It's Friday! As you roll into your weekend, here's some news and notes from Texas and elsewhere to distract you for at least part of your day. (In other words, let's see if I can't get some of these browser tabs closed.)
Reminder: tonight is BOR's first big fundraiser! Join us tonight in Austin. Can't make it, want to help? Consider contributing via ActBlue.
Lege will be Less Experienced: The Statesman reports that members in the upcoming Legislative session will be less experienced than past sessions, due to retirements and turnovers caused by redistricting. Furthermore, Republican primary challengers -- and just the primary process in general -- may make the body even more ideologically conservative. Yay. Best way to fight back? Work to elect more Democratic legislators here in Texas!
Mitt Romney Pays A Lower Tax Rate Than You: Taxes are due Tuesday, so now's as good a time as ever to remind y'all that Mitt Romney wants to let millionaires continue to pay a lower tax rate than the average middle-class American. The Obama campaign put together a widget to fill you with a profound sense of dismay at how much lower of a tax rate Mitt Romney pays than you. Obama wants to change this, and make sure millionaires -- even himself -- pay their fair share. Check out what America could do with the revenue generated from passing the Buffett rule.
One-Man Dick Armey Trying to Oust Straus: FreedomWorks, a conservative (c)4 located in DC, has endorsed the challenger to House Speaker Joe Straus, Matt Beebe. The group is chaired by Armey, who said in a public statement, "Speaker Straus has not led the fight for limited government in a way that Texans want and deserve." The group also endorsed Ted Cruz over David Dewhurst in the Republican Senate primary.
Eschewing the Governor's Mansion: The New York Times has a story on Governors who are eschewing life in their states' mansions for more inauspicious, modern, or comfortable digs. The costs of maintaining some of these official residences are starting to mount, but no one seems willing to shut the buildings down. Sadly, the article fails to mention Rick Perry, who has been living in a much larger and more auspicious residence, his $10,000-a-month rental mansion paid for with your tax dollars, while the state's official domicile is under repair from arson. So much for being a fiscal conservative -- Texas is suffering from massive budget cuts while Perry is spending $1000 on emergency ice machine repairs in his rental mansion.
Hard Up In Lubbock: Lubbock topped Chemistry.com's survey of The Top 10 Cities That Value Sex the Least. Meanwhile, Austin remains America's horniest city. Don't go to Tech, kids! Perhaps Lubbock's lack of lovin' explains the popularity of the new Fantasy Maid Service, which sends nude or scantily-clad women to clean your home. The business is in trouble, however, for running afoul of anti-prostitution laws.
She's LYING: State Comptroller Susan Combs actually said -- out loud, where other people could hear her, in a public setting -- that the state did not reduce funding for public education -- in fact, the state increased funding by $2 billion. Oh wait, except Texas did slash funding to public education, to the tune of $5.4 billion dollars in cuts. Liar liar pants on fire!
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh or a chance to think at the end of the day.
Last night's cold open on SNL. Sorry, there's an ad first.
The episode was mixed. The highlight was arguably Taran Killam's impression of Michael Cera. The musical act was mundane, but thankfully a Numb3rs re-run was on an adjacent channel.
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
A poll published on Monday by USA Today and Gallup, show that Obama is leading in 12 key swing states, with an overall 18 point spread with women voters, greater than the 12 point gender gap he won with in 2008according to TPM. A month ago the same poll reported Romney ahead in these key states by two points, now Obama is leading by nine points overall 51-42 percent.
USA Today reports:
"The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group."
This is no real shock to anyone who has been following the GOP's war on women. As Katherine stated:
25% of Texas women are uninsured, the highest rate of uninsured women in the country.
Texas has the 3rd highest rate of cervical cancer in the country -- an easily diagnosed and treated disease if women have access to care.
In 2011, Rick Perry signed a budget that slashed funding for women's health by 66%, resulting in 180,000 women losing access to preventative care.
By banning Planned Parenthood from receiving funds through Medicare's Women's Health Program, Perry will cause another 130,000 women to lose access to basic care.
