Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
“I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns and women join the unqualified men in running our government.” – Sissy Farenthold
Sissy Speaks Truth!
This week, as President of Meyerland Area Democrats, I was able to get a progressive legend to come and speak. Her name is Sissy Farenthold.
See, Sissy was the first woman elected to the Texas House, back in 1968. She took out a good ole boy and won the House seat in South Texas. Farenthold became a household name as the “den mother” of reformers in the Texas House, her courage to take on the corruption there made her a national hero. Her actions directly led to the toppling of most the corrupt figures in the legislature in what became the Sharpstown Stock Scandal.
Then in 1972 she did the unthinkable again: she ran for governor. It was a media sensation and a explosive firestorm: a liberal woman running in her own right against the conservative Democratic Party machine. Sissy’s run empowered a new generation of progressives in the state, and even by losing she scored a win. She peeled off votes from the embattled incumbent Governor Preston Smith and long groomed LBJ/ Connally protégé Lt. Governor Ben Barnes. Thus, banker Dolph Briscoe wound getting the most votes and went into a runoff with Sissy! He won the runoff and political history was made. Farenthold’s run had cost two Texas incumbents the governorship.
That same year of 1972 more history was made: she was nominated at the Democratic Nation Convention for Vice President. She is the first woman to have had such real consideration and it almost happened, but alas she got second place in the voting. She went on to run in 1974 again for governor, lost, then established many organization such as the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Although Sissy only served two terms in the Texas legislature (1968-1972) she made a massive impact on her state and the national scene. Without Sissy you do not get Ann Richards or Hillary Clinton.
At our meeting she discussed the need for all of us to start being more vocal about the plight of the people in this nation. She is a major supporter of Occupy Wall St., was in New York when it started, and yes, talked to the protestors there and here in Houston holding rallies. She warned that this election will be very difficult for Obama because of how terrible the economy is and the growing masses of poverty.
Sissy expressed outrage of the lack of a real women’s movement against the barbaric new anti-abortion and anti-voting laws . She urged the women in the crowd that the time has come to stand up and be counted. Sissy expressed that Occupy shows the way for women to start fighting the male dominated system in Washington for their economic needs.
Sissy urged that change won’t come via the crew in DC. Or at the state capitol. It would come through raising our voices and pushing hard against the corrupting forces in this nation.
You see Sissy gets that standing up can have a positive effect. She stood up to the graft in the Texas House and unleashed the toppling of many good ole boys there. In 1969 she stood up to the national Democratic Party by being the lone vote against a resolution praising LBJ’s Vietnam leadership. Someone had to say no to that war despite LBJ being the leader of her own party. We must have her kind of courage going forward.
You could say Sissy has been a Occupier for a very long time. She is a maverick, a rebel and a real progressive who fights for her values and will not be silenced by the establishment. The answer to our political problems I think is more Sissy Farentholds. It will take that to end the power of the oligarchy and moneyed interests we are living under.
Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Sen. Wyden at Green Energy Site in Oregon
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) is planning a filibuster against a new infringement on civil rights. This is one clever way to make people aware of what their bought off congress is up to:
In the coming weeks, a new and unprecedented thing just might happen in the U.S. Senate: the Internet will filibuster a bill.
Specifically, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) will filibuster a bill — the Protect IP Act, which aims to fundamentally change the structure of the Internet — with a little help from his friends and admirers online.
In a website launched this week by the left-leaning political action committee Demand Progress, Wyden promises that if the Protect IP Act comes up for a vote in the Senate, he will stage an old-school standing filibuster and speak for as long as his lungs have wind.
To bolster his speech, Wyden plans to read off the names of people who stand united with him against proposed rules that would fundamentally change the structure of the Internet.
So far, over 60,000 petition signatures have been collected, his staff said, and that number is growing quickly.
“My boss couldn’t feel more strongly about this issue,” a Wyden aide told Raw Story on Tuesday, stressing that their main goal right now is to prevent the bill from coming up for a vote.
“He will do a standing filibuster, but at this point, we don’t necessarily have the votes to sustain his filibuster,” the aide continued. “Our goal is to continue to slow down this process and continue to educate members of Congress on why [the Protect IP Act is] the wrong approach.”
The names that aren’t read will later be entered into the congressional record.
The Protect IP Act is heavily sponsored by the entertainment industry and the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying group, which sees it as a means to prevent online piracy, which they claim costs jobs.
But its detractors, companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Aol, see the bill a little differently. While Protect IP — and its House version, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — would make it easier for U.S. authorities to crack down on websites accused of pirating movies, television shows and music, it would also allow the government and copyright owners to disable credit card processing for sites they claim are engaging or enabling copyright infringement, all without a court hearing.
