be the No. 1 NBA draft pick that year. 

 Saw live performance: 

Patrick Stewart - Saw him perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Texas A&M before he was tapped for the role of Capt. Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Alabama - At Southwest Texas State University in 1982 

Cheap Trick - Opening act for Night Ranger at Texas A&M in 1983. 

Night Ranger - See above. 

Trans Siberian Orchestra - A Christmas concert in San Antonio 2002. 

Blue Man Group - Saw them perform in New York in 2001 or 2002. 

Peter Yarrow - Of Peter, Paul and Mary, at the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

Itschak Perlman - Performed at Texas A&M as part of OPAS concert series. 

Dixie Chicks (pre-Natalie Maines) - In Kerrville at YO Ranch Social Club. 

Tanya Tucker - Same as above. 

Robert Earle Keen - Performed several times at July 4th Missions baseball games. Ani DiFranco - At Kerrville Folk Festival 

I saw all these folks over a number of years at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo: Barry Manilow; Joe Diffie; Asleep at the Wheel; LeAnn Rimes; Michael Martin Murphy; Kenny Rogers 

The Fifth Dimension - Performed at outside park in Houston. 

Lyle Lovett - Saw him perform in San Antonio. 

Weird Al Yankovic - Saw him perform in San Antonio. 

 Watched live speaking event: 

George H.W. Bush - He was the commencement speaker for my graduation from Texas A&M in 1989. Also saw him speak during the dedication for the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg. 

Bill Clinton - Saw him give a speech to the Middletown Chamber of Commerce in Connecticut when he was running for president in 1992. 

Hillary Clinton - Saw her give a speech at Yale University when she was campaigning for her husband in 1992. 

Al Gore - Saw him give a speech at a college in Middletown, Connecticut during the 1992 campaign. 

John Kenneth Galbraith and William F. Buckley Jr. - Watched a debate they had as part of a lecture tour at Texas A&M. 

Rob Bell - Saw him in San Antonio during one of his lecture tours. 

 Saw them at live sporting events: 

Johnny Bench - Saw him hit a home run at the Astrodome when the Reds played the Astros in 1978. 

Billy Williams - Saw him hit a home run at Wrigley Field when the Cubs played the Astros in 1973. 

Bo Jackson - Saw him play in the Cotton Bowl against the Texas Aggies after he won the Heisman Trophy. The Aggies stopped him on a 4th and goal situation and won the game. Whoop!! 

Chuck Knoblauch - Watched him play baseball at Texas A&M before going to the majors where he was Rookie of the Year. 

Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Kawhi Leonard, etc. - Saw them at numerous Spurs basketball games.

Network TV executives hate me

TV Guide gives a rundown on the status of TV shows for next Fall.

First, of the shows that have already been canceled, I regularly watched:
Boston Legal
ER
Life on Mars
My Own Worst Enemy

Of the shows that have a “poor” chance of returning, I am regularly watching:
Dollhouse
The Unusuals

The only show with a “good” chance of returning that I watch is:
Castle

And the only show that has been officially renewed that I watch is:
Lost

Network TV sucks.

60 votes afterall

I certainly wasn’t expecting Sen. Arlen “Magic Bullet Theory” Specter to switch parties today, but it was most certainly a welcome development for Democrats. Especially after the more obvious candidates for party switching over the years have resisted - from James Jeffords of Vermont who became an Independent rather than associating with us Dems, to Lincoln Chafee who ended up losing his Senate seat in Rhode Island because he stubbornly refused to switch parties.
But rather than following Chafee into the abyss, Specter decided to take the plunge in a bid to salvage his political career. And the odds are good now that it will work. And now Democrats are on the verge of a 60-vote filibuster-busting majority in the Senate as soon as Al Franken takes his rightful place as the next senator from Minnesota.
So Republicans are really hurting, especially in light of their loss in the New York District 20 race last week - A one-time Republican stronghold that stayed in Democratic hands despite their best efforts.
But believe me when I say that “I feel their pain.” Yes, I can actually feel just the slightest twinge of sympathy for my misguided Republican brothers and sisters on this one. That’s because I can still remember how I felt in 1994-95 as one conservative Democrat after another took turns jumping ship and stabbing the party in the back.
Remember Sen. Richard Shelby? Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell? Or how about all those turncoat Congressmen shortly after the start of the Gingrich Revolution — Billy Tauzin, Nathan Deal, Mike Parker, Jimmy Hayes, Greg Laughlin...
Yeah, it’s no fun when the shoe is on the other foot. Pretty soon there may be others like Olympia Snowe following Specter’s lead. But there shouldn’t be too many if for no other reason than the party has already shrunk down so small that there just aren’t that many people left who could conceivably make the switch. The moderate wing of the Republican Party can already hold its caucus meetings in a phone booth.