This program Republicans are eliminating saves the state $42 million a year by preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Also here in Texas, Rick Perry has already cut out funding for Planned Parenthood, one of the most reliable and efficient providers of health care to low-income constituents, within the Women's Health Program.
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh or a chance to think at the end of the day.
Who wants to gut Medicaid and turn Medicare into a voucher program? Who wants to cut financial aid to 10 million college students and slash Head Start? Who wants to cut taxes for the wealthy by $4.6 million while kicking 2 million mothers and their children off a food assistance program?
Republicans do!
Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's budget does all of these horrendous things, and more. It goes so far as to destroy basic civilization in America as anything I've seen in my lifetime. And of course, Republicans in the US House of Representatives passed it, with only 10 Republican members dissenting. Furthermore, Mitt Romney has, as Rachel Maddow puts it, "embraced it as tightly as anyone can embrace anything." He wants an identical version introduced on the first day of his Presidency!
Well, President Obama disagrees, and made what for him is an extraordinarily strong statement against this Lord of the Flies vision of America's future. Here's President Obama shredding Ryan's budget, and Romney's support for it:
President Obama, more of this, please!
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh or a chance to think at the end of the day.
Today, Mitt Romney was endorsed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, in a move that some lazy pundits think will help Romney lose less of the Hispanic vote. A recent poll showed that President Obama leads Mitt Romney among Latino voters by a margin of 70-14 percent. Make no mistake, folks -- Romney is an extreme conservative on immigration issues. He supports an Arizona-style "Papers Please!" immigration policy, and opposes the DREAM Act.
In response, several Hispanic Democrats issued strong statements about how Romney's stance on immigration issues is too extreme for Latino voters. Here are their statements, emphasis mine:
"Mitt Romney has shown he will say anything to get elected, no matter how much his positions harm Latinos. Mitt Romney has called Arizona's draconian immigration law a model for the nation. If Romney were elected president, Latinos across the country could be exposed to these types of extreme laws." -- House Democratic Leader Jessica Farrar (D-Houston)
"If Republicans were serious about reaching out to Hispanics, they'd stop endorsing candidates that are hostile to the Latino community. Romney would easily be the most anti-Hispanic presidential nominee of our time. Only a few minor extremists have ever matched his vitriolic rhetoric towards an entire segment of our population. Romney should self-deport out of Texas." -- Rep. Armando Walle (D-Houston)
"Romney's threat to veto the DREAM act is disappointing. Rubio also proposed denying immigrant students the ability to earn citizenship through military service or a higher education. It's sad that they would use kids as a political punching bag to earn points with rightwing extremists." -- State Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Alpine)
"Romney's threatening to punish hard-working immigrant students who have the potential to be the future of our state. I see myself in many of these students. I would not be where I am today if Mitt Romney had been in the White House instead of President Ronald Reagan. It's shameful that Romney would use young students to prove to the extremists in his party that he's conservative enough." -- Rep. Ana Hernandez Luna (D-Houston)
State Representative Ana Hernandez Luna is a Houston lawyer who was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2005. Hernandez Luna was born in Mexico and was able to gain legal status under President Reagan's 1986 immigration reform - when George H.W. Bush was Vice President. My, how times have changed for the modern day Republican Party.
If a laundry list of State Representatives doesn't convince you, maybe this fellow Texan and national co-chair of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign will. Take it away, Eva Longoria:
Read more about Eva Longoria's work to help organize Latinos to support Barack Obama in 2012 here.
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
Mitt Romney is headed to Dallas this week for a series of campaign stops, perhaps in an effort to bolster his poll numbers that show him tied or losing to Rick Santorum.
Representatives Eddie Bernice Johnson, Charlie Gonzalez, and Tex. State Rep. Joaquín Castro held a conference call yesterday 'welcoming' Mitt Romney to Texas, calling on him to explain his support for the extreme Romney-Ryan budget, which would turn Medicare into a voucher program, increase health care costs on seniors by thousands of dollars, and make deep cuts to programs essential to middle-class families-all while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and protecting taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and hedge fund managers. Mitt Romney also supports immigration policies that are too extreme for Texas, and has shown he is willing to say anything and stand for anything to get elected.