The legislation is so broad it could be used to target online anonymity tools used by human rights activists…
Here is the website mobilizing progressives against this bill.
In Ohio labor and progressives are doing huge things: moving to repeal bills passed by the GOP legislature. They repealed SB5, and now are moving to prevent the new congressional GOP drawn maps from being implemented and also are moving to stop the egregious new voting g restrictions from ever becoming law. It looks like the have secured enough signatures to get these bills n the ballot for repeal. More:
“Over the course of the last year, almost 2 million (signatures) have been collected from across Ohio’s 88 counties to repeal such egregious pieces of like Senate Bill 5, now House Bill 194, and obviously the work that’s ongoing with House Bill 319,” said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.
“We made history with Senate Bill 5 and we continue to make history with 194,” Redfern said later. “It’s not to be underestimated the work that’s in place.”
…
Redfern said Democrats have collected more than 100,000 signatures to place the Republicans’ new congressional maps on the November ballot. He also said he’s met with some groups, including the League of Women Voters, to discuss putting on next year’s ballot a mechanism to redo how congressional maps are drawn in Ohio.
Among the provisions in House Bill 194 that Democrats find objectionable:
A reduction in early voting from 35 days before an election to 21 days by mail and 17 in person. The bill also would prohibit in-person voting on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and the three days before the election.
A prohibition on counties such as Franklin from sending unsolicited absentee-ballot applications to all voters.
Requirements regarding whether a poll worker has to tell a voter that he or she is in the wrong precinct.
New standards for when a vote should be tossed out, such as when a person puts the wrong birth date on an absentee-ballot envelope.
Republicans argued that the bill would bring uniformity to Ohio’s elections, strengthen security and still provide plenty of access to the polls through early voting.
Greg Schultz, state director for Obama’s re-election campaign in Ohio, said Obama volunteers held about 1,700 events geared toward placing House Bill 194 before voters.
“The process of getting this on the ballot can’t be understated,” Schultz said. “We had neighbors talking to neighbors about this. Our volunteer infrastructure is that much more motivated, that much more engaged. This year, 2011, could’ve been a very long year, and instead there’s been an incredible amount of activity.”
Where oh where are African Americans in Occupy protests? A question I have been wondering. This article I think hits the nail on the hail. For many blacks, seeing white Occupy protestors is a “welcome to the party” moment:
Is there a chance that the movement can become more diverse? Leslie Wilson, a professor of African American history at Montclair State University, is not optimistic.
“Occupy Wall Street cannot produce enough change to encourage certain types of black participation,” Wilson said in an interview. “The church cannot get enough blacks out on the streets. Some students will go, but not the masses. Black folks, particularly older ones, do not think that this is going to lead to change. . . . This generation has already been beaten down and is hurting. They are not willing to risk what little they have for change. Those who are wealthier are not willing to risk and lose.”
Black America’s fight for income equality is not on Wall Street, but is a matter of day-to-day survival. The more pressing battles are against tenant evictions, police brutality and street crime. This group doesn’t see a reason to join the amorphous Occupiers.
But if the Occupy movement does not grow in solidarity with other constituencies of exploited and oppressed people, and if black America does not devise new leadership strategies to deal with today’s problems, the truth of Frederick Douglass’s wisdom will hold — the powerful undertow of race and class in America will keep both blacks and whites from being free.
The great challenge for Occupy to me is expanding tactics and diversifying it’s participants.
And finally great news out of Texas: the federal court in San Antonio has issued interim new lines for state house, state senate and congress. These lines may wind up becoming permanent depending on upcoming trials at the DC circuit and trial in Texas. Civil rights groups call this new map the most progressive map for minorities in Texas history. Right now Texas Dems hold 49 Texas House seats out of 150. The new map gives Dems, mostly minorities, another 10-12 seats.
See MALDEF’s happy statement on the Texas legislature maps here.
And Lone Star Project’s analysis of state house maps here.
And for congress: Texas gained 4 new seats in the census. And thanks to GOP foolishness the San Antonio court has given at least 3 of the new seats to Latinos and blacks. And several other districts will likely flip in the new few cycles due to growing Latino population. Memo to Tea Party: it won’t matter how many gerrymanders you do, you cannot silence growing numbers of minorities in America. All thanks to the Voting Rights and Civil rights Acts…
Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
A heartening Thanksgiving story out of Kingwood Texas (outside of Houston). You may have seen this on CNN, but it is a such a story about kids doing what it is right for their fellow man. More details plus video:
… Mr. Love is a substitute teacher at Kingwood High School that is loved by all the students. He is somewhere between 88 and 93 years old. On Thursday or Friday while Mr. Love was trying to get order in the class, a freshman told Mr. Love that he did not have to listen to him along with other choice comments. That upset Mr. Love and severely saddened him.