GOP thinks Swine Flu preparation is “Pork”

73 cases of swine flu confirmed; hundreds more feared

Seventy-three cases of swine flu have been confirmed worldwide, the World Health Organization said Monday.
Forty of those cases are in the United States, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada and one in Spain, a WHO representative said.
Later Monday, health officials in Scotland said two cases of swine flu had been confirmed there.
Hundreds more cases are suspected, especially in Mexico, where as many as 103 deaths are thought to have been caused by the virus, the country’s health minister said. More than 2,000 cases have been reported but not confirmed in the country.
Federal officials confirmed 20 new U.S. cases on Monday.

It would be wonderful if our government had been prepared for this type of occurrence. Unfortunately, Republicans stripped funding for Pandemic Preparedness out of the recent stimulus package.
That was $900 million that would come in handy right now in dealing with this swine flu crisis except that “fiscally conservative” Republicans axed it from the bill. They called it, ironically enough, “pork.”
Oh, and if fighting to keep the government ill-prepared for a pandemic crisis such as this one wasn’t enough, we can also thank Republicans for the fact that we still don’t have a Secretary of Health and Human Services in place in the midst of the biggest health care crisis in years because they have beenholding up her confirmation on account of her pro-choice position on abortion.

Spurs reboot

Yeah, I know it ain't over yet. But I'd pretty much decided it was over before it started anyway. The Spurs' playoff chances, that is.
I didn't figure they would make it all the way this year even with a healthy Manu Ginobili. Now with Manu out, it looks like they are going to get bounced out of the playoffs in the first round for the first time since 2000.
But, hey, at least they made it to the playoffs - and won their division to boot. So we should be happy with that and look forward to doing better next year.
Only, what will the Spurs look like next year?
I'm betting we will see a major shakeup of this team almost to the core. The way I see it there are only three indispensible players right now - Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Everyone else is expendable at one level or another.
I'm thinking they will hang onto Roger Mason Jr. and George Hill, and I kind of hope that they will keep Drew Gooden around as well. But everyone else may be cleared out before next year rolls around. Michael Finley and Bruce Bowen may both retire. Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto will be cleared out to make room for some younger and more aggresive rebounders. Ime Udoka and Matt Bonner are too inconsistent and Jacques Vaughn is being pushed out by Hill.
Of course, I don't know if there are contractual obligations that could keep some of these guys around longer. And I don't know the availability of people who could possibly replace them. But I just know that we aren't going to get any further with the same crew in place anymore and something will have to change.
The last game against Dallas should have made that clear. Tony Parker plays his heart out and scores 43 points while Tim Duncan contributes a solid 25 points and yet the Spurs still lose 99 to 90. How did that happen?
If you look at the stats for the Dallas Mavericks you see that only one player on the team scored more points than Tim (and just barely - Josh Howard had 28 points). But because everyone on the team contributed they still won.
How pathetic were the rest of the Spurs? Finley had a weak 7 points after playing 36 minutes. Bowen had 5 points in 31 minutes. Bonner played 22 minutest and scored squat. Udoka was in for 19 minutes at scored 1 point and Mason was in for 17 minutes and scored nada. That's pathetic! There is no excuse for losing a game like that.
The reason the Spurs are struggling right now is because they didn't bring someone in to help Timmy out under the basket the way Timmy came in early in his career to help out David Robinson. But now there is no one around to help him out as he goes into the twilight of his career.
Another problem is whoever the coaching wizard was who found Parker and Ginobili for the Spurs must be gone now, because that person surely would not have let Luis Scola slip away like the Spurs did. Now Scola is helping the Houston Rockets go to the next round of the playoffs rather than helping the Spurs.
Do you think we could trade the latter half of our team to Houston now and get him back? No, I didn't think so.

Torture retribution can wait

I know Ann won't be happy but I fully support President Obama's position resisting a Congressional investigation of the Bush era torture policies.

Mr. Obama said a special inquiry would steal time and energy from his policy agenda, and could mushroom into a wider distraction looking back at the Bush years...

