In 2007, Texans learned of of a massive sex abuse scandal at the Texas Youth Commission. When news of the scandal broke, Governor Rick Perry claimed he knew nothing about the abuse until he saw it in the paper. That was a lie. In fact, Governor Perry and his office were informed of a stalled investigation into the abuse as early as February 2005, two years before news reports first came out.
Gov. Rick Perry's staff knew as early as June 2005 that two administrators at a Texas Youth Commission facility were not being prosecuted on allegations of sexually abusing youths in their custody, according to records obtained Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle.
Two months ago, four leading advocacy groups that have worked with TYC for years issued a statement saying that systemic abuse at TYC still remains. Immediately, Perry’s board members at TYC denied the allegations, despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and have stonewalled the story ever since.
An exhaustive investigative report by the Texas Tribune showed that the City of Houston and the state of Texas have practically identical policies, writing that:
A comparison of Houston's policy under White and that of the Texas Department of Public Safety under Perry reveals little difference between the two — and their respective rationales are almost identical. So if Houston is a sanctuary city, is Texas a sanctuary state?
The Houston Chronicle has debunked this claim, as well, pointing out that:
Perry's stone-casting has drawn attention to the state's own shortcomings in combating illegal immigration. It also reveals inconsistencies in the governor's position on immigration enforcement that suggest his stance is based more on (surprise!) politics than principle.
When confronted about his lie by Evan Smith in his hour-long interview ten days ago, Rick Perry could not explain his lie. Instead, he threatened Evan Smith -- saying that he and anyone else who try to point out Perry's blatant hypocrisy would be "treading on thin ice." Watch for yourself below:
Learn more of the truth from the Bill White campaign's fact-checking website Shoot Straight Texas.
Every abuela knows it takes a village to raise a child, and Texas children are no different. This year, Republicans want you to believe that we don’t need to invest in our children’s education, health care, or employment future. In Texas, Republicans haven’t invested in our children for the last 16 years. Texas ranks 44thin education expenditures per student.
Texas families cannot afford another year, let alone four, of irresponsible leadership by Perry and Dewhurst. Under their guidance:
• Texans lost 34,200 jobs in August
• The unemployment rate rose to 8.3% in August (The unemployment rate is even higher in the Hispanic and African American communities).
• The majority of jobs available are low performing, minimum wage positions
These minimum wage jobs, created under incentive programs backed by Dewhurst, don't include benefits for workers. To make matters worse, most of the companies creating these jobs bail out of the state once the tax incentives end. A recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tells the real story; Texas has the highest share of minimum wage workers in the nation.
Why is this a problem? Perry and Dewhurst are providing incentives to companies for jobs that do not provide for Texas families or move our economy forward. Instead of investing in an education system that prepares students for advanced jobs, Perry and Dewhurst see nothing wrong with selling out our children’s futures. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, by the year 2014, over 2 million jobs will be created in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
We are a proud state, and together we must create and sustain jobs we can be proud of. Texas needs a workforce that is educated to compete for jobs that will move our state forward.
However, Texas public schools are failing to graduate one out of every three high school students. We need a community to help raise our children. Texas is ranked 36th in the U.S. for dropouts, and in South Texas the drop out rates are among the highest in the country. What have Perry & Dewhurst done for South Texas?
The Williamson County Democratic Party met Thursday to appoint Brian Hamon to fill the unexpired term as chairman. A software engineer from Round Rock with a background in communications, Hamon takes over after the abrupt departure of Greg Windham, who resigned Tuesday. In a press release, the party says it "has not missed a beat since the resignation of its former chair and is delighted to have Mr. Hamon taking the lead in our continuing effort to elect Democratic candidates in the county, in judicial and SBOE districts, and throughout the state."
"The executive committee sent a strong message to Democrats in Williamson County: We will fight for you. For better schools. For better jobs. For better government," Hamon said. "The Democratic Party has an exceptionally qualified slate of candidates running for local office. We will work around the clock during the remaining days until election day to get out our message of competence, fairness and transparency in government."
The local party represents Democrats from the northern Austin metropolitan area, including Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown and Taylor. Democratic candidates ended a 16-year drought in elective office in November 2008 when State Rep. Diana Maldonado won in the battleground district 52 race, covering the eastern portion of the county.
This election year, the Williamson county Democrats have put together an exceptionally qualified slate of candidates running for local office.