Mr. Love is one of those teachers that support the kids by going to their games. He keeps things spunky by wearing funny hats and keeping things light. All around he is just what we expect of the great teachers.
Jason DeVault, and his friends along with the student organization “Just About Kids” took it upon themselves to use social media (Facebook & Twitter) to arrange a wonderful thank you to their wonderful teacher. Jason said there were 50 to 60 kids there and there would have been many more but many were out of town. In my humble opinion I stopped counting after 50 and I think there were at least 75. Mr. Love showed both shock and extreme appreciation.
It is heartening to see young students show this type of affection to their teacher. As Mr. Love said, these students could be doing much more fun things on a Sunday evening. That they felt the need to give Mr. Love some love after the less than ideal week he had, show us that goodness still reign in most of us still.
Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
State Rep. Hochberg (D-Hou)
Well, the Texas school finance lawsuit forum was a success. It was something to be proud of. My club, Meyerland Area Democrats, hosted it in a well known public school. We got 100 folks from all over to come. Although the media expressed interest and press releases were sent to reporters, none showed to cover this event. A landmark lawsuit seeking to remedy funding cuts on top of a woeful system in a state whose governor wants to be president was NOT enough to garner attention from the papers.
However, we are getting some attention now, thanks to an op-ed I’ve written about our event. It was published in the Examiner papers locally. It is a worthy read because I sum up our event and the core issue of this lawsuit of national significance. We hope other papers will pick this up and I will update ya’ll on that.
Here is what I wrote to all the papers in town and hope you spread the word:
Taking Texas to court over school funding inequities By ART PRONIN
Posted: Monday, October 24, 2011 11:04 am
The Meyerland Area Democrats hosted a lively forum on the critical school finance lawsuit at Johnston Middle School last week. Because the state legislature has failed to come up with a universal equitable system to fund our schools time and again there is no choice but for hundreds of ISDs to sue the state for remedy. This funding inequity should infuriate and mobilize all Texans no matter if you are liberal, conservative, rich or poor. Why? Because your tax dollars are not being properly distributed in any fair manner and your community is not getting its share of funds.
Paul Colbert, a consultant to the Equity Center, State Rep. Scott Hochberg, Randall Buck Wood of Ray & Wood, and David G. Hinojosa, Southwest regional counsel for MALDEF, spoke about why the lawsuits have been or will be filed.
Other dignitaries who attended were HISD Trustee Juliet Stipeche, Harris County Department of Education Trustees Debbie Kerner and Jim Henley, State Rep. Borris Miles, Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan, and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell.
Rep. Hochberg provided insight into the nonsensical school finance system and showed how the legislature utterly failed in its duties to properly fund our schools. The bottom line is our state is in perpetual deficit intentionally created when the new business “margins” tax was implemented in 2006 to remedy the last time the courts told the state to improve school funding, which was in 2005 While there was even less revenue due to the economy and no new federal stimulus funds in 2011, the legislature simply cut over $5 billion from the schools and blamed it on the economy rather than fixing the problem they created.
David Hinojosa, MALDEF
MALDEF’s Hinojosa focused on the gross civil rights violations of this funding system. He noted that all students must meet the same standard to get into college – all must do well on their SAT tests, get great grades and pass state-mandated exams. Yet the poor districts, which often enroll sizable Latino, African American, and low income children, simply cannot give their students the footing needed to make it into college. The result: a nightmare for the future of Texas. MALDEF expects to soon file a lawsuit on behalf of low wealth school districts, parents and children.
Wood, general counsel for the Equity Center, which filed one of the lawsuits against the state, explained how arbitrary and unfair the funding system is. One poor district might tax at a higher rate but gets less back from the state to educate their pupils, while a rich district might tax less and find they too are not getting needed funds. Texas currently has the lowest high school graduation rates in the nation, while the finance system continues to worsen and cuts pile on. So the only remedy is to go to court and get a fix by getting the court to order the legislature to fix the system or close the schools. He also noted the Texas constitution guarantees an equitable quality education to all residents.
Colbert provided a detailed view of the inequities in the current finance formulas and pointed out how they are based on cost levels from the 1980s. Changes have not been made to fund a growing need to better educate students. Instead, large and unnecessary cuts were made, yet the state leadership is now falsely trying to claim an increase in funding for schools. Colbert provided the actual numbers from the state itself demonstrating that funding has decreased by billions of dollars, leaving schools with a decrease in revenue of over $500 per student from the prior two years. School districts are getting less state aid per student than they received in the 2007-8 school year. He also pointed out that Houston ISD would have received over $11 million more this year if it had just been funded at the state average level per student.
The Equity Center has organized a coalition of parents, civic groups and ISDs to press forward for justice for Texas schools. It is called Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition.
