Burnt Orange Report

We could use a governor who "thinks ahead."

Is Bob Gammage Damaged Goods?

Just asking.

The attacks, so swift and so early. He must be doing something right.

Not attacks, Karl. Legitimate questions.

You know it wouldn't hurt you to read the post all the way through...

Oh, I did, believe me. I'm sure someone will mention a comparison of win/loss records soon.

Or perhaps even reasons for resignations.

We'd both be interested, right?

Or just me?

And Chris Bell is St. Christopher I suppose?

I think the Chris Bell camp said enough about Bob Gammage earlier with the "cut and run" comment. Although they said more about themselves than about Bob Gammage in the process.

I would point out again Chris Bell has gotten a lot of media coverage over his filing an ethics complaint against Tom De Lay although he ended up being admonished as well. Possibly more than Tom De Lay was. The media overlooks that. Quite a few people don't. And won't when they hit the polls. Makes you wonder why the media always overlooks that little fact. Kind of hard to believe someone stands for ethics and ethics reform when the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct admonished him for his lack of ethics. A little hypocritical at best.

At worst it gives a glimpse of what kind of campaign he will run against a serious challenger like Bob Gammage. And already, apparently, has begun to run which Bob Gammage has already decided to ignore. He prefers the high road.

He thinks ahead. Prefers the high road. Sounds like a serious winner to me. Not just a challenger.

Don't hate the playah, hate the game, Snooksy.

If the worst thing you can say about a distinguished Texas politician with about a 40-year record is that he resigned his Supreme Court seat a little early ... uh, that's pretty darn weak. Very few Justices serve out their full terms.

I don't think I know Mr. Stanford, although I've heard some good things about him. But if college food fights/campus police melees and bad-mouthing Justice Gammage before the man even has a chance to formally announce are gonna be the key issues ... well,'nuff said.

Many people own their own names as domain names (Yahoo offers a link to the service as a rotating ad).

Most self-employed business people do. If for no better reason than to keep down the possibility of identity theft.

I'd suggest you check something more relevant out... like TexasforGammage.com or GammageforGovernor.com before. Find out if those domains are taken and if so, when.

That would say a lot more about when (and if) he started thinking about the race.

P.S. As one computer geek to another....... or maybe, as one computer geek with a little more experience dealing with squatters and identity theft to another

If the worst thing you can say about a distinguished Texas politician with about a 40-year record is that he resigned his Supreme Court seat a little early ...

But that's not the worst thing (potentially).

There's lots of worse things; and I think it's much better that IF there are worse things, that they be revealed now rather than later.

You guys just seem to want to throw stones at the messenger -- or the questioner, as it were.

Very GOP of you.

Can anybody get some answers for me, or do you just want to snark?

(Karl: this is what an 'attack' looks like, in case you weren't clear...)

I see that the Houston Chronicle article that another blogger mentioned was 'snipped' right before the best part.....
Here's the rest of the article....

"No one, he said, presented evidence against the fees.

He also said the arbitration process had been approved by the federal judge presiding over the tobacco case and the panel's recommended award was conditioned on the judge's approval.

"I did not know Murr. I knew Morales, or thought I knew him. It was a heartbreak." he added. "But anyone who is guilty of corruption ought to go down, and he went down."

Gammage, 67, served on the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin from 1982-91 and on the Texas Supreme Court from 1991-95. The school finance decisions in which he participated include the high court ruling in 1995 that upheld the school finance law, which requires property wealthy districts to share tax revenue with poorer schools."

But this isn't really a rebuttal or even a defense, R.S.D., of Gammage's being -- apparently -- unwittingly duped at best, or complicit in the fraud at worst (as the part of the article I excerpted explains).

His ruling as arbitrator was overruled, and Morales -- the guy who appointed him -- is in jail serving time for the fraud.

Gammage has some questions to answer. Do you want to take a shot at them for him?

While you're looking at the source of URL registrations, try txdemocrats.com.

I wonder if the Texas DTPA would address such conduct, or if something could be said about it in the course of the DeLay trial.

You understand the role of an arbitation panel, right? If not, I assumed too much, I guess. I'm not an attorney (just a geek) but even I can google.