Rep. Maldonado proved her effectiveness in her very first legislative session, was selected Freshman of the Year, brought key funding for a higher education center, infrastructure and jobs to the district, and earned the endorsements of the Austin American-Statesman, Williamson County Sun and other local newspapers.
For county commissioner, the Democrats are fielding Jeff Maurice and Jim Stauber. Jeff is a former Dell senior corporate counsel with a passion for getting a better deal for the taxpayer in government contracts. Jim is a retired union member who runs his community's water supply corporation in Liberty Hill and has a long history of community service.
We have attorneys Allyson Rowe and Teresa Duffin running for county court at law seats. They believe justice in Williamson county has for too long been held exclusively by one party.
Voters in Williamson county believe that local government is ossified, too long under single-party rule, corrupt and ineffective. Those dissatisfied with the county's anemic response to Tropical Storm Hermine flooding, the glacial pace of developing our transportation and utility infrastructure and the brother-in-law deals to favored contractors are fed up with the machine politics of entrenched, unaccountable Republicans. The pattern will continue until voters elect Democrats to break up the monopoly.
President Obama promised hope and change. Hope and change is still unrealized but in progress. Unfortunately it is impossible that 30 years of policies that inherently undermined the American middleclass can be turned around in 20 months. It took over a decade to get out of the Great Depression and not until extreme stimulus spending effected by World War II were we able to get out and use that stimulative springboard of government spending to prop the private sector to create an unprecedented employment boon.
While we claim to fight wars on freedom, terrorists, taxes, and many other issues that hardly qualifies as wars, we forget to fight that war that afflicts 97% of Americans. Class Warfare is being waged against over 295 million Americans. If there is a war worth fighting now, this is the war.
Americans are justifiably angry. They are angry because of a jobless recovery. They are angry because of an overwhelming budget deficit whose effects they do not quite understand. They are angry because of unfettered increases in healthcare cost.
Supposedly this anger was instrumental in the formation of the Tea Party grassroots movement. While this may be partially true, the Tea Party comprises the amalgamation of three distinct factions. There is the conservative/quasi-libertarian faction that simply wants small government. There is a super wealthy/corporatist faction that finances the movement and serves as chief purveyor of misinformation to maintain the status quo. And finally there is the racist militant faction that wants to take the country back given their disdain that Americans would elect a black president.
The latter faction while physically dangerous is inconsequential for America's future success as the vast majority of Americans are good people. Of major consequence is what the wealthy/corporatist faction is doing to corrupt the body politic of the country. They have used corporate and personal wealth to perfectly orchestrate a plausible alternate reality. In this alternate reality irrespective of past experience, economics, & mathematics, keeping low taxes specifically on the wealthy (wealthy disproportionately owns most of the income and wealth and as such pay most of the taxes), will somehow generate enough economic activity to increase the absolute value of taxes while reducing the budget deficit. They even got an economist, Arthur Laffer to create a silly curve known as the Laffer Curve to prove this alternate state of reality. The Reagan vs Bush1/Clinton economic policies disproved the lie though the Right continues to disregard reality.
Because of the mainstream media refusal to present the reality of our current economic morass and because of the Right Wing echo chamber continued spewing of misinformation, many political junkies have decided to write books and blogs to attempt to provide information in a cogent manner. I've added my own insight with my book "As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Write Wing Doom" at http://books.egbertowillies.com as well as my blog http://politicaltruths.info .
This current election is important. In that light;
While exploring your support for maintaining tax cuts for both the middleclass as well as the wealthy, consider that on average the middleclass top tax rate is 35% while the wealthy is 15% because income from work is progressively taxed at a higher rate than investment income.
While exploring your support for ever more reduction in corporate regulations note that said policies have led to the outsourcing of a large percentage of our manufacturing jobs among others. While the wealthy benefits from the cheap labor of said outsourcing, the middleclass continues its decline.
While being told that repealing the tax cuts on the wealthy would cost jobs, do remember that ten years of that tax rate created no net jobs while more proportional tax rates created the largest expansion in American history in the 90s. The reason is mathematical. The wealthy' s marginal propensity to consume is much less than the average middleclass American. In other words, the middleclass will spend more of their disposable income thus creating more economic activity than the wealthy who already can spend as they please and will not necessarily invest that excess in creating jobs in America,
It is impossible that the wealthy can be considered overtaxed when middleclass income has fallen 5% in the last decade while the wealthy has continued to grow. The same applies to wealth in worst proportions as well.
