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
President Reagan's former Office of Management and Budget Director, David Stockman, recently wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times. Mr. Stockman chastises his party for its irresponsible and reckless fiscal policies.
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
Not only does Mr. Stockman pin the blame for today's economic hardships squarely on Republican policies and ideologies but he also revealed the Republican Party has absolutely no intention of deviating from its present addiction to serial financial bubbles and Wall St. made havoc that have driven us into the present chasm. The Wall St. gambling casino practices, by the way, resulted in the biggest looting of the public purse in U.S. history. Do Republicans embrace the endless looting of U.S. taxpayers to bail out Wall St.?
IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation's public debt - if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 - will soon reach $18 trillion. That's a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation's wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.
More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell's stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts - in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance - vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.
For you have torn off the mask and have unveiled the thinly shrouded southern Republican Party strategy, since the 1950's.
The GOP strategy, of course, includes blatant racism, exclusion, xenophobia, intolerance and hate. The toxic witches brew is mixed with an irrational hatred for big government.
Thank you, Rand, for shining a bright and stark light on your party's deeply racist and crony capitalism ideology.
When Rand and his Republican Party members shriek about how they must
Take our country back
It tells us that Republicans yearn to return to an era before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sarah Palin has the same message when she refers to
Real Americans.
GOP scorched earth politics strategist and opportunist, Karl Rove, and his side kick, the hate talker and snake oil multi-millionaire manipulator Rush Limbaugh must be so very proud of Rand Paul.
Karl Rove, a Vietnam War draft evading right wing war hawk, fled from the scene when a handful of ladies wearing pink hats confronted him at a book signing event.
Code Pink protesters at the Rove book signing event in Beverly Hills, CA let Karl Rove have it. Three or four women, at most, ripped his, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush's clocks for lying about Iraq and their outing of a CIA officer. The women also accused Karl Rove of ruining our country. That would be
totally ruining our country
according to one protester. Another called Rove a war criminal.
One woman brought handcuffs and had attempted to make a citizens arrest. Karl Rove, unhinged and totally freaked fled from the event without signing a book.
Gosh, Karl, the ladies did not show up with assault rifles, semi-automatic weapons, white powder, mace, swords or whips, for crying out loud. Why are you so afraid of plastic handcuffs?
It seems that the teabaggers, racists and right wing extremists have taken over the Republican Party. Of those polled as self-identified Republicans, 39% believe President Obama should be impeached. 63% think he is a socialist. 42% do not believe the President was born in the United States. 31% believe President Obama hates white people. 23% want their state to secede from the U.S..
James O'Keefe, a conservative activist who had posed as a pimp in order to set up ACORN has been arrested by the FBI for having attempted to commit a felony. O'Keefe and two others, wearing telephone company uniforms, were busted last night for allegedly wiretapping the phones in Senator Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.
Landrieu said: "This is a very unusual situation and somewhat unsettling for me and my staff. The individuals responsible have been charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony. I am as interested as everyone else about their motives and purpose, which I hope will become clear as the investigation moves forward."
Brace yourselves folks as the list of Texas Republicans who honored James O'Keefe is quite long. My U.S. House Rep. John Culberson is on the list. Is your representative? See the list below the fold.
Honestly, I have to stop drinking coffee when reading political pieces in the Houston Chronicle in the morning. I've unintentionally spewed coffee from my mouth and nostrils more than once when I've read something by or about Texas Republican politicians.
But before I venture into a story about Texas Republican shills for corporate lobbyists in big business and insurance, let me share some breaking news about how 73% of U.S. physicians are totally on board with a public option in health care reform.
From the New England Journal of Medicine, and, according to NPR:
When polled, "nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options," says Dr. Salomeh Keyhani. She and Dr. Alex Federman, both internists and researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.
Most doctors - 63 percent - say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance. That's the position of President Obama and of many congressional Democrats. In addition, another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they'd like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent.
Predictable GOP response from the psycho wacko right: The doctors are a bunch of witch doctors from Africa. All are undocumented workers who were not born here. All are nazis, communists, fascists, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, socialists and blah, blah, blah.
Moving along as to why I could not hold my morning coffee. Hint: it has something to do with plastering lipstick on rather large and really dirty pigs.
According to the some of the renowned Viet Nam War draft evaders and right wing war hawks
Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Bill Blunt, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Phil Gramm, John Cornyn, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage
Nancy Pelosi personally ordered the CIA to find a link between Iraq and Al-Qaida. The GOP sissy boys also insist that when no links between the two evil doers could be found, Nancy the D Girl unilaterally ordered heinous torture to bring about the results the sissy boy cowards needed to gin up their war on Iraq.
Hats off to Ed Shultz of MSNBC for calling the Sissy Boys out on their psycho babble.
Ok, so we've been hearing about this deadly swine flu that has many folks panicking right and left. Schools are closing, people are wearing surgical masks, and many are avoiding their local public transportation systems, railroads and airlines. In Texas alone, 300,000 children are not in school.
Indeed the reaction has been so strong that a flight enroute to the U.S. from Europe diverted to Boston because a passenger said she had flu like symptoms. Some folks, mainly Republican politicians and xenophobic pundits, have demanded that we immediately shut down the U.S./Mexico border. Apparently these folks have not heard the latest reports on the swine flu.
Apparently we were warned about this flu's potential as far back as 1999. The forewarning obviously fell on deaf ears.
As we know Senator Arlen Specter changed his Party affiliation yesterday from Republican to Democrat. In his remarks the Senator had said the Republican Party had been recently "purified" by the right. Needless to say Specter's switch delivered a devastating blow to an already wounded GOP.