Arbitration , in the law, is a legal alternative to the courts whereby the parties to a dispute agree to submit their respective positions to a neutral third party, the arbitrator, for resolution.

Generally, arbitration is used in a business-related dispute and usually entails a fraction of the time and money of litigation. Both parties agree to recognize an arbitration panel as a legal authority, and agree that the decision is legally binding. If the losing party fails to pay the award amount, the winner can transfer the decision to a court, which will enforce the award judicially. Arbitration procedures are usually closed to the public.

Arbitrators do not "rule" on evidence. Nor do they 'investigate' whether documents presented are true or false. They are not even 'mediators'.

I think you've been fed a can of crap by someone with an agenda. I'd wonder (if I were you) why they keep feeding you this same stuff "Cut and run" was bad enough. I'd say it shows incompetent oppo research and a tin ear for what's acceptable and what's disgraceful.

Look for an arbitration attorney among your readers. Ask them.

Chris Bell has a lot of things to answer as well but most are just ignoring the questions and concentrating instead on his "slash and trash" compaign and leaving it at that.

Your intimation that Bob Gammage was involved in some sort of "quid pro quo" is very offensive to quite a few and just another reason why more and more people are turned off by both Chris Bell and his supporters.

Large settlements in the tobacco cases were not that unusual. You are picking one settlement out of quite a few and intimating that one member of an arbitration panel did something unethical or illegal in recommending the award that the panel, not him, recommended. Typical Chris Bell.

http://www.house.gov/ethics/Bell_letter.htm

I think you've been fed a can of crap by someone with an agenda.

Nice.

Looks like the primary season is underway.

Your intimation that Bob Gammage was involved in some sort of "quid pro quo" is very offensive to quite a few and just another reason why more and more people are turned off by both Chris Bell and his supporters.

Snooks, you're a Chris Bell hater from way back. But you sully what's left of your bad reputation by trying to smear "Chris Bell supporters" with the same brush.

You're a bad guy, and you don't need to prove it any more.

Questions of Bob Gammage that need answering, people. Focus.

I've never met Chris Bell. Hard to hate someone you've never met. But I certainly have no use for him personally. You seem incapable of understanding some people do draw lines between personal and political and overlook personal things in favor of political things. There is very little that can be overlooked with Chris Bell. If that is hating him, so be it.

Again, though, it really has to do with his political "history" and his slash and trash campaigns. Being repeated at this moment by Jay Aiyer in his attacks on Sue Lovell and her "ethics" which mirror the complaint he filed against Al Green while he was Chris Bell's campaign treasurer. Birds of a feather flock together?

I'm not a bad guy. Not necessarily a good girl either. But the when I'm bad, I'm a bad girl. Not a bad guy.

Judging from some emails I've gotten which have mystified me since my email address is not "public" here, I suspect you confused me with someone else. Or are just confused.

And it looks as though the "Swiftboating' has already begun too. It's too bad your candidate has fallen into that pit, I'd have thought better of Chris.

Snipped segments of news reports, petulant 'too clever by half" snarks, poor or absent original research....

If you really wanted to learn something, I'd suggest you go do a little research, get out the dictionary and look up a few definitions first. That's a good place to start.

Or better yet, next time you see Judge Gammage, ask him yourself. The difference between Judge Gammage and some others is that he'll give you a straight answer himself. He doesn't have to have a spokesman guy speak for him.

I suspect you confused me with someone else.

No, I don't. But this isn't about you. Or me either, for that matter.

Or better yet, next time you see Judge Gammage, ask him yourself.

Or maybe he'll take up the invitation I extended in my post.

Back on topic:

Anybody else think it just plain odd that Bob bought his domain name in June? As I recall, even Bell hadn't entered the race at that time.

Well, what do you mean by entered... Bell had his exploratory committee going since January I think. The official launch was in mid August at UT, around the 14th.

The official launch was in mid August at UT

Right. He got in once his wife's cancer went into remission.

Here's another question, hopefully less threatening to the Gammage-ites: was Bob G at Democracy Fest?

Gammagites? He hasn't even announced and already you are thinking up cute little names to dismiss his supporters with.

Again, this is why quite a few are turned off by Chris Bell and his supporters. Your attitude.