It is understandable that in our busy lives, researching for truthful information is neither at the top of our list or something we want to do given the perceive view that our media is providing us legitimate information. The media must balance its interest between its corporate advertisers and its listeners. As such the listener will always be at a disadvantage. Knowing that, it is incumbent upon the middleclass to do their own independent research from a myriad of reputable unbiased sources. Inasmuch as the Internet makes this an easier task, care must be taken to cross reference for valid information. It is that concept I used in putting my book together where all pertinent data is cross referenced. In these times there is no reason to be ignorant of the issues.
Remember, when you go into that booth it is only you, your God, and your conscious. One must forget about their prejudices. One must forget about their fears. One must make the right choice for themselves, their family, and the country.
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My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare: The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book's Webpage:http://books.egbertowillies.com - Twitter:http://twitter.com/egbertowillies
The mainstream media is mostly ignoring Texas elections, except for an occasional reference to our governor's race. State legislative races are getting almost no attention at all, but they are a crucial part of the larger battle for control of the state legislature , which is where the real fireworks will be come January, when the state legislature convenes, and redistricting will be the main item on the agenda. At stake are U.S. Congressional districts, which could change dramatically if Republicans gain control of the Texas House. This diary focuses on one of the most competitive Texas House races, District 17, where a feisty Democratic challenger, Pati Jacobs, is turning up the heat on her freshman incumbent Republican opponent over the issue of water.
Last time redistricting came up in the Texas legislature in a controversial mid-decade redistricting in 2003 , outnumbered Democrats fled to New Mexico in a futile attempt to block Tom DeLay's plan to disenfranchise Democrats and elect Republicans. Remember the infamous "fajita strip" congressional district which stretched one county wide from Austin to the Mexican border that Lloyd Doggett was placed in? Fortunately this egregious example of Republican gerrymandering was eventually thrown out by the courts, but if Republicans are in control when redistricting happens again in 2011, we can expect to see similar shenannigans. Ever since the last round of the resdistricting battle, Democrats have been fighting to increase the odds, and the number of Democratic legislators has been growing steadily. Democrats are currently within 3 seats of a majority in the Texas House, but the election of 2010 could change all of this.
This diary will focus on a swing ditrict, Texas House District 17, a race that has been named one of the most competitive Texas House races. The Republican freshman incumbent, trial lawyer Tim Kleinschmidt, won this previously Democratic seat in a close election in 2008. This time around he faces a feisty Democratic challenger, local rancher Pati Jacobs who is running a smart, effective grass-roots campaign, and may just pull this off.
District 17 encompasses 5 counties, most of which are rural, and most of the economy here is based on agriculture- cattle ranching. The largest county is Bastrop, one of the fastest growing counties in Texas. Largely Democratic, Bastrop is one of the "donut counties" that border Democratic Travis County, and many Bastrop County residents actually work in nearby heavily Democratic Austin. District 17 has been mostly represented by Democrats until it was narrowly won by a Republican in 2008. Since then freshman Republican Tim Kleinschmidt has distinguished himself mainly by being chosen by Texas Monthly magazine as a recipient of its Furniture Award which is given to
lawmakers with a level of participation that was well below average, indicating that they were indistinguishable from their desks, chairs and inkwells
Besides the fact that he has little to show for his time in the legislature, Kleinschmidt has another problem this time around, and it involves water. Water is evolving as a key issue in Texas, and about to become big business, as water marketers try to buy up and lease water rights from areas that have abundant water to sell to thirsty cities along the I-35 corridor like San Antonio. Bastrop and Lee Counties sit right on top of the Simsboro Aquifer, which local ranchers rely on water they get from wells for their ranching operations, and local communities rely on for household water. It's no surprise that water marketers have their sights on the Simsboro. If they get their way, taxpayers will be paying to construct a water pipeline to ship water sucked from the Simsboro to sell to cities like San Marcos. Many fear the Simsboro pipeline is a forerunner of a trans-Texas water highway of pipelines. Not surprisingly, many residents here are furious.