The Meyerland Area Democrats Club is made up primarily of residents of election precincts in the Meyerland area, including Westbury, Maplewood and Marilyn Estates. For additional information, click to http://www.meydems.org
Pronin is president of the Meyerland Area Democrats.
Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Texas school finance for dummies:
I wanted to tell ya’ll of an exciting project I have been working on as president of my club Meyerland Area Democrats. I am organizing a forum on the landmark school finance lawsuit which is being filed this week. Hundreds of school districts and civil rights groups are suing the state over the 4 billion dollars in cuts to our schools.
See, our Texas constitution guarantees a equitable education for all it’s children. The state courts have used that clause two times before to force fixes. We are hoping for the same result yet again.
It has been a exhaustive process – from finding the right public school to have it in to recruiting speakers for it and making sure the community knows about it.
I have successfully recruited David Hinojosa, regional counsel for MALDEF (Mexican American Legal and Educational Fund), whose organization is suing Texas over the inequitablity of the finance system here. Districts in the valley are getting thousands per pupil less than say a richer district. This, for MALDEF, is a civil rights issue: We expect our kids to apply for college the same way with SATs and good grades, but we won’t provide the funding so they can even do well enough to go to college?
Randall Buck Wood, who was Deputy Comptroller of Texas under Bob Bullock in the 1970s and 1980s is well known. The Comptroller office back when did not collect taxes from many corporations. Bullock changed that with folks like Buck Wood. Wood is now general counsel for the Equity Center, the organization of school districts suing the state.
I also have State Rep. Scott Hochberg, a hell of a Democrat if there ever was one. A tireless advocate for public education and master of the formulas of funding, will be speaking about how the GOP legislature epically failed. The Legislature would not close a corporate loophole or use the 10 billion dollars of Rainy Day fund money to fund the schools. And this whole suit could have been avoided.
Former State Rep. Paul Colbert, another public education fighter, is also attending, to show how the cuts has further destroyed the funding for already deprived children. He is also a part of the team suing the state.
I will do a piece about the event after we have it Monday night. We are hoping for media attention and a large audience. It is a critical issue. If we win in court it will be justice for our children and a moral blow to Rick Perry and his goons.
Here is info on our event here . Also here is a great new article on the building lawsuit here you should read.
And to see the stark numbers of how bad the funding disparities are see this:
Location: San Antonio ISD–$5,036 per student and tax rate of $1.04 Alamo Heights ISD–$6,243 per student and tax rate of $1.04
Size: Glen Rose ISD–$8,424 per student and tax rate of $0.825 Diboll ISD–$4,881 per student and tax rate of $1.04
Tax Rate: Austin ISD–$6,171 per student and tax rate of $1.079 Amarillo ISD–$5,094 per student and tax rate of $1.80
Revenue: Lamar Consolidated–$5,475 per student and tax rate of $1.02 Calallen ISD–$5,475 per student tax rate of $1.17
Or better yet see the disparities between rich and poor Texas Senate Districts. Richest and poorest district has 9,000.00 difference per pupil.
Oh, and a great interview with David Hinojosa on the civil rights aspect of what the GOP Lege did to our minority students.
Joyce L. Arnold: Liberal, lesbian, Independent, equality activist, writer.
A post from a liberal Texan’s perspective, about Rick Perry. I’m not sure there’s much to say that hasn’t been said, and I’m even less sure anything better can be said than what the wonderful Molly Ivins wrote about Perry’s predecessor, W. It absolutely applies to Perry: “The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be President of the United States, please pay attention.”
But since there are obviously people who take seriously a possible President Perry, and since the nation actually elected W. for a second term, I’ll provide a few Perry Points on occasion.
First, if you haven’t read it, take a look at Art’s “Progressive Notes,” September 10 edition . He has a section on Perry, which includes this: “Members of his finance team says ‘it (fundraising) is going like wildfire.’” This, while the actual smoke of very large and damaging wildfires is visible from Austin.
And while Perry did fly back to Texas when the wildfires, which have been going on since last December, got so large that they were getting national attention again, apparently one day was all his “going like wildfire” campaign could spare. From the Texas Tribune, “Perry a No Show at Texas Wildfire Press Conference”:
Gov. Rick Perry did not show up as expected Saturday (September 10) at a news conference convened by his office to brief reporters on the Texas wildfires.
Perry aides, cited ‘logistical issues,’ and when asked where the governor was, said, “He’s in Austin.” Which is all of 30 miles from Bastrop.
Local and state officials appeared at the briefing to provide an update on a state voucher program that allows displaced residents to stay in hotels, in advance of the arrival of federal aid. Nearly 1,400 homes were destroyed in the Bastrop blaze, making it the most destructive fire in state history. Texas emergency management chief Nim Kidd also warned that as the brutal drought continues, fire danger across the state remains severe. ‘The next fire we have could be the worst one we’ve ever seen,’ (Allison) Kidd (Perry spokesperson) said.
