On the horns of a pair of dilemmas — one being a progressive in Texas, the other associated with the president and the attorney general’s playing of the race card — PDiddie at Brains and Eggs finds himself a little uncomfortable.
And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.
BOR pens an ode, in word and Twitpic, to the massive and successful Wendy Davis/BGTX door-knocking campaign last weekend.
Lone Star Q celebrates the four Texans on the Out Magazine Power 50 list.
The Texas Green Report celebrates the latest win in court by the EPA over industrial polluters and the Attorneys General that abet them.
The Texican reminds us that live animals do not make good gifts.
RH Reality Check reports that the state lawsuit against the prohibition of funds for the Women’s Health Program going to Planned Parenthood was allowed to proceed by the Third Court of Appeals.
PPP’s newest Texas poll finds Republicans leading by double digits in all of the state’s major races for 2014.
In the Governor’s race Greg Abbott’s at 51% to 37% for Wendy Davis. Those numbers are largely unchanged from our last poll of the state in early November when Abbott had a 50/35 advantage. Davis had a 39/29 favorability rating right after her famous filibuster last June, but since then voters in the state have mostly moved toward having negative opinions about her and now she’s at a 33/47 spread. Davis’ name recognition is actually 12 points higher than Abbott’s, but his reviews break down favorably with 40% having a positive view of him to 27% with a negative one.
In the cross tabs, one can see that Sen. Davis is handily winning liberals and moderates. However, the state’s conservative base is holding as a solid bloc. A bigger problem is that Democratic voters are not familiar with our candidates and are unsure who they will be supporting, while the Republicans already know they like other Republicans, dislike the Democrats, and will vote for the Republicans. No party has an advantage with Independents, who are also the most undecided.
I’ll dive into what are the positive and negative takeaways of this poll, show what can be done for Texas Democrats to improve on because of this data, and provide the full polling memo after the jump.
With this electoral model, Sen. Davis may perform just as well as President Obama or Houston Mayor Bill White did in previous years once the undecideds decide who they are supporting.
This is why Battleground Texas and a reinvigorated Democratic Party is so important to Texas.
The way I would put it is that if the electorate looks like the one this poll is predicting in November Davis and most Democrats won’t have much chance of winning. The good news is that isn’t, or better not be, news to anyone who’s running for office, or running a campaign. Also if Davis and the Democrats win in November the polling may never reflect it until the very end.
What Democrats can’t do is get discouraged by polling. Even if Davis wins in November it’s going to take multiple election cycles before Democrats have enough power to truly change things for the better in Texas. Democrats in Texas can’t keep fighting one election at a time and go home in between. We must have a sustained effort, year after year, and continue throughout putting pressure on politicians. Because, as we know too well, if Democrats don’t someone else will.
This clip of former President Bill Clinton on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week sums up what needs to be done pretty damn well.
“Big Dog” always makes me feel better. The poll was a bummer, now get to work.
We have an enormous political problem when it comes to health care in Texas. As referenced below spite is playing a huge roll in keeping Texans uninsured. As this article show more and more continue to realize what a huge mistake it is not to expand Medicaid in Texas.
But Texas being Texas, and Dallas being Dallas, Murray’s guest column made clear how the Citizens Council sees the controversial Medicaid expansion. And that’s as good for bidness.
“An expansion of Medicaid is beneficial for business and a positive for our state’s future,” the column concluded. “We are hopeful other business groups will join us in a united front to tackle this issue.”
Hey, whatever works. I might have started with the humane and moral arguments first.
But if good-for-business gets the job done, so be it.
I talked to Murray last week about reaction to the column. “There has been a lot, which is what we hoped for,” she said. “We really want to spark a discussion about this.”
So was it a controversial topic within the ranks of the Citizens Council? “A little bit,” she said with a laugh that suggested more than a little bit.
But she said the issue was thoroughly studied and debated. Some members were specifically assigned to mount as strong a case against Medicaid expansion as possible.
In the end, it was an easy decision.
“It was a large majority that was in favor of the position we took,” she said.
And if it was mostly a business decision at the start, some of the mail Murray has been receiving certainly puts flesh and blood to the issue.