And what does Democracy Fest or anything else have to do with anything?

He hasn't answered you personally, so of course he hasn't answered.

Once again, these "litmus tests" of what makes a good Democrat. Most of which point to what makes a bad one.

BS--

You make good points here and there, and obviously ask questions about Bell that need asking. Granted, people have answered those for you, (not to your liking, of course) - but that's how the game goes.

But please, please, please don't talk about bad attitudes and poor manners. People don't have to like Gammage. And they don't have to like Bell. But when you call out people for trashing Gammage when you constantly trash Bell --

I mean, you're not dumb. Isn't that a little, itty-bit hypocritical?

Pointing out that Chris Bell was admonished by the very committee he filed an ethics complaint against Tom De Lay with is not trashing someone. It is pointing out a fact.

Pointing to that admonishment with regard to the latest use of innuendo to attack someone as we saw in the "cut and run" comment about Bob Gammage is not hypocritical at all. It is pointing out a fact as well. It is pointing out that once again, the use of innuendo is the hallmark of a Chris Bell campaign.

PDittie,

At the risk of repeating myself (Okay, I will since you didn't read upthread)

Many people own their own names as domain names (Yahoo offers a link to the service as a rotating ad).

Most self-employed business people do. If for no better reason than to keep down the possibility of identity theft.

I'd suggest you check something more relevant out... like TexasforGammage.com or GammageforGovernor.com before. Find out if those domains are taken and if so, when.

That would say a lot more about when (and if) he started thinking about the race.

"Your intimation that Bob Gammage was involved in some sort of "quid pro quo" is very offensive to quite a few and just another reason why more and more people are turned off by both Chris Bell and his supporters."

Your stream of attacks on Bell's family, in the past, has been more than very offensive to quite a few people, and just another reason why people don't take you seriously.

If you're gonna call people out for stuff, fine. But you got to let others do it, too. Otherwise, you're just shitting out the mouth.

I hope you're never at a dinner table with me when I really let loose about Chris and Alison Bell. We'd have to call the paramedics to revive you.

The only comment I recall making on BOR about her was with regard to her making sure everyone knew at a Hadassah luncheon that Andrea White was a friend. As if to make sure that everyone knew that there was this somehow, almost, implied endorsement of Chris Bell by the mayor of Houston. As someone recently pointed out with regard to that endorsement, however, that same audience might not really care for the endorsement given that more and more people are realizing that Bill White worked for a major supporter of Hezbollah before he became mayor.

At the risk of repeating myself (Okay, I will since you didn't read upthread)

Sure I did. This doesn't completely answer my question, though. It's one possible explanation, but I doubt you're speaking for the Gammage campaign by providing it.

But on the off-chance that I'm mistaken, and you are, could you ask Bob to answer my other questions?

And please don't think by not acknowledging your responses that I haven't read them. It could mean, for example, that I'm ignoring you...

Chron.com links to the original.

You really are a jerk, Snooks. I can't imagine why anyone would recycle one of Orlando Sanchez's failed campaign smears in this forum, but congratulations for attempting it. And may I remind you, White just got 91% of the vote, so your implied claim is idiotic as well.

Excuse me?

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/001546.html

""It is a mistake to make a comparison between the [Al Qaeda] network…which Lebanon has condemned, and Hezbollah, which Lebanon considers a resistance party fighting the Israeli occupation," Fares told Agence France-Presse. He claimed the group has never targeted Americans, a position disputed by U.S. officials as well as Fares's own Wedge Group CEO."

""I personally think the Hezbollah militia is a terrorist organization," counters White, who notes that he and Fares rarely talk politics. The candidate says his own position on the Arab-Israeli conflict is clear."

From your blog. Their words. Bill White's in particular. His position is clear, and yet he works for a supporter of Hezbollah and admits he believes it is a terrorist organization. But he is making a lot of money, so what the hell.

Probably what the Bushes say about their friendship with the bin Laden family as well as Issam Fares. The Chronicle of course pointed out their friendship with Issam Fares instead of digging into the story a little. And of course quite a few Republicans saw "friend of the Bushes" and voted for Bill White on that basis.

Not failed campaign smears. Facts which you yourself published on your blog.