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The age of self-interested enlightenment: why Rob Portman is no hero

By on March 15, 2013 in Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, Conservatives

Remember when Dick Cheney declared he had no issues with gay rights – but only because his own daughter is a lesbian?

Remember when Sarah Palin angrily declared that using the word “retard” is wrong,  but only because her own child has Down’s Syndrome - even as she constantly and bitterly complained about all other “politically correct” language?

Rob Portman

Portman: represents his son really well

Now comes Republican Senator Rob Portman, who as a result of his son coming out, has reversed course and is now in favor of same-sex marriage.

Why do so many conservatives only choose to do the right thing when it’s their own immediate family on the line? Wouldn’t it be nice if our elected officials’ empathy extended to the people they claim to represent, instead of only coming to the more enlightened conclusion because of discrimination experienced by their immediate family?

I won’t begrudge anybody in the opposition who joins ranks with progressives in our causes. But at the same time, it’s not exactly “courage” because your own relatives are getting picked on – especially when it’s our elected representatives’ job to ensure that nobody they represent gets picked on.

But apparently discrimination is fine and dandy with some elected officials, until the people being discriminated against are the ones who live in their house.

You want to see political courage? You’ll have to wait for a conservative to take an inconvenient policy path when it’s based only on their commitment to his constituents, instead of on behalf of members of his own immediate family.

If you want to see your government do great things on behalf of people ill-equipped to do so for themselves, it requires government’s ability to empathize with others’ situations. Because, after all, if the people getting picked on were the ones in power, they wouldn’t need the assist. Government doing the right thing requires that those running it maintain an ability to imagine the lives of those whom government serves, whether it comports with officials’ personal experiences or not. Their failure to empathize is one key reason governments continually expect people to live their lives in ways those people cannot possibly imagine, or for which they are ill-equipped.

Welcome, Senator Portman, to the side that wants everybody to have the opportunities you want your own son to have. It would be nice if you could convince some of your colleagues to join us as well, if only for the seemingly-trivial purpose of granting the the same rights and opportunities to people they don’t know. You know – their constituents. The ones who hired them. The ones who need them. The ones whose fathers don’t happen to be members of the United State Senate.

Now, if only a Republican member of Congress’ offspring would come out poor. Or come out sick without health insurance. Or come out under-educated. Or come out the victim of violent crime. Or come out laid off. Or come out elderly. Or come out foreclosed on. Maybe Congress would really accomplish some stuff then. Meanwhile, if the only rights political leaders are willing to protect are the rights of their own immediate family members, they should go home where they belong.

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Sh*t John Cornyn heard in a bar

By on March 6, 2013 in Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, Conservatives, John Cornyn, Republicans, U.S. Senate race

Pity poor John Cornyn, the so-called “senior” Senator from Texas.

Following Ted Cruz’ surprise victory in last year’s elections for Texas’ other US Senate seat, Cornyn has been brown-nosing Cruz and every other right-wing wacko he can find, prior to having to face Republican primary voters in his own re-election next year. He undoubtedly fears that he’ll be pasted with the dreaded “establishment Republican” label and lose to somebody far more wacky than him. That’s exactly what happened to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, the heavy favorite to win last year, until he got pasted with the “establishment Republican” label and lost to the far-wackier Cruz.

So as post-2012 election Republicans nation-wide take stock in their party and make course corrections, Texas’s own proud native son’s course correction? Go nuts. His specific objective is to be just slightly more nuts than Cruz – a difficult task, given that Cruz’s objective is to be just slightly more nuts than Joe McCarthy.

Cornyn’s latest effort on that front is to claim, via Twitter a couple of weeks ago, that a “friend” told him that 300 people per night are crossing the border on his property:

Screen Shot 2013-03-06 at 9.20.55 AM

Let’s do the math. 300 people per night would be 109,500 people per year. Oh hell, let’s give the immigrants Christmas and Easter off, and call it an even 108,900 folks. That’s more people than the total population of Round Rock, Wichita Falls, or Odessa. And they’ve all been sneaking in undetected by all, in one spot, except for Senator Cornyn’s “friend.”

The people who actually do this for a living say it’s ridiculous, and Cornyn steadfastly refuses to identify his “friend.” At this point, it might be a fair question to inquire as to whether Cornyn feels like he actually has a friend. One would hope he at least has a faithful dog.

This would all be pretty funny except that this ain’t some back-bencher Louie Gohmert nutcase deal: John Cornyn is the number two Republican leader in the United State Senate. This is what passes for the upper echelon of the national Republican leadership, folks.

