Earlier today Dan Neil, the former UT and Denver Bronco football player with an otherwise thin resume challenging Rep. Donna Howard, was removed from his on-air job at ESPN's Austin affiliate 104.9 The Horn. Neil will remain away from his radio job until after Election Day.
In a press release, Neil, who was fined $15,000 by the NFL for a dirty chop block that broke another play's leg in 2001, accused Howard of "harming his ability to make a living." Neil, who was paid over $3 million per season near the end of his football career, is the owner of the Neil Management Health Company and lives in a home appraised at over $1.9 million.
Neil alleged, with little or no supporting evidence, that Howard had "essentially asked a corporation to subsidize her advertising budget as a caveat to allowing me to continue making a living as a sports commentator." In an Austin American-Statesman blog post by Corrie MacLaggan, Howard responded to Neil's press release.
“We came with some suggestions,” Howard said. “No demand was made. They were merely discussions. (Radio officials) got back to us to say, ‘Never mind, we’re going to keep him off the air.’”
Bob Proud, senior vice president and market manager for Border Media, which owns the station, said Neil has been off the air since May.
“Discussions were held to try to find a way to keep Dan on the air, but Border Media’s legal counsel decided it would be best that he stay off until after the election,” Proud said.
If you listen to the people that made the actual decision, it appears that Neil's story is either completely fabricated or greatly exaggerated for political gain. Either way, it is a clear sign that, after a rather silent beginning to his campaign, Neil is probably not ready to mount a serious challenge to Howard.
If Neil has been off the air since May, as his boss says, there is a good chance Neil has timed this story to pre-empt what could be underwhelming fundraising numbers later this week. We'll know Thursday. The Statesman also noted that, despite the millionaire Neil's claims, he does have alternative sources of income.
A commenter on the Statesman post may have summed it up best:
By AmelieWannabe
July 12, 2010 4:43 PM |
This reminds [me] of when Marc Katz ran for mayor of Austin and couldn’t appear in any Katz’s Deli commercials and when Fred Thompson didn’t appear on “Law and Order” during his presidential bid. Surely Mr. Neil had to be aware that it’s common for this to happen to political candidates who hold positions in television and/or radio.
This should not have been a surprise to Neil. His dismissal from radio during the campaign has precedent. It is not a "liberal Democrat" conspiracy, as Neil claimed in his press release, but actually just how things work.
Last weekend, a dozen students who are spending their summer working to elect Democrats as part of Mark Strama's Campaign Academy made their way to Corpus Christi for the Texas Democratic Convention.
If you attended the convention, you likely noticed them in their matching Campaign Academy shirts following closely behind Rep. Strama. On their Campaign Academy blog, the students summarized the weekend.
This past weekend, about half of the Campaign Academy ventured to the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in Corpus Christi. We were looking forward to funny hats, inspiring speeches and awkward dancing, and the convention did not disappoint!
Representative Strama introduced us to many legendary figures in Texas politics, such as Bill White, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Boyd Richie, Senfronia Thompson, Glen Maxey, and Molly Beth Malcolm, who kindly shared their experiences and words of wisdom with us.
We had the opportunity of attending various caucuses, including ones representing Mexican- Americans, LGBT interests, and the Asian-American community, which shed light on the diversity and inclusiveness of the Democratic Party ....
The convention energized us for the months ahead, during which we will be working hard to turn Texas blue! We would like to sincerely thank everyone who made it possible for us to attend this convention. We learned so much and had a great time, too!
The Campaign Academy, who I've been working with since early June, also created a video documenting the weekend.
In a year where the conventional wisdom seems to be that Democrats are suffering from an enthusiasm gap, we are proud to report that's not a problem here in Texas, where over 20 high school and college students are devoting their summer vacations to working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
After apologizing to BP and calling a $20 billion fund the company agreed to set up a "shakedown," House Republican leader John Boehner reportedly had stern words for Texas Congressman Joe Barton: apologize immediately or resign your leadership position immediately.