That is exactly right. I know that President Obama can walk and chew gum at the same time, but the problem is that the rest of the country can't. And to accomplish the gargantuan task of repairing the damage to our economy from the gross negligence and mismanagement of the Bush years will require the full support and attention of the country.
Paul Krugman argues today that we must procede with a full-scale investigation now in order to "reclaim America's soul."
Now, I love Krugman and I generally agree with him on most things. But this is a case where we can see the divide between liberal idealism (Krugman) and liberal pragmatism (Obama).
Krugman says that

America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, a nation of moral ideals. In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.

Well, that's a nice sentiment and all, but the reality is that we are NOT "a nation of moral ideals," we are a nation of people all with our own flaws and shortcomings and all more intent on taking care of our day-to-day needs than worrying about upholding moral ideals. I can tell you right now that if I lose my job and am forced to give up the house where I intend to raise my children, I'm not going to give a damn whether Dick Cheney and his cronies spend any time in jail or not.
I think Obama understands this. He does not want his agenda to get bogged down in a long slog through the past sins of the Bush administration. That doesn't mean that we just forget about it and push it all under the rug, but this is not the time to be pushing all of this stuff up to the front burner.
The USS Titanic just hit an iceberg and it's time to have all hands on deck and find some way to salvage the situation. It's not time to start a tribunal to prosecute the guys who ran us into the iceberg.
Sen. Harry Reid is right that we should just let the process play itself out for now and not rush things.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other top Senate Democrats endorsed Mr. Obama’s view on Thursday, telling reporters at a news conference at the Capitol that they preferred to wait for the results of an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee expected late this year...

Just remember that the people who ran this torture regime are now out of power. And the best thing we can do now is to make sure that they stay out of power for the indefinite future. The way to do that is to demonstrate to the American people that the current administration's policies will work to pull us out of this mess. Otherwise, I'm afraid that a slim majority of people could be persuaded to put them back into office again and then before you know it we will be back where we started.

I agree that we need to regain America's soul, but we don't do that through retribution. We do it by pursuing the right course and demonstrating once again that it is the best path.

Texas Republicans hate America

A new poll just out confirms that half of all Texas Republicans are dumber than rocks.

Forty-eight percent of (Texas) Republicans said they favor secession, the same percentage that said they didn’t in a Research 2000/DailyKos poll released Thursday.

How incredibly embarrassing.

Filibusters and Reconciliation

I absolutely believe that the Democrats will have to use the reconciliation process to push Obama’s agenda on healthcare, energy and education through Congress. Republicans are going to throw a huge hissy fit when this happens, but all I can say to that is “Bring it on.”
As this graph aptly illustrates:

Republicans have not been shy about using the filibuster to derail legislation that they can’t defeat on a majority vote. The filibuster is an arcane Senate rule that has been abused in recent years to enforce a 60-vote supermajority on almost everything. The only way to avoid this abuse is to consider the legislation under rules known as reconciliation. This is not an uncommon practice as noted here, and has been used many times in past by Republicans - most recently to pass Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.
So, if Republicans can use reconciliation to screw up the economy, Democrats should be able to use it to put things right again. I think it is imperative that Obama get his agenda through Congress (assuming that it has majority support) and not allow it to be derailed by Republicans who are presently pulling out all the stops to keep Al Franken from taking his Senate Seat just so they can deny Democrats what may be a crucial vote needed to override a Republican filibuster.
The economic crisis facing the nation today is too critical to allow political gamesmanship to override the will of the electorate. The public voted in November. As Republicans were fond of saying back when they used to win elections - “Elections have consequences.”
They can squeal and protest and wave teabags all they want, but Democrats and the Obama administration need to stay focused on cleaning up the mess and putting the country back on the right track or else, God forbid, the Republicans may get back in there again and screw things up even worse, if that is even possible.

Tweet!

OK, I finally took the leap onto Twitter. You can find all my Twittering here.
Up until now I had resisted jumping into Twitter on account of the fact that I don’t own a cell phone and I had assumed until just recently that it was only for people texting one another on their cell phones.
But it seems that it encompasses the Web as well so even Luddites like me can join in the fun. I don’t know that I will have much to Twitter about myself or if I will just use it to follow other Twits. But it was fun setting it up and finding my initial group of Twits to follow. For some reason the site won’t take any of the photos I’ve tried to upload so I remain faceless in the Twitosphere for now.
So for anyone else out there still resisting the temptation to Twitter, I can now say ‘Come on in, the water’s fine!’