Forget about how Texans should demand more out of their elected grown-ups – how ’bout if the National Republicans demand better from their own leadership? When it it going to occur to thinking Republicans – and there are plenty – that the people at the very top of their political food chain are acting like morons, and in turn are making non-tea party Republican-leaning voters nation-wide look like idiots for having supported them?

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, Senator. And here’s the truth:

– the number of people we are catching as they cross the border has decreased dramatically, a measure which even Republican agree means fewer are crossing in the first place

– the number of people we’re deporting is at an all-time high – a lot higher than under the Bush administration, or Clinton before Bush

– the percentage of border real estate under “operational control” has been dramatically increasing, not decreasing, by an average of about 126 miles per year since 2005

– the number of border patrol officers has more than doubled, from about 10,000 to 21,000, between 2004 and 2012. And those of us who hang out in the border region can see it – you can’t hardly swing a dead cat around there without slapping some hapless border patrol guy.

Senator Cornyn is fully capable of being part of solutions, and as the number two Republican in the Senate, one who think he would be. He should opt for that, instead of trying too hard to avoid getting picked last on the Republican schoolyard kickball team by repeating stories he hears in bars and continuing to be part of the hyper-partisan fear-mongering blather machine.

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State of the Union speech drinking game

By on February 12, 2013 in Biden, Conservatives, Obama

As a service to you, the crap-reading public, we here at Letters From Texas Worldwide H.Q. herein present this year’s State of the Union Speech Drinking Game.

When Obama mentions jobs, the economy, or manufacturing: 0.5 shot

drinking gameFor every camera cut-away to an undocumented immigrant in audience: 0.5 shot

For a glimpse of John McCain dozing off: 2 shots

For when you see Ted Nugent scowling: 1.5 shot

For when you see Ted Nugent drawing a weapon: 1 shot

For when you see Ted Nugent escorted out of the Gallery: 2 shots

In case you read a stupid tweet from Steve Stockman: 1 shot

In case  you see that a reporter retweets said stupid tweet from Steve Stockman: 1 shot

If protestor is forcibly removed from House Gallery (besides Ted Nugent): 2 shots

If you see Justice Scalia looking all “I hate me some Obama”: 1 shot

For every person with whom you’re watching who compliments Michelle Obama’s outfit: 1.5 shots

If Louie Gohmert hollers something crazy: 1 shot

When Obama mentions “Afghanistan” or “Korea”: 0.5 shot

For every 5 seconds on camera Sheila Jackson-Lee nabs: 0.5 shot

When the expression on Speaker Boehner’s face may indicate that he has acid reflux: 1 shot

When the expression on Speaker Boehner’s face may indicate that he’s had some work done: 1 shot

When the expression on Speaker Boehner’s face may indicate that he’s had some work done by a taxidermist: 1 shot

This has been your Letters From Texas State of the Union Speech Drinking Game. View responsibly.

Update: apparently, even Marco Rubio played the Letters From Texas State of the Union Drinking Game:

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 10.33.16 PM

 

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You know how conservatives always complain about people not saying the Pledge of Allegiance?

By on February 5, 2013 in Conservatives, Goofballs

Yeah, well, that’s before they saw this one coming.

 

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Attention Texas Republicans

By on January 16, 2013 in Conservatives, Republicans

Have a nice day.

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Voter I.D. laws: the untold story revealed

By on January 14, 2013 in Conservatives, Fun Stuff

File this one under “typos that make just as much sense.”

Texas State Representative Larry Gonzales was recently interviewed by a Republican website, and was asked about the photo voter ID issue this session. Part of his answer:

…we fundamentally believe that it’s about making sure that every vote legitimately counts and that your vote isn’t cancelled out by a flatulent vote.

You heard it here first. Farting voters are the real problem. Mr. Gonzales had no immediate reaction to the idea of scratch-and-sniff voter registration cards.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s the screen shot from the full transcript of the interview on the site, which, tragically, will be corrected as soon as they notice it:

Screen Shot 2013-01-14 at 4.01.24 PM

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So, the election didn’t go your way?

By on November 28, 2012 in Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, Conservatives

You have my deepest sympathies. As a Democrat in Texas, I have considerable experience knowing how you must feel.

However, after the reality of it sinks in, you just have to move on, in a grown-up way.