“I received one impassioned letter from a married mother of two. Without Medicaid expansion, she has no way to get insured. And now she has progressive multiple sclerosis. Oh, it’s such a sad story,” she said.
[...]
Poorer families were supposed to be covered by this expansion of Medicaid. But when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out of the expansion, of course Texas did.
In Gov. Rick Perry’s Texas, it’s more important to try to make Obamacare fail than to extend health care coverage to an extra 1.5 million Texans through Medicaid.
So now we have this gap. The poorest of the poor qualify for health care assistance.
And those above the poverty level can get insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. But those earning just enough money to be at the poverty level are left out in the cold — people like the woman with MS who wrote to Murray.
Yes, there is a compelling case to be made for expanding Medicaid simply as the humane thing to do.
But if dollars make more sense to you, then the Dallas Citizens Council wants you to think about the difference that an extra $10 billion to $15 billion in federal funds could make for the state.
That’s the amount we will be giving up if the Texas Legislature doesn’t expand Medicaid for 2016 and 2017. Texas has already given up nearly $8 billion by rejecting Medicaid expansion for this year and next year.
Waco economist Ray Perryman has said “it is beyond question” that Texas should participate. And now the Dallas Citizens Council says so, too.
That’s all valid and very serious. But notice there is very little if any, as is the case with all of these types of pro-business Medicaid expansion articles, calling out of GOP politicians to do this. Or the realization that a significant number of the current crop of Texas GOP elected officials may have to be removed from office before this will change.
When the Texas Senate is likely to get more right wing, and this is the strategy of their “go-to” Senator on health care, Justifying Cruelty, the current policy isn’t likely to change. The only way around this is to elect people in Texas who will vote to expand Medicaid. And, generally speaking, that means electing more Democrats. Is the “Dallas Citizens Council” ready to start helping elect Democrats? Not likely.
Libby Shaw at <a=href”http://texaskaos.net/”>Texas Kaos is perplexed over Greg Abbott’s disappearing acts. Is he hiding from his white nationalist educational adviser who believes women and minorities are intellectually inferior to men like him? Or is he hiding because he wants standardized testing for four year old children? Where is Greg Abbott?
Horwitz at Texpatriate looks at the most recent head count on Houston’s proposed non-discrimination ordinance, and asks “who’s lying” on the issue.
Texas Leftist is glad to see the community organize to strengthen Houston’s planned Non-Discrimination Ordinance. But for all the work being done, does it even matter if the Mayor refuses to budge?
The Texas Renewal Project, a conclave of evangelical pastors, met in Austin last week and decided that the fires of Hell are just about to consume us all because of gay marriage and non-discrimination ordinances and things like that. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs says that if God is really that homophobic, then he’ll take a pass, thanks.
WCNews at Eye on Williamson on Perry’s latest corporate scheme. It may not be illegal, but what’s going on here is is inherently incompatible with democracy. It just seems wrong that the governor of Texas is allowed to gallivant around the world to do the bidding for corporations. While he continues to deny health care to those who need it.
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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.
Lone Star Ma reminds us that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.
The Lunch Tray laments the trend of giving students junk food “treat bags” during standardized testing periods.
Lone Star Q updates us on failed former Senate candidate and sportscaster Craig James.
Texas Watch lauds the tort system for its power to hold corporations accountable.
Beer, TX notes that the big beer distributors will be standing fast against any further attempts to level the playing field for craft brewers.
The Rivard Report documents efforts to make San Antonio’s Fiesta parade more sustainable.
Offcite notes Houston’s first Sunday street closing in the Heights to encourage pedestrian traffic was born in the rain, which did not seem to discourage participation much.
Grits wonders who is advising Rick Perry on the issue of prison rape.
The news regarding the ACA, aka Obamacare, has been really good lately. But as Paul Krugman points out it could be better, if it wasn’t for a few bad “red state” apples, Health Care Nightmares.
At the state level, however, Republican governors and legislators are still in a position to block the act’s expansion of Medicaid, denying health care to millions of vulnerable Americans. And they have seized that opportunity with gusto: Most Republican-controlled states, totaling half the nation, have rejected Medicaid expansion. And it shows. The number of uninsured Americans is dropping much faster in states accepting Medicaid expansion than in states rejecting it.