Below are the comments from Johnson, Gonzalez, and Castro, emphasis mine.
Statements from Texas Democratic Leaders on Mitt Romney's Extreme Platform
Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
"Mitt Romney has wrapped his arms around Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan - a proposal that does little to help the middle class and would take America back to many of the failed policies that got us into the economic crisis to begin with. I was a nurse for a long time, but you don't have to be a nurse to know that the Romney-Ryan budget spells big time for Texas families: It would end Medicare as we know it. The Romney-Ryan plan would turn Medicare into a voucher program, increasing health care costs on seniors by thousands of dollars, and making arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle-class families-all while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and protecting taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and hedge fund managers. Mitt Romney might think he can and Etch A Sketch his way back from these extreme positions he has taken to pander to the far right wing of his party - it's why he has no credibility whatsoever with conservative voters - but one thing should be clear: we won't forget. We've already had too much of that here in Texas, and we won't stand for it anymore."
Congressman Charlie Gonzalez
"While visiting Arizona, Governor Romney said that their anti-immigration law should be the model for United States immigration law. That's an extreme version of an anti-immigrant law passed by the Arizona legislature. That's not leadership, that doesn't bring this country together. I'm hoping that the governor will explain some of the extreme positions that he's already taken, and then again who knows, maybe it truly is an Etch A Sketch moment for him and he'll simply say 'Give me a chance and I'll see how I feel tomorrow'."
TX State Rep. Joaquín Castro
"Mitt Romney has repeatedly proven he will say and stand for anything to get elected. As part of his failed attempt to close the deal with Republican voters during the primary, Romney went even further to the right and further away from priorities of the Latino community. The result is one Romney might come to regret: He is locked into his extreme positions and Republicans have seriously undercut their chances of making inroads with the Latino vote. Romney has mounted an assault on the priorities of the Hispanic community, putting the extreme Arizona immigration law at the center of their national immigration policy. And it's almost not a surprise, considering Romney's relationship with Kris Kobach, the man behind Arizona's and Alabama's extremist anti-immigration laws, who said when endorsing Romney that illegal immigration 'has plagued our country for a generation.'
"If Romney becomes the Republican nominee, his position on immigration would be the most extreme of any presidential nominee of our time. He continues to bank to the far right and pander to the Tea Party, saying and standing for anything he thinks will get him elected."
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh or a chance to think at the end of the day.
Please tell me you all have seen this amazing work of pastiche already. Hailed as the first brilliant video of the 2012 cycle, the mash-up depicts Mitt Romney singing a parodic version of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" that pokes fun at the GOP candidate's various foibles, gaffes, and missteps, from tying his dog to the roof to his obsession with singing "America the Beautiful" to the infamous line "I'm not concerned about the very poor." Here it is, in all of its splendor:
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
Mitt Romney added to the long, looong list of questionable statements he's made during his Republican primary campaign this week when he said he didn't see how any young Americans could vote for a Democrat.
Funny, right? Pew Research has found that since 2004, Millenials and young voters have only gottenmore and more Democratic. Millennials are the most Democratic of any age range, and are poised to favor Barack Obama over his Republican opponent by the widest margin amongst young voters since McGovern. But hey, Mitt Romney has always had a loose relationship with the facts. In response to Romney's laughable claim, the Obama campaign asked young voters to submit their reasons for backing the President, which they have been running on the campaign's tumblr. Very cool.
Here with a guest post about why Millennials are indeed going to support Obama -- because Obama supports our issues -- is Houstonian John Canales Gorczynski, who serves as the Young Democrats of America's South-Central Regional Director. Take it away, John.
Romney Out of Touch With Millennial Americans
By John Canales Gorczynski, YDA South-Central Regional Director
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney recently said he "doesn't see how anyone who is a young person could vote for a Democrat." This was just the latest in a series of radically out-of-touch statements. It must be hard to know what to say when you don't know where you stand on key issues. As a friend from Massachusetts, Tonapah, said, "Romney goes back and forth and back again. He has done it since he was governor here and will likely do it as president making it difficult to know where he stands." Yikes!