Rick Perry's Secession Obsession

Knowing he is going to face a tough primary challenge next year from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Gov. Rick Perry has lately been trying to raise his profile with the conservative base of his party. So it was no surprise that he went out of his way to embrace the recent "Tea Party" protests.
But he may have gotten more attention than he anticipated when he decided to dip his toe into the part of the pool occupied by the most fringe elements of his party - the anti-government secessionists. Just by broaching the topic of secession, Perry put himself outside the mainstream of American politics and gave political legitimacy to the lunatic fringe wing of his party. If this actually helps him in a Republican Primary, it is a sad testament to the pathetic state of the GOP today.
But as the sitting governor it is completely innappropriate and irresponsible for Perry to be raising this issue at all. He is smart enough to know that it is completely asinine and stupid, but apparently still thinks exploiting this intellectually handicapped segment of the population will prove beneficial at election time. I hope he is wrong.

Tea Party aftermath

How stupid was that?
I mean, what exactly were these people protesting yesterday? Taxes that haven’t gone up in 10 years and were actually cut just a few weeks ago? Government spending which is currently keeping the economy from falling into the abyss?
I think what we really saw was a great big pity party for a lot of people still upset because they got their butts whooped in the last election. Seriously, isn’t it a little late (or at best way too early) to be threatening politicians with ouster? The election was just three months ago! They lost and now they CAN’T get over it. So at the behest of the shrill rightwing noise machine they marched around yesterday shaking their fists and denouncing the government. Yawn.
At best there were a lot of people who are just a little confused and misinformed about how the world works (and particularly how the government works). At worst you had some extreme elements angry because a black guy (i.e. a “socialist”) got elected president and now they are ready to secede, revolt, whine or whatever. In some ways the protest reminded me of the anti-government militia groups I used to cover in the mid-90s out in the Texas Hill Country before the Oklahoma City bombing sent them all scurrying back into the woodwork.
There was one event that I covered in Boerne sometime around 1994-95 that was called Patriots for Freedom or something like that. It featured a lot of the far-right fringe groups, offshoots of the John Birch Society, secessionist anti-government groups and the militias - gun-toting nutjobs threatening to revolt over taxes. They had all kinds of booths set up with vendors selling automatic weapons and artillery, books on how to avoid paying taxes, lots of literature about how the federal government is illegitimate and, of course, Impeach Clinton bumper stickers.
I imagine that some of the people who went to that Boerne confab were probably at the Tea Party yesterday. The Express-News estimated the crowd to be about 5,000, which is a lot, but apparently not enough for the Tea Party organizers who inflated that number to 16,000 on their web site.
Some people objected to the group using the Alamo as a backdrop for their protest. That doesn’t bother me. The Alamo belongs to everybody. As long as they weren’t relieving themselves on the wall outside or otherwise trashing the place, I have no problem with them holding a civil protest in the vicinity. But the spectacle of these people wrapping themselves in the flag and gushing over the Pledge of Allegiance and God Bless America while at the same time ranting about how much they hate the government and want to secede from the union would have been an embarrassment to our forefathers if they had been here to see it.
I, of course, did not attend the Tea Party. I hate big crowds and avoid them whenever I can. Plus there were much more important things to do last night, like watch the Spurs play. But I’ll be curious to see what the wingnuts do next as the glow of their big party wears off and they recede back into the political obscurity that the 2008 election results gave them.

Update
I just saw this at Daily Kos and had to add it:

So here’s the basic lesson of the teabagging hissy fit. The new Republican “theory” of democracy:
GOP wins: “Mandate! Elections have consequences!”
GOP loses: “Tyranny! Fascism! Revolution! Secession!

A Citizens Guide to Tax Demagoguery

Robert Reich has a great post up that answers and counters many of the bogus claims made by the clueless teabaggers yesterday.

No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Herewith a short citizen's guide (that is, a citizen's guide that's short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges:

1. "Americans pay too much in taxes." Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.

2. "The rich pay too much! The top ten percent of income earners pay over 72 percent of all income taxes!" Misleading: The main reason the rich pay such a large percent is they've become so much richer than the bottom 90 percent in recent years. If you look at what they pay as individuals -- the percent of their incomes over and above the highest rate below them -- you'll see a steady decline over the years. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the marginal rate on the highest earners was 91 percent (after deductions and tax credits, closer to 50 percent); by 1980 it was still up there, at 70 percent (an effective rate of closer to 45 percent); under Bill Clinton, it was 38 percent (an effective rate closer to 28 percent).