What’s amazing about this wave of rejection is that it appears to be motivated by pure spite. The federal government is prepared to pay for Medicaid expansion, so it would cost the states nothing, and would, in fact, provide an inflow of dollars. The health economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the principal architects of health reform — and normally a very mild-mannered guy — recently summed it up: The Medicaid-rejection states “are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.” Indeed.
But nobody expects to see a lot of prominent Republicans declaring that rejecting Medicaid expansion is wrong, that caring for Americans in need is more important than scoring political points against the Obama administration. As I said, there’s an extraordinary ugliness of spirit abroad in today’s America, which health reform has brought out into the open.
And that revelation, not reform itself — which is going pretty well — is the real Obamacare nightmare.
A medical clinic in Mena, Ark. announced that it would be closing, citing a large drop in need for the clinic as people have signed up for health insurance under Obamacare.
“Because people are qualifying for insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, our free medical clinic will not be needed anymore,” Stacey Bowser, the director of the 9th Street Ministries Clinic, told the Mena Star.
What could have been in Texas, is all I can think.
Out GOP Congressman John Carter voted for the Ryan budget which takes dead aim health care (Medicaid, Medicare, The ACA), education, and support for the poor, while giving another tax cut to the rich.
The 219-205 vote on the budget outline takes a mostly symbolic swipe at the government’s chronic deficits. Follow-up legislation to actually implement the cuts isn’t in the offing. Twelve Republicans opposed the measure, and not a single Democrat supported it.
The measure passed after a three-day debate that again exposed the hugely varying visions of the rival parties for the nation’s fiscal future. Republicans promised a balanced budget by 2024 but would do so at the expense of poor people and seniors on Medicaid, lower-income workers receiving “Obamacare” subsidies, and people receiving food stamps and Pell Grants.
Democrats countered with a plan that would leave Obama’s health care plan and rapidly growing health programs like Medicare intact, relying on $1.5 trillion in tax hikes over the coming decade to bring deficits down to sustainable but still-large levels in the $600 billion range.
The GOP plan, by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would cut more than $5 trillion over the coming decade to reach balance by 2024, relying on sharp cuts to domestic programs, but leaving Social Security untouched and shifting more money to the Pentagon and health care for veterans. It reprises a controversial plan to shift future retirees away from traditional Medicare and toward a subsidy-based health insurance option on the open market.
While staking out a hard line for the future, follow-up legislation is likely to be limited this year to a round of annual spending bills that will adhere to a bipartisan budget pact enacted in December.
But the Ryan plan does paint a picture of what Republicans would attempt if they claim the Senate this fall and the White House in 2016. Its cuts to entrenched benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid, however, would be difficult to pass even if Republicans gained control of both the House and Senate in this fall’s elections.
“It’s totally out of touch with the priorities and values of the country,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “This is a clear road map of what Republicans in Congress would do if they had the power to do it.”
[...]
Ryan’s plan revives a now-familiar list of spending cuts to promise balance, including $2.1 trillion over 10 years in health care subsidies and coverage under the Affordable Care Act; $732 billion in cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs; and almost $1 trillion in cuts to other benefit programs like food stamps, Pell Grants and farm subsidies.
The measure also promises deep, probably unrealistic cuts to domestic programs like education, health research and grants to local governments that are funded each year through annual appropriations bills. [Emphasis added]
The move underscored the different universes the two parties occupy as election season heats up. Democrats see the budget, which passed on Thursday in a 219-to-205 vote, as a political millstone, with brutal cuts to popular government programs, sweeping and controversial changes to Medicare, and tax cuts for the rich. Republicans consider it a modest step.
[...]
The budget — the fourth presented by Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee — is nonbinding and will go nowhere in the Senate.
But Republicans will try to use the vote to prove their tough-minded fiscal credentials. And Democrats will seek to tar their opponents by spotlighting the budget’s deep cuts to education, food stamps and transportation programs, its proposed transformation of Medicare, and the tax rate cuts for the rich.