The governor is back in Texas after wrapping up a week-long campaign swing that took him to New Hampshire, South Carolina and California. Perry also participated in his first nationally televised debate, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and staged at least six fundraisers in California. He returned from California early this morning.
A Perry Point: priorities are revealed in actions.
… Perry claims that his Texas Miracle is the result of him keeping the government out of the private sector’s way. But peek behind that ideological curtain, and you’ll find this startling fact: During Perry’s decade, the greatest job growth by far has come from the public sector, which has more than doubled the number of new jobs created by the private sector. …
Far from having the best unemployment rate in the nation, the Lone Star State ranks a middling 26th, behind New York, Massachusetts and other states whose ‘liberal’ governments he routinely mocks.
Even more damning, Perry’s Texas is not creating nearly enough jobs to keep up with its fast-growing population. Those 1.2 million new positions are 629,000 short of the jobs needed just to bring the state’s employment level back up to where it was in 2007. …
On his watch as governor, Texas added more minimum wage jobs than all the other 49 states combined. … He can brag that he’s brought Texans down into a tie with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers reduced to poverty pay. …
One out of six employed Texans are now teachers, police officers, highway engineers, military personnel or other government workers — and many of these jobs were created with the federal money that Perry-the-candidate now loudly denounces. Indeed, he’s running around ranting about President Obama’s stimulus program, but he gladly accepted the third highest amount of stimulus funds taken by the 50 states. There’s his miracle.
Add to Hightower’s excellent summary this: significant numbers of those public sector employees have lost their jobs, due to cuts in the state budget.
Second Perry Point: reality is revealed in real life consequences.
And no, I don’t think he’s gay, as the little heart signature has once again renewed that long-going speculative game. I’d be highly disappointed if I’m wrong about that.
UPDATE: The number of homes destroyed in the Bastrop fire is now up to 1500. According to NPR, that exceeds the record of homes lost in similar fire events in California.
Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Humphrey speaks at 1948 Dem convention on civil rights:
This past January the media swooned for Reagan’s 100th birthday. Well this week we progressives are the ones recalling the 100th birthday of one of the greatest liberals of the 20th century: Hubert Humphrey.
Humphrey was known as the “happy warrior” because of his famous 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention. He was 37 and mayor of Minneapolis at the time. The party was split over civil rights for blacks. He told the party:
“To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights,” he thundered from the convention podium, “I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”
The motion carried. The Southerners walked out and ran Strom Thurmond for president. When Harry S. Truman won nonetheless, Democrats were on their way to becoming the party of civil rights. Hubert Humphrey catalyzed that change.
The New Deal liberal lost a brutally close 1968 election against Nixon for POTUS. Many say if given a few more weeks Humphrey would have won. Imagine how different this nation would have been had Humphrey not lost.
With his loss he returned to the Senate. He pushed for New Deal policies to get people to work. But some Democrats like Carter moved away from New Dealism. From FDR. Truman. LbJ. And so, faced with opposition from top DC Dems on jobs programs he tried another tact:
In 1976 he joined Representative Augustus Hawkins, a Democrat from the Watts section of Los Angeles, to introduce a bill requiring the government, especially the Federal Reserve, to keep unemployment below 3 percent — and if that failed, to provide emergency government jobs to the unemployed.
… 70 percent of Americans believed the government should offer jobs to everyone who wanted one. However, Jimmy Carter — a new kind of Democrat answering to a new upper-middle-class, suburban constituency, embarrassed by industrial unions and enamored with the alleged magic of the market — did not.
“Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy,” President Carter said in his 1978 State of the Union address, a generation before Bill Clinton said almost the same thing, cementing the Democrats’ ambivalent retreat from New Deal-based government activism.
And here we are today. Reaganism has brainwashed a generation. Reagan is Obama’s hero. From 1968 came Nixon, Watergate, Carterism, Reagan, and of course today’s moderate Republican Democrat Obama. We owe alot to Humphrey. He did so much.
Champion of the middle class Elizabeth Warren faced nothing but pure disrespect when she answered questions to GOP congressmembers. Right wing Congressman McHenry (R-NC) called Warren a liar. These men treated her like dirt, and Warren’s face said it all:
Hey- women are tired of being treated like garbage by the guys in our political system! In Texas the spirit of Ann Richards is alive and well among many. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston (D) had quite the event on the House floor this week. She:
…delivered a riveting speech condemning a flyer handed out on behalf of the Texas Civil Justice League that used a graphic picture of a child nursing at a woman’s breast to question whether pending legislation would create “a nanny state.”
