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Too Strange for Sisterdale PDF Print E-mail
by Scott Bennett    Fri, Feb 10, 2006, 07:42 PM

Too Strange for Sisterdale. That was the name of an eclectic Hill Country music group some years back that took its title from the tiny Kendall County community tucked in Sister Creek Valley. To give you some perspective, Sisterdale lies about one beer south of Luckenbach and an equal distance east of Comfort, depending on your thirst.

The band’s name always kept me guessing. Which Sisterdale were they too strange for? Too strange for the utopian Sisterdale that was founded in the mid-1800’s by music-and-literature-loving, Latin-speaking German freethinkers who held steadfast to their anti-slavery, pro-Union views even during the Civil War, and counted among their fellow colonists a brother-in-law of Karl Marx? Or too strange for the peaceful, conservative farming community Sisterdale later became, with its cotton gin and general store, and which it pretty much remains today? My view was that these country-jazz-blues musicians meant they were too strange for whichever Sisterdale you lived in—liberal or conservative, eccentric or conventional, right-wing or left. In one way or another we all live in Sisterdale, and in the end, there is nothing too strange for Sisterdale. So I thought.

I know now why the name has stuck in my head for these past weeks like a repetitious verse from a skipping record. It’s the Bush Administration and its fellow travelers in Congress who are Too Strange for Sisterdale.

Given the opportunity to make headway against the Republican influence-vending scandal plaguing our country, GOP leaders instead voted to stay the course, electing Ohio Rep. John Boehner—Tom DeLay lite—as House Majority Leader to replace the indicted Texas Congressman who is known as a close friend of former lobbyist, now-felon, Jack Abramoff. Boehner wasted less than 24 hours in the job before he jettisoned an ethics and lobbying reform package touted by Speaker Dennis Hastert just the day before. It was simply too restrictive, Boehner said, and Hastert dutifully concurred. Wrestling is in Hastert’s past, and such conversions now come easily to him. After all, it was Hastert who changed the House Ethics Committee rules to protect DeLay when the The Hammer’s troubles began boiling out of the pot.

But it gets better—or worse—for those of us who live in this Sisterdale-of-a-nation. Not content to put its elephant foot in the gut of America just once, the Republican “leadership” then awarded DeLay a spot on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Fittingly, DeLay takes the seat of Duke Cunningham (R-CA), who resigned from the House as a result of his bribery indictment and conviction. GOP leaders also put DeLay on the subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department—the department looking into Abramoff’s dealings with lawmakers, including DeLay. There’s nothing like taking reform seriously.

Then there’s the spectacle of Alberto Gonzales, our Attorney General who heads that Justice Department, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain why the President, who is sworn to defend the Constitution, has been engaging in illegal wiretapping. The only defenses I heard were that “the President is not a lawyer,” and, besides, the law means what the President says it means. Apparently the President can’t get good legal help these days. The tone of disregard for law was set at the outset of the hearings when Sen. Arlen Specter, the committee’s chair, mindlessly refused to place Gonzales under oath and was supported in that effort by his Republican colleagues. The last thing we expect of anyone on “our side” is to swear to tell the truth. There’s just too much potential “responsibility” there.

All these events and others swirled against the backdrop of a State of the Union Speech that will go down as one of the worst in history when its strong words are measured against today’s dark and fractured reality. The President said we must rid our addiction to oil by cutting foreign dependence by 75 percent. Yet, not a day passed before we were told that this was merely metaphorical. He didn’t really mean it, our Energy Secretary said, and the Vice-President hurriedly backed up the secretary. Saudi Arabia and a host of other countries, where our energy dollars finance the terrorism we fight, were reassured.

Meaningless and contradictory words and actions are no surprise from a President who last year told the public that a government wiretap requires a court order. It was most assuredly figurative, too, when the President promised to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Katrina—a name never mentioned during his January address to the nation. Or the repeated promise to be the “Education President,” while submitting a budget that effectively cuts college funding for children of the middle class and below. Or supporting our troops by seeking a 13 percent reduction in veterans’ health benefits over the next five years. Or in describing himself as a fiscal conservative, while in real life having never met a spending bill worthy of a veto, and amassing deficits that will smother our children’s economic future. For the GOP, it’s say one thing, do another.

Now comes word from Scooter Libby, Vice-President Cheney’s former right-hand man now under indictment, that his then-superiors (who along with the Justice Department are on a current hunt to find the leaker of the illegal wiretap story) authorized him to disclose classified information to journalists in 2003 for the political purpose of defending an ill-conceived war. CIA Director Porter Goss must have gone apoplectic when that news broke, having already penned an op-ed PR piece that appears in today’s New York Times. People who disclose classified information, said Goss, “are not noble, honorable or patriotic. . . . Instead they are committing a criminal act that potentially places American lives at risk.” Spin that one, Mr. McClellan.