Look at the after-tax earnings of families and you'll see what's really going on. Between 1980 and 2000, the after-tax earnings of famlies at the top rose more than 150 percent, while the after-tax earnings of families in the middle rose about 10 percent. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 raised the after-tax incomes of most Americans by a bit over 1 percent -- but raised the after-tax incomes of millionaires by 4.4 percent.

3. "The bottom 60 percent pay only 3.3 percent of the taxes!" Misleading again. Most Americans are paying more in sales taxes than they ever have. Property taxes have also been rising at a steady clip. And Social Security taxes have also risen (thanks to the Greenspan Commission), while earnings over about $100,000 aren't subject to Social Security taxes. So-called "sin" taxes (mostly beer and cigarettes) have also skyrocketed. All of these taxes take a bigger bite out of the paychecks of people with lower incomes than they do people with higher incomes.

4. "Obama is raising your taxes!" Wrong. Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans, by about $400 per person a year -- not a whopping tax cut, to be sure, but not a tax increase by any stretch. Only the top 2 percent will have a tax increase, but even this tax increase is modest. Basically, they go back to the rates they were paying under Bill Clinton (their deductions will be limited to 28 percent, which is only fair). And they won't start paying this until 2011 anyway.

5. "The huge debts we're wracking up will cause your taxes to rise!" Wrong again. When it comes to the national debt, as I've said before, the relevant statistic is the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product. The only sure way to bring that debt down and make it manageable in future years is to get the economy growing again -- which requires that, in the short term, the government spend a lot of money (because consumers and businesses won't). In the long term, the biggest source of concern is rising health-care costs. And that's something Obama and Congress are aiming to tackle.

6. "We have a patriotic duty to stand up against Washington taxes!" Just the opposite. We have a patriotic duty to pay taxes. As multi-billionaire Warrent Buffett put it, "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you'll find out how much this talent is going to product in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling thirty years later." President Teddy Roosevelt made the case in 1906 when he argued in favor of continuing the inheritance tax. "The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government."

An acquaintance from law school, now a partner in one of Washington's biggest and wealthiest law firms, explained to me one day over lunch how he and his partners use tax rules to create offsetting taxable gains and losses, and then allocate the gains to the firm's foreign partners who don't pay taxes in the United States. That way, they keep the losses here and shelter their income abroad. I noticed he had an American flag lapel pin. "You're supporting our troops," I said, referring to his pin. "Yup," he replied, entirely missing my point.

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.

Tea Party program

Anyone curious about who is going to speak at the big San Antonio "Tea Party" in front of the Alamo? Here is the agenda from their website:

6:00p.m.-6:10p.m. - Prayer/Welcome (Adam McManus)
6:10p.m.-6:15p.m. - Pledge of allegiance (Seth Alfaro and Gavin Carmona)
6:15p.m-6:20p.m. - “God Bless America” (Jean French)
6:20p.m.-6:30p.m. - “The Alamo: A Line in the Sand” (Julia Hayden)
6:30p.m.-6:40p.m. - Opening Remarks (Glenn Beck)
6:40p.m.-6:50p.m. - National Anthem (Ted Nugent)
6:50p.m.-7:00p.m. - “An Immigrant’s Story” (Katharine Moreno)
7:00p.m.-7:10p.m. - “The Duty of a Citizen” (Edward Jaax)
7:10p.m.-7:20p.m. - “The War on Economic Freedom” (Phil Pepin)
7:20p.m.-7:40p.m. - “Texas for Sale” (Terri Hall)
7:40p.m.-8:00p.m. - “Freedom at Risk” (Doug Phillips)
8:00 p.m.- 8:15 p.m. - “What You Can Do Now
8:15 p.m. - “We Must Take America Back” Steve Vaus

The first thing that strikes me is that it is going to take a half hour just to get through the prayer, pledge of allegiance and "God Bless America". Then they foolishly think that Glenn Beck and Ted Nugent are both going to give up the microphone after just 10 minutes.
But who are all these other people speaking at this "non-partisan" event? I did a little Googling and this is what I came up with...
Edward Jaax appears to be a graduate of something called Patriot Academy, which bills itself as the "premier conservative political training camp in the nation" and "a five-day political training program where students age sixteen to twenty-five learn about America's system of government from a Biblical worldview." It sounds creepy to me.
Next is Phil Pepin, a Ron Paul supporter who is connected with something called CampaignForLibertySA. So this must be where the "non-partisanship" comes in. The teabaggers range from far-rightwing Republicans to far-rightwing Libertarians.
Next is Terri Hall who I am assuming is the person associated with the Texas Toll Party, a rightwing activist group opposing toll roads.
Doug Phillips must be this guy. He apparently sells books and other merchandise targeted toward homeschoolers. This is from his website:

Everything on our site is an expression of our mission: to rebuild Christian family culture. At Vision Forum, we are unabashed advocates for the historic, biblical ideal for motherhood and fatherhood; we rejoice in the revival of biblical education promoted through the home school movement; and we dare to believe that it is still noble and virtuous to train our sons to hold the doors for our daughters...

OK, then.
And finally, it looks like attendees will be subjected to a song from Steve Vaus.
It all sounds like sooooo much fun!

A very balanced panel of judges

A three-judge panel in Minnesota has looked at all the evidence and the arguments surrounding the tedious, lengthy recount of the Senate election and has determined unanimously that Al Franken is the winner.
And yet, Republican Norm Coleman is still going to appeal the results to the state Supreme Court.
So was the three-judge panel not good enough? Were they biased against Coleman? What was the political makeup of the panel?
It turns out the panel was exceedingly well balanced with one judge appointed by a Democrat, one judge appointed by a Republican and one judge appointed by an independent (Jesse Ventura). You can’t get much more balanced than that. And did I mention that they were unanimous in their decision?
But none of that really matters to Coleman or the Republican Party which at this point is simply trying to keep Democrats from getting another vote in the Senate for as long as possible.
One question that I have. Since Franken was elected to a six-year term in the Senate, when does the clock start on that term? When he finally gets sworn in? Or has it already started back on election day?
It hardly seems fair if that is the case.
Here is hoping that the Minnesota Supreme Court will bring this to a rapid conclusion and I hope the voters in Minnesota won’t soon forget how Republicans screwed them out of representation and seniority in the Senate.

Of Puppies and Pirates

I was having to defend President Obama this weekend over his supposed mishandling of the pirate hostage crisis off the coast of Somalia. We apparently weren’t being tough enough and were sitting around holding hands and singing Kumbayah or something. But before the day was over I learned that we were doing a bit more than hand-holding and hymn-singing. Three of the four pirates ended up with holes in their heads courtesy of Navy SEAL sniper fire and the captain of the vessel who was taken hostage was free and unharmed.
You really couldn’t have asked for a better ending, unless of course you are a fanatical, far-rightwing Obama-hater like this guy.
Beldar, who I lost all respect for long ago, is not satisfied with this outcome. His thirst for blood is not satiated and he wants the fourth pirate, now in captivity, to be put to death. He also goes on to spit at Obama and try and twist the story to make it seem like he was guilty of intentionally prolonging the crisis. The rightwing radio yakkers quickly followed suit. It was truly ridiculous and people who are not wrapped up in the cult could see that it wouldn’t have mattered what Obama did or didn’t do. He could have swum out there and personally slit the throats of all the pirates and STILL would have been criticized by the wingnuts as being soft on terrorism or piratism or whatever.
Obama’s recent trip to Europe was nitpicked at every opportunity for percieved improprieties or lack of protocol. They sniped about the gift he gave the Queen. They complained about Michelle Obama breaking protocol by hugging the queen. They went completely nuts when Obama bent down to grasp the Saudi King’s hands saying it was a “bow.”
With the economy starting to turn around, the stock market beginning to recover and banks starting to pay back their TARP loans, it’s like the right has become extremely desperate to find something - anything! - to bash Obama over the head with.
That became even more evident when Newt Gingrich grumped that the news stories about the Obama family’s new dog were “fairly stupid” and whined that nobody cares where the dog came from.
What was really stupid is why the news media keeps interviewing Newt Gingrich. Who cares what he has to say?