In a session in which the House “has spent 30 to 40 percent of its time kicking the reproductive organs of women down the road,” Thompson took issue with lobbyists using a picture of a breast in calling attention to legislation.
“I am really disgusted,” she said. “I am really ashamed. Some of you may find these funny. I find these hateful. They foster violence and disrespect towards women. I am appalled that the Texas Civil Justice League would go so low to get at a piece of legislation.”…
Thompson pounded the podium as she finished her speech with an admonition: “Men, if you don’t stand up for us today, don’t you walk in this chamber tomorrow.” She received a standing ovation.
House Speaker Joe Straus, who by coincidence had scheduled a reception for the women lawmakers Thursday evening, said he “did a lot of listening” as women trickled into the event. ” He agreed the flyer was in “beyond poor taste.”
“I do think all of us need to be mindful of how we treat each other,” he said, adding that it had been an extremely stressful session. “People are away from their families for 140 days and we have worked hard with a lot of challenging tasks.”
Lee Parsley, president of the Texas Civil Justice League, apologized for the flyer, which he said was disseminated without his approval. “I am very sorry the offensive piece exists at all and that you had to see it,” Parsley said in a letter distributed to lawmakers.
We have video of her awesome speech :
The result? The formation of the Women’s Caucus in the Texas House. Top Democratic and Republican representatives will now join forces to try and put a lid on the defamation of women .
PPP partnered with Progressive Change Campaign Committee to do polling in key battleground states where Democratic senators face tough races. They polled in Missouri, Ohio, Montana and Minnesota. The results were the same in every state: touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security and the voters will punish you. Senator McCaskill in Missouri has been running around with a plan to slash the budget worse than Ryan. Wake up McCaskill and others:
In Missouri, a poll conducted by PPP, a Democratic-aligned polling firm, showed that cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would be especially unpopular.
The poll in Missouri of 1,050 likely voters found that 19 percent would support reducing Medicare expenditures while 77 percent opposed Medicare trims.
The survey question was phrased this way: In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Medicare, which is the government health insurance program for the elderly?
A similar question on Medicaid found that 32 percent would support cuts to reduce the national debt while 63 percent would oppose them. For Social Security, 17 percent would support cuts; 76 percent oppose them.
Florida’s Governor Scott is boosting Dem fortunes in the state. Austerity never wins votes with the electorate. Last week red Jacksonville elected its first Dem mayor in 20 years, and to boot he is their first African American and the guy is also a former aid to President Clinton. Minorities poured out to vote, enraged by the cold hearted governance of Scott.
After the interview, Obama pointed out that he doesn’t like an interviewer challenging his comments. “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?” he said. – WFAA.com – News 8, Texas
There is nothing more infuriating than being interviewed and not being allowed to finish your answers before you’re interrupted. No doubt for a president it’s even more annoying. The other side of this is that powerful political figures, particularly presidents, will filibuster if reporters don’t stay on them. It looks like a lot of people picking gnat crap out of pepper, but I’ll let you be the final judge.
Mediaite goes with the big headline: Barack Obama Chides Local Reporter For His Interruptive And Combative Interview.
Politico’s Mike Allen perfectly sets up the point of the presidential interviews:
The White House sees these interviews as a way to cut through Beltway chatter and give the president an opportunity to talk to Americans about his vision for the country, in a venue that’s familiar to them. Obama’s communicators choose stations from different regions of the country, with a particular emphasis on stations that have content-sharing relationships with other stations in the region For example, today’s interview with WFAA in Dallas will also be seen by viewers in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. With the reporters invited to come see the president, the interview becomes more of an “event” and is heavily promoted as a White House interview.
These interviews also illustrate the tools an incumbent president has for accruing political benefits at the same time he’s doing his job. Colorado and North Carolina will be crucial swing states in 2012, Obama’s team is looking at Texas as a way to expand its map in 2012, and Indiana was a real coup as a red-state pickup for Obama in 2012. Obama has sat for several of these local-interview clusters lately: On March 15, he talked education reform with stations in New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia. On March 18, he previewed his Latin America trip with stations in North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania. All five of those states will get heavy attention from both parties in the 2012 election – and are getting early presidential love now.
I’m not seeing the “testiness” or a problem with the reporter’s supposed “interruptive” style.
There is a clear attempt by Pres. Obama to let the visiting reporter know who he’s dealing with, which doesn’t really bother me at all.
Pres. Obama is a charming guy and there’s no reason he couldn’t have said what he said using the same words with a lighter touch, maybe even smile. But this isn’t the 2008 Obama. He is grayer and “dinged up,” as he recently said himself, so some of that wear is going to show, which is what I think we’re seeing in this interview.