Romney is right to fear the youth vote this November as a major obstacle in his attempt for the White House. In the last presidential election, Millennial Americans came out in force against the failed policies of a Republican president which led to the worst unemployment we've seen in our lifetime. While Romney made part of his fortune by acquiring companies, laying people off and then reaping the profit, young Americans are grateful for the $2 billion President Obama and the Democrats saw fit to invest in grants that make career training accessible to more people. Democrats made a college degree possible for hundreds of thousands more dedicated young people and working Americans by doubling Pell grants. Governor Romney's record reflects a belief that you must be privileged to attend college.
Young Americans overwhelmingly support equality. Governor Romney once called Don't Ask Don't Tell "a step in the right direction," and then recently supported maintaining the institutional bigotry. President Obama and Democrats in Congress courageously stood their ground and corrected the injustice of not allowing gay and lesbian members of the Armed Forces to serve openly and honestly. Millennial Americans know that who a person loves and spends their life with doesn't affect their ability to serve our country.
Young Americans feel a great sense of duty to this country. We know the USA stands on the verge of rekindling the American dream for our generation and ones to follow, or we will slide backwards if we do not continue the policies of President Obama and the Democratic Party. President Obama and the Democrats have enacted laws which led to two consecutive years of job growth and kept 2.5 million young people on their parents' health insurance.
So the next time Governor Romney tries to make an argument why you should or shouldn't vote a certain way because of your age, remember my friend Tonapah's warning and remember that Romney might just claim to believe the opposite argument the next day. The Millennial generation will vote in November for the party that values expanded educational opportunities, stands with hard-working American families, and refuses to turn its back on women and LGBT Americans. They will vote for Democratic candidates.
John Canales Gorczynski is the Young Democrats of America South-Central Regional Director and represents Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri on YDA's Executive Committee.
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh at the end of the day.
Recently, DNC chair and totally awesome Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz came down to Texas to launch the Texas Truth Team, a group of elected Democrats who are committed to setting the record straight when Republicans lie about our party and our President. Here she is talking about Mitt Romney's extreme position on immigration. Make no mistake: Mitt Romney has the most extreme and inhumane position on immigration of any Republican presidential candidate.
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
Friendly reminder: join us tomorrow, Tuesday March 6, at Scholz Garten for our Not-So-Super Tuesday Super Watch Party! Other states will be voting, so we'll watch the returns, and more importantly we'll have a lot of fun at the GOP candidates' expense.
Not-So-Super Tuesday Super Watch Party!
Tuesday, March 6, 6:00-10:00 p.m.
Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto RSVP on Facebook
We'll be hearing from some of our great candidates on the ballot this May. We'll also have a primer of exciting primaries with actual Democrats in them on the ballot tomorrow. Best of all, we're going to be playing a bunch of fun games to pass the time.
Super-Fun Not-So-Super Tuesday Super Watch Party Games Include:
The Rick Santorum Birth Control Shuffle -- Contestants race across the room with a bottle of aspirin between their knees!
The Newt-lywed Game -- A trivia contest about Newt's three wives... and counting!
Ron Paul's Federal Agency Dartboard -- Shoot a dart, eliminate a Federal agency!
Mitt Romney or Montgomery Burns -- Identify the quotes from each corporate fat cat!
Transvaginal Ring Toss -- Throw the ring onto the probe, win a prize!
Additionally, we will have complimentary beer or wine for the first 50 guests, and a bottomless chips, salsa, and queso bar.
Special thanks to all of our wonderful sponsors!
** Super Duper Sponsors **
Chris Frandsen, candidate for HD-47
Hon. Greg Hamilton, candidate for Sheriff
John Sisson, candidate for Sheriff
David Wahlberg, candidate for 167th District Court
** Super Sponsors **
Hon. Adan Ballesteros, candidate for Constable Pct 2
Hon. Ron Davis, candidate for County Commissioner Pct 1
Efrain de la Fuente, candidate for 167th District Court
Hon. Karen Huber, candidate for County Commissioner Pct 3
Hon. Rosemary Lehmberg, candidate for District Attorney