Since then, following Barton's apology and subsequent retraction of his apology for his initial apology, several congressional Republicans have called on Barton to resign. However, in a Facebook status update that the Texas Tribune reports has since been deleted, state Rep. Debbie Riddle commended Barton for his comments that have caused a media firestorm in recent days.
OK, in a world of "PC" speech it is refreshing to hear our Texas congressman, Joe Barton, call it as he sees it — a "shake down." The Bible says, "let your yes be yes and your no be no." The outrage SHOULD be with Obama for NOT allowing other countries and our American companies in the Gulf to clean the spill from day one! BHO didn't lift the Jones Act because he is sold out to the unions.
As Phillip wrote on Thursday, John Cornyn said he shared Barton's concerns. Many national Republicans have recognized that what Barton said was wrong. It is a revealing commentary on how far Texas Republicans are outside of the national mainstream that Barton's comments are being met with agreement and not outrage.
Todd Staples spent the first few years of his term as Agriculture Commissioner positioning himself to run for higher statewide office. After Kay Bailey Hutchison declined to resign her senate seat, and the long expected musical chairs among Republican statewide elected officials was avoided, Staples has shifted his focus to using the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) as an extension of his campaign. Since taking office in 2007, Staples has shown a dissappointing pattern of shameless self-promotion and incompetence.
The latest example of Staples mismanagement of the TDA involved the outsourcing of $3 million in federal funds to a Kentucky-based non-profit for a broadband mapping project. The non-profit, Connected Nation, has a spotty record and well-documented ties to the telecommunications industry. The study's value is also coming under fire from Staples' Democratic opponent, Hank Gilbert, whose campaign has said the study could have easily been completed by a Texas state agency or public university.
"It was inappropriate for the Texas Department of Agriculture to outsource more than $3 million in federal funding to a Kentucky non-profit organization with a questionable record and significant ties to telecommunications companies when federal law allowed the state to conduct this project on its own,” Gilbert said.
...
“The fact of the matter is that federal law allowed the state or any of the public universities in Texas to conduct this project,” Gilbert said, citing the provisions The Broadband Data Improvement Act, 47 U.S.C. §1304, which states that multiple entity types—including government bodies—were eligible for the funds.
As bad as Staples' decision to outsource the federal funds was, it fits into a long pattern of behavior the TDA has followed under his leadership. What is perhaps more notable is that the TDA is directing reporters to contact the Texans for Todd Staples campaign with questions about the Connected Nation contract.
Of course, it was not Texans for Todd Staples who awarded the federally funded contract, and it is hard to imagine the Republican political operative Cody McGregor employed by the Staples campaign having any qualifications to answer such questions.
McGregor has attempted to deflect legitimate questions about the Connected Nation contract by feeding reporters recycled negative information about Hank Gilbert. The TDA, not individuals employed by the Staples campaign, need to be answering these questions with facts, not recyling old lines of attack against Gilbert.
The question that Todd Staples needs to answer: Where is the line drawn between the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Texans for Todd Staples campaign?
Currently, there is mounting evidence that the TDA and the Staples campaign are nearly one and the same. The Gilbert campaign issued a press release today encouring reporters to take the following actions:
Insist that the Texas Department of Agriculture offer an explanation for why Connected Nation received a $3 million contract from TDA given the wake of problems that plagued the non-profit organization that performed broadband work in North Carolina and Kentucky.
Ask the TDA why they are referring questions about a state contract to Texans for Todd Staples. Ask if it is a deliberate attempt to dodge difficult questions about the Connected Nation broadband contract.
The core issue is about TDA's questionable broadband contract itself, not the back and forth between the two campaigns. Therefore, inquiries should be directed to the TDA, not Todd Staples' campaign. TDA Deputy Commissioner Bryan Black, who handles media inquiries for the Texas Department of Agriculture, may be reached at 512-475-1669. Note that the voice mail at this extension instructs that media inquires may also be made directly to Mr. Black's cell phone, 512-964-2830.