UPDATE: Barack Obama hasn’t gotten this type of treatment. Hope they have their seat belts on at the White House. If Republicans and the Right are jumping off the line this quickly now they’re going to be absolutely exhausted by October 2012. Screen capture via Politico, with a helpful headline “Nobody Interrupts POTUS.”
Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Senator Sanders and Representative Schakowsky give the progressive case on the budget on Ed’s Show April 7th:
Senator Sanders does it again on Spitzer’s CNN show as well. Spitzer and Sanders agree: the Democrats brought this crisis on themselves for they did NOT pass a 2011 budget when they controlled the entire government. See video here.
In Texas a massive lobby/protest day on April 6th drew over 5,000 to Austin, and got results. The Texas House just passed the most draconian budget in America- cutting 25 billion dollars from education, healthcare, removing funding for HIV patient programs and way more. 350,000 will lose their jobs if the House gets it’s way. Pressure is mounting on the Texas Senate to cut much less. Right after the capitol was flooded by citizens urging NO to 25 billion in cuts leaders in the Texas Senate announced they was greatly reduce cuts. Priceless :
… Senate budget-writers have been working to soften proposed deep cuts in areas including public education, Medicaid and criminal justice as the state faces a shortfall through the next two years of $15 billion to $27 billion.
Hike in funding seen Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said Wednesday that the working Senate proposal includes $16 billion more in state and federal funds than the House measure, but he did not detail where the additional state money would come from.
Republican state leaders are against new taxes, and Gov. Rick Perry has limited how much he’s willing for lawmakers to spend from the rainy-day fund….
The Senate plan under development at this point would cut $7 billion from current spending, according to Ogden’s estimate. Ogden cautioned, however, that his figure assumes other programs would stay as currently proposed in the Senate version.
“I’ve said we’ve got three priorities: public ed, health care and criminal justice,” Ogden said. “I think that the Senate’s proposal adequately funds all three of those right now. The question I’m wrassling with is, how much money do we have left for everything else?”
Senate budget-writers are looking for non-tax revenue, as are some House members….
Osadeba Omoliaro, a student at PrairieView A and M and representative of the Texas League of Young Voters, said cuts to education would be devastating for students and that young voters will make their voices heard in the next election.
“You can’t make these cuts and kill our dreams,” Omoliaro told the cheering crowd. “You can’t make these cuts and expect us to be quiet.”
While people protest the Right, Congressman Honda of the House Progressive Caucus writes about Ryan’s effort to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. Better, he discusses a counter budget progressives in Congress have crafted (see it here) as counter to Congressman Ryan’s Medican’t plan:
I have been working with my Congressional Progressive Caucus colleagues, economists and tax policy experts to develop a budget that eliminates the deficit (which Ryan fails to do), puts America to work building a competitive economy, invests in our schools, brings the troops home, protects Social Security and represents a fair deal for working families.
America has stacked the deck against working people. Our budget reverses this trend while cutting $1 trillion in waste. We make the tax code fair, asking wealthiest individuals, corporations hiding money overseas, oil companies raking in record profits and Wall Street banks that gambled away our money to pay their fair share.
We fix roads, bridges and waterways, we build a world-class, high-speed rail system and broadband, we end our addiction to oil and the endless wars that come with it, we meet our obligations to seniors, and we educate our children for the global workforce. Our budget does all this while eliminating the deficit and reducing debt burden. This is the America that lies within grasp, if we stop accepting the spin and start saving this country from itself.
Congresswoman Schakowsky and many Democrats are pushing bravely to raise taxes on the super rich and have presented a new bill to make the upper class pay their share:
(Credit: CBS) While Congress is primarily focused on cutting spending in the debate over reducing the federal budget deficit, some progressive lawmakers say it’s time to start collecting more revenues from the wealthiest Americans.
Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois unveiled a bill … to create new, higher tax brackets for Americans making more than $1 million a year.
“This isn’t about punishment or revenge. It’s about fairness,” Schakowsky said. “It’s about avoiding budget cuts that harm middle class families and those who aspire to it. We can choose to cut education, job creation and health care, or we can choose to ask those who can contribute more to do so.”
Currently, the top tax bracket begins at an income of $373,000 per year; income above that level is taxed at 35 percent. Schakowsky contends this fails to distinguish between the “well off” and the superrich, such as a group of hedge fund managers whose average income last year topped $1 billion.
Schakowsky’s bill, called the Fairness in Taxation Act, would tax income between $1 million and $10 million at a rate of 45 percent. Income between $10 and $20 million would be taxed at a rate of 46 percent, and income between $20 and $100 million would be taxed at 47 percent.
Income between $100 million and $1 billion would be taxed at a rate of 48 percent, and income over $1 billion would be taxed at 49 percent. For those making over $1 million a year, capital gains and dividends would also be taxed as income.