The budget bill tally demonstrated the Democrats’ certainty that the Ryan budget will badly hurt its supporters — no Democrats voted for it. [Emphasis added]
Make no mistake, despite all the articles stating that this has no chance of passing, this is the GOP agenda. And if they pick up seats this November they will set out to make this a reality. As evidenced by Carter’s Orwellian press release after his rubber stamp of the Ryan Budget.
During our economy’s best decades, Congress invested in the American workforce and every family was better off for it. But recent years have been dominated by growing inequality and a Republican majority in Congress obsessed with slashing the budget, making it harder for working Americans to find decent jobs and save for the future. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Better Off Budget reverses the damage budget austerity has inflicted on hard-working families and restores our economy to its full potential by creating 8.8 million jobs by 2017.
The Better Off Budget reverses harmful cuts that have hit working families the hardest—starting with repealing across-the-board budget cuts known as the “sequester.” It creates a fairer tax code so that low and middle-income families no longer pay more than they should while the world’s biggest corporations benefit from unnecessary loopholes. Our budget reverses harmful pay freezes, expands benefits for federal retirees and strengthens federal health care and retirement programs Americans rely on.
When the federal budget invests resources wisely, we can meet the needs of working families and shrink the deficit. The Better Off Budget not only creates jobs, it reduces the deficit by $4.08 trillion over the next 10 years. It’s the right budget for the country, for working families and for our future.
That shows a clear difference between Democrats and the GOP. I certainly hope that Democrat Louie Minor, who is running against Carter, will support the Better Off Budget.
Elizabeth Warren getting even more hype for a Presidential run
by David Atkins
Elizabeth Warren is getting a lot of attention around the left-leaning media for her recent barn-burning speech at a recent fundraiser in Minnesota. Watch:
As we’ve written before, Warren has the national profile, the liberal icon status and the demonstrated fundraising capacity — $40 million for a Senate race ain’t too shabby — that would, theoretically give her a chance to run as the liberal/non-establishment alternative to Clinton. Now, we don’t think she’s running. And, even if she did Clinton would be tough to beat.
…
Now fast forward to Iowa in the fall of 2015. And imagine Warren telling a crowd packed with Democratic activists this: "I’m fighting to level that playing field. I’m fighting to build real oppoortunity, fighting to give every child a chance to build something extraordinary. And I want you to fight alongside me. We are in this together." Or condemning the "big banks [who] looted the economy." Or slamming Ted Cruz, who could well be in Iowa at the same time, as someone who if he was "around for the Declaration of Independence, he would have tried to repeal it because Jefferson was a Democrat." It’s a powerful riff — particularly in a place like Iowa where the average voter is likely more liberal than Clinton. And it’s one that Hillary Clinton due to the very Hillary Clinton-ness that she represents wouldn’t (and couldn’t) give. Again, Elizabeth Warren is almost certainly not running for president in 2016. But if she did, she might be able to make it one hell of a race.
According to a survey out this week showing Quinnipiac University’s National Thermometer rankings, voters have cooled on New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie in the wake of allegations that staffers closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge, seemingly for political retribution, and withheld relief aid following Hurricane Sandy. Christie’s administration has denied the Sandy allegations.
Christie scored a 45.2 degree mean temperature in this week’s poll, down from 55.5 degrees at the beginning of the year – a difference that dropped him from the “hottest” politician in the nation all the way down to ninth place.
But Christie’s loss is Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s gain – the progressive rising star has secured the top slot in voters’ minds. With a 48.6 degree score, Warren is now the hottest political leader in the game.
Despite her popularity, however, it seems many people still don’t know that much about her. Forty-six percent of American voters said they lacked enough information to form an opinion of the Massachusetts senator, according to the poll.
Nipping at Warren’s heels is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who came in at 47.8 degrees with only 1% saying they didn’t know enough about her. Though Clinton still swears she’s not after the presidency, she’s sure talking like a potential 2016 candidate.
Warren’s unknowns remain her greatest drawback in any potential run for President. Clinton’s best argument is that she remains very popular, and there’s nothing the GOP can throw at her that the public doesn’t already know. But the flip side of that coin for Warren is that the more people learn about her and hear from her, the more they like her. She speaks truth to power, is unflinching in her advocacy for popular progressive positions, and has the one quality in a politician that is hard to fake: authenticity.