Examples of some really grown-up things you could do in order to help you with your grieving process might be to push for secession and move away from the U.S. or relocate to a bunker and stock up on guns and ammo and express hatred for Democrats (including divorcing your spouse if he or she is one), and quit your job if your boss supports Obama, and crap on your Obama-voting neighbor’s yard, and fire your Democratic clients, and boycott businesses accepting government assistance for families, and spit at people and call them communist pigs, and and just in general have a good ol’ time comparing people to Nazis.

Yeah, that’ll probably do the trick. I bet you feel better already.

 

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Paul Ryan: when Fox News says you’re lying…

By on August 30, 2012 in Conservatives, Paul Ryan

…you’re lying.

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I just KNEW there was a logical explanation for Todd Akin

By on August 22, 2012 in Conservatives, Goofballs, Tea Party

This explains everything.

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How to destroy your campaign in 30 seconds or less: violate the “dog whistle” code

By on August 20, 2012 in Conservatives, Tea Party, the war on women

Meet Todd Akin of Missouri, the Republican Senate nominee. He’s the guy other Republicans across the country were depending on to give Republicans the majority in the U.S. Senate. Until he said this:

The scariest part isn’t that Akin was making up his own science, although that’s scary enough. The scariest part isn’t that he inadvertently demonstrated the extent to which Tea Party Republicans have nothing but disdain for women, their health, and their fundamental rights, although that, too, is utterly terrifying.

The scariest part is that Akin did not in any way misunderstand the question. He understood the question perfectly, and he answered very sincerely and articulately, with an answer he clearly believes. He answered it with made-up facts that don’t exist, demonstrating a very sincerely-held attitude that shouldn’t exist, which lays bare an attitude about women which should not stand.

Republicans across the country spent the rest of the news cycle yesterday disavowing Akin (particularly difficult for Paul Ryan, who has — oopsie! —  praised him in the past). But they’re not disavowing Akin because he violated a fundamental value Republicans hold. It’s because he articulated one – but got caught doing it.

There’s a very good reason that “Republican dog whistle” is a political term of art. The term is used when Republican candidates say things specifically calculated to signal to Republican activists, in a way deniable to everybody else, that the candidate is with ‘em on issues that they can’t get caught admitting to in public. Akin’s unforgivable sin, in the minds of his fellow Republican leadership, is that he didn’t use the dog whistle – the command only the dogs can hear – to call the dogs. Instead, he shouted the command where everybody could hear it.

The war on women is alive and well in America, stoked by Tea Party fires. But it’s not just a war on women. If you listen closely, the dog whistles are everywhere. When Rick Perry toys around with “secession” talk without taking a particular position, and talks endlessly of “states rights,” it’s a dog whistle, intended to remind his voters that he shares their values, in the context of That Other Time when Southern governors openly discussed secession and states rights.

When Tea Party activists persist in their accusations that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya…or is really a secret Muslim, that’s a dog whistle, meant to signal to their fellow travelers that the President of the United States should be defined by his race, which you may have noticed is not White.

They have dog whistles for women. They have dog whistles for minorities. They have dog whistles for gays. They have dog whistles for the poor, and the elderly, and the undereducated. And all those dog whistles together are meant to create for their voters a clear picture that everybody who isn’t just like you is a threat, and they merit your fear, your anger, and your opposition.

Todd Akin went over the line – he laid it bare yesterday – and he will be punished for it by his fellow Republicans. Which fellow Republicans will punish him? Why, it’s the funders – a group that has its own dog whistle term-of-art: “the job creators.” They get their own especially-complimentary dog whistle, as well they should. They’ve been paying for the research and development of all the other dog whistles. And not by coincidence, their own special dog whistle creates for themselves the rare exception to the above rule: “no, we’re not like you, but we are not to be feared and loathed like the others – we are to be admired…we are your beloved benevolent dictators.”

And it is in this context that Republicans are currently accusing Democrats of dividing the country. The field of psychology calls this “projection,” a condition in which one projects one’s own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else.

Projection is why Republican candidates lodge complaints about Democrats’ “angry rhetoric.” Let that sink in: Republicans are complaining about Democrats’ angry rhetoric. The people who question the President’s very birth and his citizenship, question almost everybody’s patriotism, question war heroes’ combat records, and throw around the words “socialism” and “un-American” and “Godless” and who wage wars against the rights of women, minorities, and LGBT Americans, and who characterize as lies things which have been proven by science – THOSE are the people who are complaining that the Democrats are playing too rough.

Dog whistles indeed.