Schakowsky claims the bill could raise more than $78 billion for the government.
“A tax system where families earning several thousand dollars are taxed at the same rate as millionaires is unfair, and unsustainable,” Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said Wednesday. “At a time when House Republicans are demanding that working families, teachers, and firefighters bear the burden of reducing the deficit, millionaires should be required to contribute their fair share.”
The bill’s other co-sponsors include Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.); Bob Filner (D-Calif.); Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.); Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.); John Yarmuth (D-Ken.); and Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon)…
We must raise revenue and NOT slash billions from the budget. You cut those billions and those are jobs and help for the suffering. Period.
Senator Franken came out with his Pay for War Resolution. This legislation would require congress to pay for our wars upfront with taxes in combination with or without cuts. A novel idea: paying for war and not charging it on our credit card! Franken and Senate liberals are pushing it. And it has incredible support:
A diverse range of groups and individuals have already lent their support to the resolution. In a letter for endorsement from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Senior Fellow Lawrence J. Korb said the resolution would “help restore fiscal discipline to our defense budget process,” while the Cato Institute’s William A. Niskanen, Chairman Emeritus and Distinguished Senior Economist, and Benjamin Friedman, Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Studies, noted that “deficit financing sends war bills to future taxpayers,” the effect of which “is to make war feel cheaper” than it really is.
Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign policy and defense budget expert at the Brookings Institution, called the resolution “serious and smart,” while Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which endorsed the legislation, called it “a sensible approach to ensuring that we budget for war.” David M. Walker, Former Comptroller General of the United States, said “the Pay For War Resolution makes sense.” The Bipartisan Policy Center, which also endorsed the legislation, said “Congress and the president should adhere to the principles of pay-as-you-go throughout the budget—war funding should not be exempt.”
American University International Relations Professor Dr. Gordon Adams said, “This proposed resolution could help open an important discussion about how we can restore some of the fiscal discipline we lost over the defense budget.” And Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, “If we think that a situation requires the men and women in our military to risk their own lives, then the rest of us should at least be willing to pay for the cost of this adventure with our tax dollars.”
We so need a laugh these days and than the stars for this hot youtube video.
Congresswoman Biggert (R) abhors talking about jobs. The Progressive Caucus has a smart video out on the Right’s job plan:
LATE NIGHT UPDATE (11:24 pm): Reports that Hasan had died in the shooting were incorrect, with Hassan still alive and in stable condition. The AP is also reporting that over 6 months ago, Malik Nadal Hasan came under suspicion because of postings on the web:
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
The sinking feeling I’ve got, and I’m sure I’m not alone, is that there is a tremendous possibility of a backlash against American Muslims, because of the actions of one very sick man. Reports across the wires say he was very upset about deployment to Iraq, considering it “his worst nightmare.”
The LA Times, for those not familiar with base protocol on weapons:
Army officials said they did not know whether the handguns used in the assault were military-issued service weapons or personal weapons. The rules for carrying weapons on an Army post are standard throughout all bases, service officials said. The only personnel allowed to openly display weapons on the base are military police, Banks said. Service weapons are checked daily and are usually only allowed to be removed from an arms room for training on a range or maintenance. Personal weapons must be kept locked and registered with the base provost marshal. The military police keep a record of all of the weapons on a base, Army officials said.
Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base in a murderous rampage that officials believe was carried out by an Army officer. Gunman kills at least 7 and wounds 12 at Fort Hood. The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, told Fox News that military sources informed her that the gunman was about to be deployed to Iraq.
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
Already there is churning due to the soldier’s name who is the suspected gunman. Twitter abuzz on #tcot, but also with the trending topic of the major’s name. Everyone should take a very deep breath. It is, however, being reported by some military friends that Hasan was in the medical corp; with @CBSRadioNews reporting he’s a licensed psychiatrist.
Prayers go out to the extended Army family at Fort Hood.
UPDATE IV (7:43 pm):Finally, someone addressed the gun issue, because I’ve been wondering since this happened how “2 civilian handguns,” as it’s been described, could cause this carnage. Seriously, do the math. Rep. John Carter said that he’s now hearing that there might have also been a semi-automatic weapon involved.
UPDATE III: More info via an email from a friend: …Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s cousin on TV tonight, saying that he grew up in this country, was a Muslim, and since entering the military was “constantly harassed” for his Middle East heritage. Evidently, this pressure had him trying to get out of the military.
* UPDATE II: The headline above has been changed to 13 killed, as one of the 31 wounded has died. The earlier report that another wounded had died was mistaken by news sources and has been changed in the heading.
UPDATE: Reader Joyce just posted this “In the News”: “A local television station is saying that the shooter who was killed recently reported that “Allah” had been keyed onto his car. He reported it as a hate crime, and was, reportedly, very upset.”
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