Texas needs a leader who will put the Texas Department of Agriculture first, instead of prioritizing his own re-election and political career over the job Texans elected him to do.
The bottom line remains that the Todd Staples and the TDA need to be accountable for the Connected Nation contract decision. It was not a decision made by his campaign staff, and they should not be the ones answering questions about state business.
The Dallas Morning News has learned that the Green Party's petition drive to gain ballot access in Texas this November has been set up by Arizona-based Republican consultant Tim Mooney.
The news comes a week after the Green Party of Texas submitted 90,000 signatures to the Texas Secretary of State. This instance appears to be the first time there has been confirmation that Republicans are driving a Green Party ballot access effort. Kat Swift, the state coordinator of the Green Party of Texas (which can now perhaps more accurately be called the Green Tea Party) has admitted, as the DMN confirmed, "If it hadn't been for that donation, we wouldn't have been on the ballot."
The Green Party of Texas has been hijacked by people whose political opinions are polar opposites of the Green Party platform. Rick Perry's Republican Party of Texas has spent years destroying the very things the Green Party believes in. Now, thanks to the efforts of an out-of-state political consultant with a long history of ballot fraud accusations, Perry and Texas Republicans will hope to benefit from the Green Party pulling votes from Bill White and other Texas Democrats. The issue now is not about ballot access, but whether or not Green Party supporters are content to partner with the party that opposes everything they advocate.
Mooney told the DMN that the petition drive (estimated to cost $200,000) was funded by a Missouri-based group called Take Back Initiative, although he declined to say who contributed to Take Back Initiative. The group first came into the public eye in 2007 when it contributed $175,000 to an effort to split California's electoral votes.
Mooney has a well-documented history of involvement in shady petition drives. Mooney was part of Capital Strategies, a Las Vegas-based company that helped Ralph Nader gain ballot access in multiple states and also was involved in GOTV strategies for the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign in Florida. Capital Strategies had its business license revoked by the State of Nevada in 2005. Mooney also incurred multiple liens for failing to pay state and federal taxes. Mooney is identified as a "Fraud Merchant" on the Stop Ballot Fraud website of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
Given his past, Mooney's disengenous answer to the DMN's question of whether the Green Party's presence on the ballot would benefit any particular candidate or party is no surprise.
"I don't know if it benefits any individual person or whatever. It's all up to what the individual voter wants.
"The end result," [Mooney] said, "is that if these signatures prove to be valid, Texans are going to have another choice. Whether they exercise that choice is purely up to Texans."
This is not the first time Mooney has been called on to aid the Green Party in order to help Republican Party candidates. For him to pretend that his efforts are not meant to explicitly help Texas Republicans is embarrassing.
As you might guess, the Perry campaign has denied any involvement. Over the coming weeks, as we will continue to learn more about the Green Party's Republican-funded $200,000 petition drive, that claim could become increasingly difficult to believe.
Congressman Michael Burgess has called on the Texas Attorney General's office to investigate the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, after the TCEQ reported inaccurate results to the Fort Worth City Council and then took weeks to report the error after they had discovered it.
The Republican congressman's rebuke of the TCEQ follows a week in which EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz told the Houston Chronicle, "I think the writing will be on the wall — unless we start seeing better permits that address our objections, we are very likely to begin federalizing others. The state is not following federal Clean Air Act requirements.”
As Phillp wrote yesterday (The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: "An Agency of Destruction"), Rick Perry's attempt to make the controversy surrounding the TCEQ a states' rights issue simply does not add up. During George W. Bush's term, the EPA pressured the TCEQ to improve its permitting process and to make its data public. To present the EPA's legitimate concerns as a new "federal power grab" is completely disingenuous, as members of Perry's own party are beginning to realize.