If you add up all the numbers, the pipeline would take virtually all the water that's currently permitted - leaving everyone high and dry
Pati Jacobs is a rancher who raises grass-fed beef on the Bastrop County ranch where she grew up. Since early in the campaign she has emphasized the importance of protecting resources in order to allow for future economic development in our district, and has pledged to fight the Simsboro Pipeline. Kleinschmidt on the other hand has tried to waffle on this issue, probably because, unlike Pati Jacobs, Tim Kleinschmidt leased out his water rights to a water marketer. At a recent forum on water, Tim Kleinschmidt was booed by contituents when he avoided answering questions on how he would protect the aquifer.
The reason for Kleinschmidt's reluctance to declare his position on the water pipeline becomes clear after looking at who is supporting him. Special interests who stand to benefit from the Simsboro Pipeline have contributed generously to the Republican campaign, and Kleinschmidt is raking in cash from lobbyists. Remeber homebuilder Bob Perry who was a funder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Bob Perry gave $30,000 to Tim Kleinschmidt's campaign. Another prominent donor, who is Trevor Reese Jones, one of Forbes 400 richest Americans last year, who might also be familiar as one of the 7 figure donors to Karl Rove's American Crossroads. Trevor Reese Jones gave $10,000 to Tim Kleinschmidt's campaign , which so far has raised 2 1/2 times what Pati Jacobs has raised- a cool $378,000 for a job that pays only $7,200 a year.
Kleinschmidt has been running a smear campaign similar to the one he waged against his previous opponent. He's even using the same talking farm animals on his flyers he used last time, falsely accusing Pati of not paying her county taxes. In fact, Pati has receipts to prove these charges are untrue, and attacks don't seem to be gaining much traction with voters. One constituent even complained in a letter to the editor in the Bastrop paper that she would never vote for Kleinschmidt because he was wasting so much money on sending out multiple flyers that he couldn't be trusted to use taxes wisely.
What Pati Jacobs' campaign has that Kleinschmidt's doesn't is grassroots support. She is running a smart, effective grassroots campaign. Yesterday I helped with phone banking at her headquarters on Bastrop's historic Main Street, right across from the Bastrop County Republican headquarters. She has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, the Texas Federation of Teachers, and Annie's List, and Independent Texans, and her campaign attracted energetic volunteers from a very active Bastrop Democratic Party who are blockwalking and doing phone banking. So far her campaign has made over 24,000 phone calls, and voters have even been surprised to get a call from Pati herself. She has been campaigning tirelessly since the primaries, her bright little yellow and green trailer with her instantly recognizable PJ brand appears all over the district.
That said, special interests are pouring in the cash to elect Kleinschmidt. if you want to help send a great candidate to the Texas Legislature to stand up for the people of Texas, and help us stop Tom DeLay style redistricting of congressional districts in 2011, you can find Pat on Act Blue or on her website at patijacobs.com
If the Republican Party's message during the midterm elections could be distilled into one word it that it has been campaigning against it would be: spending. The Republicans have been campaigning against spending without identifying any particular spending they would actually like to reduce. Except there is one particular program that they have been campaigning against: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Otherwise known as the stimulus.
In February of 2009 Congress passed the Recovery Act and President Obama signed it, with the intent to prevent the Great Recession from turning into the Great Depression 2.0. While Republicans have criticized the Recovery Act for being ineffective, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that stated that the stimulus raised the gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7% and 4.5%, lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7% and 1.8%, and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million. Not exactly as ineffective as the Republicans claim. However, over the last year and a half the Republicans have consistently criticized the stimulus as ineffective, and the economy's achingly slow recovery coupled with persistently high unemployment has contributed to the public's overall negative view of the stimulus.
But, while the Republicans openly opposed the Recovery Act in Congress and criticized it in public, many of them worked behind the scenes to secure funds from the stimulus for their own districts. The Center for Public Integrity reported this week about a expansive letter writing campaign, where Congressional Republicans who voted against the stimulus sent letters to federal agencies requesting stimulus funds for projects in their districts. The Texas Observer reports that of the 22 Congressional Republicans from Texas, at least 16 officially requested stimulus funds from federal agencies.
