Texas

Texas State Senator Leticia Van de Putte and former Chair of the Texas Democratic Party Molly Beth Malcolm will hold a conference call today, Tuesday, June 17th, at 4 pm EDT/3 pm CDT to discuss John McCain's refusal to denounce offensive and misogynist comments made by McCain campaign fundraiser Clayton Williams or return the $300,000 Williams raised on McCain's behalf. Williams stirred controversy during his run for governor of Texas in 1990 when he compared rape to the weather, saying that "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it…" Van de Putte and Malcom will also discuss why Senator McCain is bad for women and how he doesn't understand the issues American women face. [Washington Post, 6/13/08]

In which we examine a radical plan to save first a city, then a state.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Bush Republicans will read this story and rejoice, a child molester dying in his own squalor, what could be better.

BOISE, Idaho - After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child.

Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell’s shower, with the water still running.

“Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again,” he wrote his uncle. “I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn’t been changed since they caught me.”

However, what they want to ignore in this story, what they want you not to pay attention to, is how privatization has FAILED.

I am again today playing the part of the player at the piano bar. Today’s request is from sarantx, over at the John Edwards site, who wonders how we might resolve her (and by extension, Texas’) John Cornyn problem.

For those not aware, Cornyn is the former Texas Attorney General who filled in the last few weeks of Phil Graham’s term following his own election in 2002, and before his inauguration in 2003. He is serving his first term, and is up for re-election in this cycle.

This is one of the more difficult diaries I have written in a while, mainly due to the strange nature of Texas politics.

Every logical bone in every D body tells us Texas is enemy territory.

Texas voted for Mr. Bush over Kerry 61% to 38%. The state is so R they didn’t even bother to count Ron Paul’s votes in Texas 14, as he ran unopposed.

The Governor is primarily known for his ineptitude and that classic nickname: Rick “Goodhair” Perry (modified by Molly Ivins to “The Coiffure” in 2006).

Texas Lege veteran Warren Chisum has recently been linked to the “Non-moving Earth” movement (all Copernicus, no Galileo on that site, I might add), which may or may not be an effort to distract from his record, and he’s not even on his best form here.