Some have described these last few political years as Kafkaesque, as ones marked by surreal distortion and a sense of foreboding. For me, I expect Rod Serling to step into view at any moment with a parable that will explain all this, as the bizarre dimension of the Twilight Zone fades to black on the screen.

However one describes this Republican bait-and-switch—this fog-and-sunshine, night-and-day, oil-and-water, yes-and-no all at the same time—one thing is coming into focus: It’s much too strange for Sisterdale.

 

 
GUEST VIEWPOINT: Attorney General’s Voter Suppression By Ed Ishmael PDF Print E-mail
by Scott Bennett    Thu, Feb 9, 2006, 06:32 PM

226177-268428-thumbnail.jpg
Ed Ishmael
Like most Republican leaders these days, Texas Attorney General, Gregg Abbott, seems scared. He sees the writing on the wall in large urban counties and knows there is little he or any Republican can do to keep those counties from turning Blue. What with Republican corruption, a do-nothing Governor and a Republican controlled legislature that cannot even fund our schools, the only thing the Republicans have left may well be the one thing Abbott is advocating: voter suppression.

In his recent opinion piece, Voter Fraud Must Stop, www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/13819472.htm, Abbott, takes a well-worn page from the Republican’s play book and twists himself in knots setting up a straw man, voter fraud, which he then attacks. He claims we have an epidemic on our hands but, predictably, offers no evidence supporting his wild assertion. His attempt would be laughable, if it did not involve the denial of voting rights to hard working, concerned Texans and if it wasn’t costing you and me $1.5 million dollars.

If you were surprised by Mr. Abbott’s epidemic alarm, you’re not alone. Even noted experts on Texas politics, in general, and on Texas voting, in particular, have no idea what he’s talking about. You see, you haven’t heard about this so-called epidemic before because it does not exist.

If you want to understand the smoke and mirrors trick Abbott is performing you must look no further than his own words. He starts his presentation by listing instances he claims prove voter fraud in Texas .

And what is the first example he references? One - from1948. That alone should tell you how weak his coming argument will be.

He then tries to bolster his case for this massive voter suppression effort by referencing voter fraud instances “the attorney general's office has been involved in.” But what exactly does that mean? Involved how and to what extent?

And if you add up all of the suspects Abbott references in his article as being somehow involved in election fraud in Texas , it comes to 16. In the last state-wide election in Texas 4 million Texans voted. In the last National election, 7 million Texans voted. No matter how you look at this, 16 people out of millions does not an epidemic make.

But that’s not the worst of it. If you wade through Abbott’s carefully parsed words, you see that only three of these suspects have actually been found guilty (all three of them pleaded guilty) and the rest have either been merely accused or only recently indicted so they haven’t even yet gone to trial. So now we are down to three people that Abbott can point to as being guilty of election fraud. Three! How is that an epidemic?

And in another sentence, Abbott states that the counties targeted for this suppression effort, include “14 where my office has previously investigated or prosecuted allegations of election code violations.” So, yet again, in all of Texas ’ 254 counties we’re talking about only 14 counties, and even then, according to Abbott’s own words, we’re only talking about “allegations,” not proven acts, that the AG has “investigated or prosecuted.” And these weren’t even necessarily election fraud cases, but “election code violations.” First, anyone can allege anything against anyone else at any time and it doesn’t mean a crime was committed. And second, have you seen how thick the election code is? The violations cover everything from wearing the wrong T-shirt at the polling place to Tom DeLay’s alleged money laundering schemes. And we already know that in total only three people out of Abbot’s examples have been convicted of election fraud.

So now you understand why Abbott’s claim surprised you—because it was hog wash. You were unaware of this epidemic for one simple reason, there isn’t one. This isn’t about protecting vote integrity. This is about scaring people away from the polls. As a good GOP foot soldier, Abbott is doing his part to insure that some Democratic voters are intimidated into not voting. It’s appalling and a gross breach of his duties as Attorney General.

The mere insinuation of criminal prosecution for simply showing up at the polls is enough to keep some people from voting, not because they are guilty of anything, but because they do not trust uniformed officers or state authority in general. Many aren’t even familiar with the voting process. Just showing up at the polls is a frightening, nerve wracking experience. Add to that a campaign by state officials warning them they could be arrested for voting and you have a recipe for wide-spread voter intimidation. Abbott knows this and the Republicans are counting on this.

His Special Investigations Unit, or SIU, is going to spend $1.5 million dollars preventing Texans from voting at the very time we are in a school financing meltdown. How many school books can you buy with $1.5 million dollars? And if the money has to be spent on criminal investigations, shouldn’t the SIU spend it investigating real criminal epidemics, like the wide-spread and growing cancer of Republican corruption in this state?