The midterms are headed into the final two weeks of the campaigns, and the candidates are beginning their sprint for the finish line. In Texas Congressional District 17 that means we are going to see a blitz of television advertisements, and next week Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards will debate Republican challenger Bill Flores twice. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reported this week that both candidates are making their final pitch to the voters, and they are both going to be campaigning quite heavily in the district. The campaign for District 17 exemplifies the overall campaign during the midterms, as Democrats like Edwards have chosen to focus on local issues, while the Republicans like Flores have focused on making the election about national issues. Both parties have decided to follow the conventional wisdom. In stead of campaign on actually policy ideas the Republicans have campaigned as the opposition party, and have provided no real alternative. The Democrats have campaigned on their disagreements with the Obama Administration instead of campaigning on their legislative achievements.
Many of the major political observers are projecting the edge to Flores in the campaign, and Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight projects that Flores has a 95% chance of defeating Edwards. Real Clear Politics, CQ Politics, and the Cook Political Report all have the race leaning Republican, but I wouldn't call this race for Flores just yet. First of all there has been no real public opinion polling in this campaign, with the exception of internal polling which generally favor the campaign conducting the poll. Edwards also has history on his side. He has defeated three straight Republican challengers, and actually fairs better in midterm elections than he does in Presidential election years. That being said, this is a seriously tough year for Democrats in any district. Let alone a district in which President Obama only received about 35% of the vote in during the 2008 election. In many ways this is Flores' campaign to lose.
Your election woes amount to nothing more than a PR problem, hinging on two ideas. First, you've somehow allowed "government" to become a bad word, especially when preceded by the word "big." If I hear one more Republican go unchallenged when s/he quotes Ronald Reagan's "scariest words I've ever heard..." I might scream. I am a progressive, and I will always vote Democratic (although I wish that Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold ruled the world). And here's what the word "government" means to me: as a U.S. citizen, "government" means freedom, democracy, security, stability, reliable infrastructure. Government means education, safety, and rules that help 310 million people function together as a society. Our "government" is why people from all over the world want to live here. "Big government" only means more of those things. It means safer air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. "Big government" means nature, wildlife, woods to hike, beaches to stroll and streams to swim. Not only does "big government" mean the existence of these things, but it helps ensure a pleasant, unsoiled, safe experience when I do so. "Government" is NOT a dirty word and you need to take it back!
The second point of your PR problem is related to "special interests." How have you let billions of big business and foreign interest dollars tarnish the modest donations of working Americans? "Union money" represents my mother the schoolteacher, my grandmother the waitress, and my grandfather the truck driver, who voluntarily gave a portion of their hard-earned money to band together with their co-workers and fight the exploitation of big business; to advocate for safe working conditions, reasonable hours, and fair wages. Unions represent "Main Street," and it's a travesty to pollute their advocacy by allowing Republicans to lump them together with the efforts of corporate America to turn our business landscape into something resembling the working conditions in China or India. Union money represents everyday Americans working together to maintain the same principles that have made the United States the envy of the world in the last two centuries.
Lest you think I am nothing but an idealistic bleeding heart: I understand the realities, and recognize that there are flaws in each system I have advocated. Government is inefficient and sometimes stifles innovation. Democrats are as guilty as other politicians of subjugating their principles to the pursuit of election funds. Power often begets power, and unchecked power in government is as dangerous as unchecked power in unions, big business, or anywhere else. I recognize that we live in a disposable society, but when something has flaws it doesn't always need to be discarded. Given government's inefficiencies, I would love an alternative to keep business in check and minimize exploitation, pollution, and danger. Alas, we don't currently have one. The question I constantly pose to my conservative friends, which has yet to be answered, is, "If not government, then who?" Industry can't be the answer because it's motivated solely by profit, and the greater good will always be subverted to the pursuit of the dollar. Charities can't be the answer because they are not centralized and have no authority. Government is what we have, "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and unions are just organized groups of "the people!"
If you launch a PR campaign to take back the ideas of government (even "big" government) and unions, my prediction is that the Democratic party would retain power for decades, if not centuries.
When the GOP picked Pete Sessions to chair the NRCC, residents of the gerrymandered 32nd congressional district wondered, "Has the Republican Party completely lost its mind?" We broke out the popcorn, sat back, and waited for the GOP to implode. Pete Sessions' latest lapse in judgement: backing a candidate who likes to dress up as a Nazi.
This year, Republicans want you to believe that we don’t need to invest in our children’s education, health care, or employment future. In Texas, Republicans haven’t invested in our children for the last 16 years. Texas ranks 44thin education expenditures per student. 