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Mitt Romney’s craptacular July leads to Ryan-tastic August

By on August 14, 2012 in Conservatives, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, YNN Capital Tonight

Let’s face it: whether you detest Mitt Romney or like Mitt Romney (or are pretending to), odds are that you agree with me that he had an absolutely craptacular July. Only on the fundraising front did he do well. He fared poorly on all other fronts, and it showed in the polling. Here’s what I said about it last week, the day before he picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate:

It is especially in that context why you might be able to imagine that Romney’s VP pick of “the Medicare-killing dude,” as he is known in Florida, would be seen as a gloriously Jesus-blessed wondrous game-changer by the lunatic fringe Romney still hadn’t closed the deal with. Ryan’s pick is clear indication that Mittens still hadn’t closed the deal with base voters, and was obviously desperate to do so prior to the Republican National Convention. That’s when the Republican base all gets in the same room, with way too many witnesses with cameras, to behave badly.

I listened to Maddow last night on satelite radio while driving through a vast expanse of West Texas wasteland yesterday, and I think she was quoting one of the writers on her blog when she got it just right: there are three kinds of Vice Presidential running mate picks: August picks, November picks, and January picks. The January picks are the Vice Presidents who can help you run the country once you’re elected, and are the best kind. The November picks are the ones who can help you win the election, and those are the most common kind. But the August picks are the ones who can only help you get through your miserable party National Convention with your ass still intact, and without excessive bite marks.

Paul Ryan is an August pick. In fact, Paul Ryan is an “August, and I’m sick of explaining why I’m not releasing my tax returns” pick.

But speaking of tax returns, Mr. Ryan undoubtedly had to turn in years worth of ‘em to the Romney campaign for vetting purposes. I wonder if the Romney campaign will release them. Awkward moment alert.

 

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Texas political leadership needs a Prozac prescription

By on August 1, 2012 in Conservatives, David Dewhurst, Elections, Rick Perry

Following yesterday’s primary run-off elections, it seems as good a time as any to review some of the reasons why your current state government might suck. Last night’s election results serve to amplify that suckage factor, and help focus in on why Texas is last or near-last in every people-oriented measure of importance.

To be blunt: your state government at the moment is really grumpy.

Here’s the run-down:

You have a Governor who made it very clear that he’d rather be in the White House than doing his current job. Yet, he’ll be expected to do it for another two years, for at least three reasons, one of which he usually can’t recall. Oops.

You have a Lt. Governor who made it very clear that he’d rather be in the U.S. Senate than doing his current job. Following his loss last night, he too will be expected to do a bit of Lt. Governing for another couple of years.

You have a state Attorney General who would rather be Governor, and a Comptroller, Agriculture Commissioner, and Land Commissioner who would each rather be Lt. Governor.

With the exception of House Speaker Joe Strauss, listed above is the entirety of the elected leadership of Texas government, and not one of them has much reason to be particularly focused on the job they were elected to do – they’re all focused on a job they don’t have, and in most cases, can’t get. They’re saying and doing the things they imagine might score them points for their future electoral goals, and if it’s not costing in the quality of their current jobs, that may just be coincidence or dumb luck. So far.

Meanwhile, you’re also stuck with a Texas Senate in which a third of the membership had conned themselves into believing that their colleagues might elevate them to the vacancy in the Lt. Governor’s office that now doesn’t exist, and a clear majority is clinically depressed this morning at the mere thought of another two years of Dewhurst occupying their principal’s office. And this dispirited bunch is supposed to be the serious deliberative body.

Thanks to one-Party rule and the war against the Republican Party waged by Republican tea party activists, they just had themselves a little primary election yesterday in which an incumbent who forces women to have invasive transvaginal sonograms against their will, and another incumbent who wanted to allow people to carry guns onto alcohol and hormone-infested college campuses, were turned out of office because they’re the liberal ones.

Republican legislators were challenged in high numbers from within their own political Party this year, and those who were still on a ballot last night probably lost, most resoundingly. How, in that atmosphere, are the surviving incumbent Republican legislators to be expected to make the tough decisions and take the tough votes that keep this state’s trains running on time, when their primary electorate is so utterly terrifying?

Whatever happened to state leadership which is focused on the jobs they were hired to do? Whatever happened to public officials who went about their daily jobs, without being terrified of the lunatic fringe primary election voters who have already deducted two strikes against any candidate who won the previous election, assuming that incumbency is a disease worthy of eradication?

Whatever happened to just doing your job?