Life on Mars canceled

I just learned today to my great despair that the TV show "Life on Mars" has been canceled after just one season. It now joins Firefly as one of my favorite shows to last only one season.
The only good news is that they gave the show's creators enough forewarning that they were able to film a series finale episode that resolved the show. I haven't seen it yet, but my understanding is that they did a good job wrapping up the series.
But still, there is no reason why the show couldn't have continued for several more seasons at least. It was a fun show with a terrific cast. I am so depressed.
All I can figure is that the TV executives closely monitor my viewing habits and use it as a reverse poll, canceling shows that I watch and promoting shows that I avoid. How else to explain the sudden death of Boston Legal last year. The early demise of My Own Worst Enemy early this season. The end of ER, which I watched regularly, and now the end of Life on Mars.
Lately, I have also been watching Dollhouse, the news series by Buffy the Vampire creator Joss Whedon, and Castle, the crime drama starring Nathan Filion of Firefly fame. So be warned because both these shows are sure to be canceled as well. I would be shocked if either is approved for a second season.
Since the network TV executives are working so hard to prevent me from having any shows to watch on TV, I may have to oblige and finally give in. When Lost finally ends in another year or two I may be completely out of options.

The NRA rules their world

The Houston Chronicle has a good editorial today about the idiotic bill before the Texas Legislature that would force public universities to allow handguns on campus.

the most troubling, irresponsible one of all is a bill to allow concealed weapons on college campuses. Authored by Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, it seems to have enough support to pass the House. In the Senate, 13 of the 31 members have promised their support for an identical bill authored by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.

It’s a horrifying thought. It is our fervent hope that cooler heads in the Senate will prevail and block its passage. Students have enough on their plates without having to worry that horsing around, drinking or otherwise acting like a college student could result in an unintended tragedy.

There are excellent reasons why all major car rental agencies require that a driver be at least 25, or pay a hefty premium if younger. Psychologists are well aware that the ability to foresee the consequences of one’s behavior is still developing long past adolescence.

The arguments that having a concealed weapon would help prevent tragedies such as Columbine and Virginia Tech are discounted by experts, who cite statistics that being in possession of a handgun can be a dangerous proposition in itself, on or off campus. Texas colleges seem to agree: Campus police departments and more than 40 colleges have voiced their opposition, noted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Within the last month, 57 people have died in eight mass shootings around the country. Just a week ago yesterday, a gunman shot and killed 13 people in Binghamton, N.Y., before killing himself. The next day, three Pittsburgh police officers were killed, hours after a man killed his five children and then himself in Washington State. Eight died the week before that in a nursing home in North Carolina; four police officers in Oakland. … Most of the killers were registered gun owners.

We live in a violent country. And firearms are the weapons of choice. They have no place on a college campus.

Most of the lawmakers who are supporting this outrageous legislation are doing so simply because they don't want to risk losing their 100 percent rating with the NRA. The fact that they would allow an extremist organization like the NRA to dictate to public universities that they have to allow guns on campus (private schools would be conveniently exempt), despite the opposition of the very people charged with protecting the students on these campuses, shows just how completely irresponsible and morally bankrupt they have become.
These moronic cowboy fantasies that gun nuts have that they will whip out their concealed handguns and stop some campus shooter are as likely to happen as they are to repel an invasion of space aliens. More likely to happen is that they will screw around with their gun at some point and get themselves or someone else shot.
Some letter writers to the Chronicle had a great suggestion for these jerk lawmakers. Since they are going to force handguns onto our college campuses, the bill should also contain a clause opening up handguns to the state Capitol and their legislative offices.
Such idiots!

The Cult of Conservatism

I've often wondered why it is so hard to have a political discussion with some conservatives. Rational argument seems impossible when the reponse is always a random spewing of meaningless nonsense. (See the comments in the post below for a good example).
I have a theory as to why this is. I believe a large segment of today's "conservative" movement has essentially developed into a cult. Like the classic definition of a cult, these people isolate themselves from regular society and adhere to a strict set of doctrine dictated to them by a small group of high priests and priestesses.
The isolation comes in the way that they shut themselves off from all forms of news and information except those that are approved by the cult - Fox News, Washington Times, NewsMax, rightwing radio, rightwing blogs, and so forth.
All other forms of communication are viewed as suspect and dismissed as heretical and false. The media personalities on these few approved outlets serve as the high priests of the cult - Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, etc.
They are the gatekeepers of truth for the cultists. Until they say that it is OK to believe something, it is rejected by the cult followers. They are, as a rule, paranoid and distrustful of all other forms of media as well as all forms of government and just about anybody and everybody not directly connected to their cult network.
I think this is why a cult leader like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who runs the Washington Times, fits in so well with the rightwing movement today. Conservative cultists aren't bothered by Moon's beliefs that he is the "messiah", because he has the two things that the cult followers truly prize and worship above all else - money and power.
Now not all "conservatives" are total adherents to the cult. Mark for instance is not fully vested in the cult because his devotion to Catholicism overrides it in some instances. Others may be only partial converts at this point, but the clear direction of the Republican Party today is towards full embracement of the cult mentality.
Like the Scientologists that they resemble, the conservative cultists have an irrational fear of things they don't fully understand. For Scientologists, it is the fear of psychology. For conservatives it is the fear of "socialism" by which they mean any government program or initiative that veers away from a strictly hard-right ideology.
More on this later....