“Those responsible should be held fully accountable, and I believe that a robust investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s office would be appropriate,” Michael Burgess said in a statement.
Burgess said he was recently briefed by TCEQ on air quality issues related to gas drilling and he's not happy to find out now that he wasn't presented with all of the data.
“I relied on the information I was given, as did many others in North Texas,” Burgess said. “I find it personally offensive to find out that what I have been told may not be the full story on the air quality issues in the area that affect millions of North Texans. There are a lot of questions that TCEQ needs to answer, and the public is right to demand accountability.”
There is one Republican in particular who seems eager to support Perry's position on the issue: Kelly Hancock, state representative for House District 91 in Fort Worth.
Hancock has spent much of the past few days on Twitter expressing outrage at what he describes as "the federal grab of the state's successful permitting process." Hancock is also the vice president of Advanced Chemical Logistics, a company that specializes in "the chemical needs" of the industrial and institutional formulators, oil field, water treatment industries, amongst others.
"I think the key point to remember is, in February, the sites were retested, and they all came back significantly below the long-term exposure limits," Hancock said.
Hancock, a vice president at a chemical company, said he didn't understand why the agency bothered to retest the older samples in the air canisters.
"Actually the second tests were very unscientific," he said. "The canisters they used had been sitting on the shelves for a long time. ... If the tests had come back at lower levels, then everyone who's complaining now would want to throw those tests out."
Burgess has had a pretty awful environmental record since entering the U.S. House in 2003. In 2009, the League of Conservation Voters gave him a 0 rating. In 2008, Enviroment America did the same. The fact that Burgess, along with other Republicans, seem shocked about Perry's mismanagement of the TCEQ is a telling sign. There are only so many chemical company executives to defend Perry on this one.
If you haven't already, take some time to read the Texas Observer's recent cover story on the TCEQ. As much as Perry would like to neatly fit this into his Washington vs. Texas narrative, this is a losing issue for him that even some Republican lawmakers are beginning to catch on to.
John Cornyn should know better. The Civil Rights Act is not some technical piece of legislation subject to a “gotcha question.” And it’s not just some “law that was passed 40 years ago.” It is an indelible measure of our character as a nation. Anyone running for the U.S. Senate should be able to intelligently explain their beliefs about the Act that guaranteed the most fundamental rights to all citizens of our American democracy. Click here to donate $5 or more today and tell Texas Republicans we are sick and tired of backward leadership.
Later, he continued making excuses for Rand:
“Rand Paul, like every new candidate, is going to get better,” Cornyn said. Candidates “make mistakes and they misspeak.” (Bloomberg, 5/21/10)
Why is John Cornyn making excuses for Rand Paul’s ignorance? If John Cornyn needs “more detail” about the Civil Rights Act so he can be better informed on historical legislation that transformed America forever, then we’re happy to teach him all about it. I’d tell Senator Cornyn to go look up the Civil Rights Act in a textbook, but I can’t be sure if the State Board of Education has left that in the curriculum standards. He’ll just have to learn “more detail” about the Civil Rights Act from Texans directly.
As Libby Shaw pointed out, David Corn of Mother Jones said on MSNBC that endorsing Rand Paul was like hugging a hand grenade. If Cornyn continues to make excuses for Paul's extremist remarks, it will be a question of when, not if, that grenade is going to go off. The extremist views (and that's the only accurate way to describe them) of Paul and the Tea Party could ultimately alienate moderate and independent voters this November.
The sad reality for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (and Cornyn, the group's chair) is that there's more than five months until Election Day. There is no doubt that Paul will make more outrageous comments in the days, weeks, and months to come. And John Cornyn will continue be there to make excuses for Paul's views that are far outside the mainstream of America.
You can take Richie's advice by e-mailing Cornyn's office at info@johncornyn.com or calling (202) 224-2934.