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The Republican National Convention.

By on July 30, 2012 in Conservatives, Goofballs

If ever there was a family-oriented event, this is it.

 

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Where’s the bold business leadership in Texas?

By on July 17, 2012 in Conservatives, Rick Perry, Tea Party

Whatever happened to bold business leadership?

Here’s what the politically active folks in Texas business believe:

They believe that Texas is a Republican state. Fair enough.

They believe that their business interests are best served when they involve themselves in the political process, usually in a big way. Undeniably true.

They believe that if they hitched their wagons to Republican candidates, those candidates would have a better chance of winning elections, and as a result, those business people have a better opportunity to be heard in policy-making, since the candidates they support tend to win. So far, so good.

They believe that the stick works as well as the carrot: that when an officeholder fails to heed their advice on what is best for business, they can pour money into the campaign of their opponent, and the course can be corrected. Yup…standard operating procedure for a decade or more.

All fair enough, so far; it’s a system. And if you’re a politically active business person in Texas, you probably think it’s worked pretty well for you more times than not.

Except, oops. What are they going to do when Ted Cruz’s of the world defeat the David Dewhursts? How will they react when they wake up in early August and find out that everybody knows the emperor has no clothes?

How much clout do they believe they’ll have next January, when they walk into the Capitol building and begin talking with all those new members of the Texas legislature, who all got there because they defeated their business-backed Republican opponents in this year’s Republican primary elections? And how much respect will those new legislators have for business interests, knowing that despite all the money that Texas business poured into so many legislative campaigns, their candidates were easily defeated by the Tea Party inmates who took over the asylum?

So much has been written about the inability of Texas Democrats to be more effective in elections, and not without merit. But hardly anything has been written about the extent to which Texas business interests are losing their grip on the political party it birthed, nursed, educated, and raised as their own.

Elections don’t exist for the sake of political parties, nor do they exist for the sake of business’ ability to do business. They exist for the more well-rounded purpose of representing people. For too long, Texas businesses which have chosen to organize and participate in politics have ignored every aspect of the political process, except for the Republican primary process. They’ve assumed that what’s good for people is bad for their tax rate. They’ve paid little attention to long-term planning for success, too obsessed with the next fiscal quarterly report to the SEC. They’ve ignored their own business strategy of diversification, and have failed to diversify in the political process, instead betting it all on one team. And the likelihood that their interests are increasingly being pummeled by the ideologues elected on that team should be of grave concern to them.

Ideology aside, as the heart of things, what is good for business can be very good for people. It’s just common sense that the best economic development program for any family is a job. It has always been true that a trained and educated workforce is good for the economy. It is undeniable that a strong middle class is one which has plenty of cash to spend in the marketplace. It is common sense that an unhealthy workforce is an unproductive workforce.

So how did it come to pass that Texas business remains solidly behind the people who have devastated education funding, denied Texans affordable health care, and failed to fund a state infrastructure, both human and physical, which would best support its needs? How is it possible that Texas business continues to cower in fear at a governor who, purely for political and ideological reasons, stands in the way of literally billions and billions of health care dollars flowing into the state, to be spent and re-spent in the economy, and to make the state’s workforce significantly healthier?

If I were a 900 pound gorilla in the business community, I would quietly call a private summit of my peers. Once gathered, I would announce that anybody who arrived with their ideological baggage on their sleeve can immediately leave, with no hard feelings. And then I’d spend the rest of the weekend among the grown-ups, discussing how it could possibly be, when we’ve funded the lion’s share of political spending by those who have won most of the elections around here, that the things of highest priority to us are deemed unimportant by those in the political party that we built in the first place. We would discuss the fact that the things that best build an indestructible powerhouse economic future have somehow been thrown in the back seat with last week’s empty fast food wrappers, while we, along with the rest of Texans, are inflicted with never-ending babble about distractions having little or nothing to do with building a state or a country, and more to do with last Sunday’s church sermon.

And after that business summit, perhaps those titans of business would remember how to lead, instead of gamely following behind the ideologues who can’t even get a fact straight, much less lead a state with one of the largest economies on the planet.

Like I said, whatever happened to bold business leadership around here?

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Well I’m glad THAT ridiculousness is over!

By on July 14, 2012 in Conservatives, Obama

Remember back before Obama released his long-form birth certificate, and 15 percent of Americans didn’t believe he was born in the United States?

Yeah. Well now it’s 20 percent.

Rock on, brainiacs.

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