Abbott is appropriating State resources for purely partisan political purposes. He is turning the SIU into the Special Intimidation Unit in an attempt to keep honest, hard working Texans from exercising their Constitutional rights to vote. He should be ashamed. And we shouldn’t let him get away with it.

Ed Ishmael is a Dallas Lawyer and President/Co-Founder of the Texas Values in Action Coalition www.TEXVAC.org State PAC established to help elect Democrats in North Texas . He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 
TREND IN CORPORATE EARNINGS ESTIMATES DOWN IN 2006 by Carl Pelligrini PDF Print E-mail
by Special to DallasBlog.com    Thu, Feb 9, 2006, 04:07 PM

The accompanying graph (see below) illustrates the trend in 2006 earnings estimates since July of last year. Estimates for the S&P 500 as a whole rose through November and then started to decline. But excluding Energy, estimates that had remained stable through last summer began to weaken in the fall and have started to decline at a faster rate more recently.

Trend in 2006 Estimates.bmp

Historically, trends in estimates revisions tend to persist for some time. That is, they don’t haphazardly move up/down from month to month, so the downward trend, now established, could well continue. After two years of being behind the ball on the strength of corporate earnings, Wall Street analysts might now be too optimistic at a time when earnings growth is quite naturally slowing in this, the fifth year of a profit recovery.

 

However, the fact that Wall Street gets its numbers wrong need not spell doom for the market. Even if negative estimates revisions were to continue apace, S&P 500 earnings would likely end the year up around 6%. That’s not as high as the 11.4% suggested by current consensus estimates, but still in-line with the post-WWII average of 6.2%.

 
POLITICIZING EULOGIES by Sandy McDonough PDF Print E-mail
by Special to DallasBlog.com    Thu, Feb 9, 2006, 03:55 PM

Thousands, including President Bush and several former presidents, had gathered in a large church outside Atlanta Tuesday to ostensibly pay their respects for the life of Coretta Scott King. However, former President Carter and the Rev. Joseph Lowery took this solemn occasion celebrating the life of Mrs. King to deliver a political broadside against President Bush who was sitting nearby. Exploiting this service in a house of worship to score a few petty political points is shameless and reveals the bitter rancor that exists today in politics.

 
TEXAS GOP IN DEBT AS CAMPAIGN SEASON BEGINS by Tom Pauken PDF Print E-mail
by Tom Pauken    Tue, Feb 7, 2006, 04:54 PM

The Dallas Morning News has a front page story by Christy Hoppe on a matter we wrote about on DallasBlog a few weeks ago – the financial woes of the Texas Republican Party.

Nate Crain, the former Chairman of the Dallas County GOP first brought the issue to our attention with an email expressing concern about the poor financial condition of the State Party. The News story confirms Crain’s concerns by pointing out that, while the State GOP had cash on hand of nearly $130,000, it has debts amounting to $277,000, leaving a negative balance of nearly $150,000.

Legal fees have been costly for the Texas Republican Party as it was forced to sign an agreement with the County Attorney in Travis County acknowledging that it had improperly spent corporate contributions. Now, it faces more legal problems (as DallasBlog reported Sunday (link here)) since the Democratic District Attorney of Travis County, Ronnie Earle, has subpoenaed the bank records of the Party from August 2002 to January 2003.

Even more troubling than the poor financial condition of the state GOP are the absence of any communications presence in Austin and the failure to maintain a strong grassroots network throughout the state. When Fred Meyer was State Chairman, Karen Hughes was the capable spokeswoman for the Party. When I was Party Chairman, I had a very able communications director in the late Lester Van Pelt. We were very active in communicating our message a regular basis to the media and to our grassroots activists.

The current state party doesn’t have a communications director in Austin, instead relying on a part-time person with a private PR firm who works out of Houston. The Party also is neglecting its organizational side. When I was Party Chairman, Dallasite Mary Ann Collins was our state organizational director; and she did a magnificent job in building a very effective grassroots network. She even managed to get GOP chairmen in all 254 counties in Texas which was quite an accomplishment back in the mid-90s. Our Executive Director, Barbara Jackson, also had come up through the grassroots of the Party and was very responsive to the needs and concerns of Republican activists. Barbara and Mary Ann made for a great team in laying the groundwork organizationally for the Republican Party to become the majority party in Texas. There is no comparable effort at the Party these days. One of these days, Texas Republicans are going to pay a price for that neglect.

The best thing going for Texas Republicans these days is that Texas Democrats don’t have their act together either.

To read the complete Dallas Morning News story by Christy Hoppe, link here. (Registration required.)

 
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