In the wake of Tuesday's Republican Senate primary in Kentucky, where Rand Paul defeated Trey Grayson by over twenty points, Sen. John Cornyn finds himself in a difficult position.
Grayson had entered the race as the chosen candidate of Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Cornyn even contributed to Grayson's campaign. With their anointed candidate completely rejected by Kentucky Republican primary voters, Cornyn and the NRSC have thrown their support to Paul.
There's one problem: Rand Paul's views are way outside the mainstream of America and Kentucky. During an interview on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow, Paul refused to say whether he would have supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And who was there to defend Paul's comments? You guessed it, John Cornyn. From Politico:
“I think it was sort of a gotcha question,” Cornyn said of Maddow’s approach. “If I’m walking down the street minding my own business and somebody sticks a microphone under my nose about a law that was passed 40 years ago, without more detail — I think it probably caught him a little bit by surprise.”
Unfortunately for Cornyn and Paul's hope for victory in November, Paul's comments actually fit into his rigid ideology. What he said was not a gaffe; it is simply what he believes. His beliefs place him (like his father) far outside the political mainstream of America.
"Rand Paul, like every new candidate, is going to get better,” Cornyn told Bloomberg's Al Hunt in an interview to air this weekend. Candidates, Cornyn said, “make mistakes and they misspeak.”
If Cornyn is waiting for Rand Paul to stop talking about the extremist views he has held his entire life, he'll be waiting forever. Paul's lack of experience and extremist ideology make him an underdog in his race against Democratic nominee and Attorney General Jack Conway.
If elected, Rand Paul would be one of (if not the most) extremists senators in the history of this country. And John Cornyn is his biggest cheerleader. What's worse is, given Cornyn's past behavior and eagerness to put his duties as NRSC chair above his duties as senator, this is no real surprise.
Austin attorney Karin Crump, the Democratic nominee for Travis County Justice of the Peace Pct 2, received endorsements from the Austin Police Association PAC and the Austin Firefighters Association PAC this week.
In an e-mail to supporters, Crump wrote:
Over the past week, our campaign earned the support and endorsement of both the Austin Firefighters Association PAC and the Austin Police Association PAC. It is truly an honor to have these important public safety groups supporting our campaign and I look forward to working with them to improve both the JP2 court and the communities that we serve.
Crump is running for the only Travis County public office held by an elected Republican. The incumbent, Barbara Bembry, is not running for re-election. The Republican nominee is Glen Bass, who had announced a bid for House District 48 before ultimately filing for Justice of the Peace.
Previously, Crump, the only attorney in the race, was overwhelmingly named "Most Qualified" by the Austin Bar Association. The Crump campaign will hold their general election campaign kickoff at The Hub on June 16.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas thought Miers was a "wonderful choice" in 2005, but today she "has some concerns over Elena Kagan's lack of judicial experience."
Five years ago, Cornyn and Hutchison portrayed Bush nominee Harriet Miers as a welcomed change to a Supreme Court filled with career judges. Miers, by almost any measurement, was historically underqualified to be a justice.
But that did not matter to Cornyn or Hutchison. The Republican party line in 2005 was that Miers -- whose resume outside of the Bush White House included stints as chair of the Texas Lottery Commission and two years on the Dallas City Council -- was qualified to be nominated to the Supreme Court. In turn, that was their opinion.
Had John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison decided five years ago to declare Miers to be unqualified (which ultimately became the national consensus) they might have some credibility left to criticize Kagan for her lack of judicial experience.
The facts are really just embarrassing for Cornyn and Hutchison, as they often are. Five years ago they enthusiastically backed a mid-level White House staffer with zero judicial experience. Now, with President Obama in the White House, they have decided that a former dean of Harvard Law School and U.S. solicitor general lacks the necessary experience.
Apparently, in the eyes of John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Lottery Commission and Dallas City Hall are better training grounds for a future Supreme Court Justice than Harvard Law School or the U.S. Department of Justice.