Wingnuts on Parade

Next Wednesday, April 15, San Antonio will pay unwitting host to a rightwing pity party and protest event being billed as the San Antonio Tea Party.
What will distinguish the San Antonio Tea Party from the hundreds of other tea parties scheduled for that same day in other cities (and the dozens that have previously been held) is that the Mad Hatter himself - far-right talk radio host Glenn Beck - will be at the San Antonio event in an effort to exploit the city’s shrine of liberty - The Alamo - for his partisan political purposes.
While researching this issue prior to writing this post, I was surprised to learn that the person heading up the local event is none other than Robin Juhl, aka Ranten’ Raven, my old blogging buddy and sparring partner.
Raven is the one who (with his lovely wife) planned and organized the one and only San Antonio Blogger BBQ, a pleasant gathering that brought together locally-based political bloggers of all stripes. It was with great sadness that I reported two years ago the demise of Raven’s blog. So I am happy to see that he is still doing well, although not so delighted to see what it is that has been keeping him busy lately.
But I must say that he has done some good work organizing this event as you can see by the website and blog that has been set up. And I appreciate their efforts to keep the gathering as civil and peaceful as possible as evidenced by the “Rules” they have listed on their site:

RULE 1: No Violence
We are not anarchists. We are concerned citizens using the freedoms secured by our nations founders and declared in the Bill of Rights to petition our government. Any who advocate, in general, any act of violence or other active civil disobedience will be told (not asked--TOLD!) to leave our reserved area. Any who advocate, in specific, any act of violence will be reported to the San Antonio Police or to the US Secret Service, as appropriate. Our Founders gave us the Bill of Rights and we will use them. Talk of “battles” must be reserved to the context of “Battle of the Flowers” and “political battles.” We will act in a peaceful, lawful manner, period. PERIOD. Your alternative is to form your own protest, separate from ours. We have no problem with those who want to organize their own Tea Party. Good luck, and may God Bless your efforts.

Of course, if they actually do uphold this rule then they will have to ask Glenn Beck to leave as soon as he shows up. The same goes for that wild-eyed fascist freak Ted Nugent who is planning to show up and butcher the National Anthem on his electric guitar.
As Steve Benen noted today, these tea party protesters seem a bit confused about what they are supposed to be protesting. They don’t like all of the spending and the deficits, but for some reason they didn’t seem to be bothered by it too much when it was going on for the past eight years under a Republican president. Apparently, a Republican president spending hundreds of billions of dollars to repair infrastructure in Iraq is OK, but a Democratic president spending hundreds of billions of dollars to repair infrastructure in the U.S. is not. And nevermind that the point behind the spending boost is to try and pull the country out of the economic death spiral created by the Republican administration’s failed economic policies.
The organizers of this event have gone to great lengths to say that it is not supposed to be a partisan, anti-Obama, anti-Democrat affair. But it is hard to see anyone who supports the current administration showing up for an event meant to protest everything they are trying to do to save our economy.
I guess the thing that disturbs me the most about it is just that - the extreme anti-government tone of the event. It is hard to see how these people can claim to love their country when they seem to despise every aspect of it other than the symbolism. Sure, they loooooove the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, pictures of bald eagles, and so on. But they absolutely hate the U.S. government, even when its being run by rightwing Republicans, and they can’t stand most of their fellow Americans on whom they blame most all of their problems on, whether its the “liberals” or “Hollywood” or immigrants or welfare recipients.

Mean as a snake

I’m sorry, but hearing Republican congressmen refer to Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “mean as a snake” and “Tom DeLay in a skirt” strikes me as very funny and very much deserved. For them, that is.
Personally, I think she is like DeLay in the sense that she is very powerful and runs a tight ship, but she is also very different in that she is not a corrupt little weasel like the ex-bug exterminator was.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I’m very glad to see George W. Bush back doing what he does best.

I’m also glad to see that baseball season has started up again, especially since the Spurs season is, for all practical purposes, over.