As the engines start revving for 2016, the calls for Warren to enter the race are only going to get louder.
When Gov. Rick Perry announced last summer that he wouldn’t run for re-election, he said he was committed to spending his last 18 months in office working to create more jobs and opportunity in Texas. It’s a pledge he has taken seriously, traveling to places like California, New York and Israel in the last year to promote the “Texas Miracle” and recruit companies to bring jobs to the state.
Supporting Perry’s travels is TexasOne, a quasi-governmental agency that has become the governor’s chief marketing tool to tout the state’s “wide open for business” model and that funds his regular promotional trips.
[...]
TexasOne is controversial in part because of how it’s funded: Many of the same corporations and donors that have contributed millions of dollars combined to the governor’s campaigns also donate to TexasOne, which helps woo corporations to bring jobs to Texas.
The practice is lawful, and it’s not unusual for governors to have close relationships — both financial and business — with influential industry leaders. TexasOne officials say that these donor-members, who contribute $1,000 to $250,000 annually to the program, are solely interested in the state’s economic development.
“No one joins because they feel like they’ll get access to Perry,” TexasOne Chairman Bruce Bugg said. “That’s not how it works.”
Well of course not, they already have access to Perry. It may not be illegal, but what’s going on here is something that is inherently incompatible with democracy. This is plutocracy or corporatism. It just seems wrong that the governor of Texas is allowed to gallivant around the world to do the bidding for corporations.
Then there’s this.
One of the beneficiaries of the Enterprise Zone Program is a top-tier TexasOne donor, Dallas-based accounting firm Ryan LLC, which contributes $250,000 a year for its TexasOne membership. The firm’s success in Texas is rooted in its work helping major corporations obtain large tax rebates from the state’s incentive programs, including the Enterprise Zone Program. CEO Brint Ryan benefited from the program himself in 2008 after his firm qualified for a $1.25 million tax refund.
(The exact amounts paid to companies through the program are confidential under the state’s tax code.)
Ryan is a prominent Perry donor and helped found Make Us Great Again, a Super PAC that supported the governor’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2012. Ryan personally contributed $250,000 to the PAC. Representatives for Ryan declined to comment on whether his company’s involvement in TexasOne or his contributions to Perry presented a conflict with his state benefits.
ExxonMobil qualified for a combined $8.75 million in tax refunds from the Texas Enterprise Zone Program starting in 2004. That same year, ExxonMobil became a member of TexasOne with a $25,000 contribution. ExxonMobil currently contributes $100,000 annually to the program. Representatives for the company could not be reached for comment.
Such examples of the overlap among donors to TexasOne and Perry and state benefits they’ve received “fit a pattern of pay-to-play politics” in Texas that have been common under Perry’s long tenure as governor, said McDonald of Texans for Public Justice.
But Bugg, the TexasOne chairman, said the program is focused on economic development and does not engage in political activities.
That may be the way Bugg feels and believes, but because of the way Perry has governed that statement is incorrect. Perry has made economic development a political activity and because of these donors incestuous practices it’s obvious who these corporations favor politically.
Should we allow our state government to be used in this way? Is our state government nothing more then a piece of the marketing puzzle for corporations, the chamber, and local economic development corporations? Those are the ultimate questions this article brings forward, (though it likely wasn’t the intent).
It’s obvious from this, and the actions of our state over the last decade, that the priority isn’t education, health care, infrastructure or anything else the people, “demos”, of this state need. Marketing corporations is a political issue in Texas. When we have a government that puts corporations ahead of the people it can’t help but be a political issue.
There was a thought, in the early stages of the tea party, that it was different from the Republican Party – a more Libertarian bent. Well, it turns out, not so much. The tea party is the same old wing nuts re branded, via Digby in Salon.
But another GOP religious mission last week got less notice, though it may be more significant in determining who wins the GOP primary: Senator Ted Cruz traveled to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and gave what everyone considered to be a fiery sermon about the gathering threat to religious liberty in America.
That address was received much more raptuously than the last time a 2016 presidential hopeful appeared at Liberty U — when Rand Paul made his infamous Wikipedia-lifted “Gattaca” speech – and points up one of the two major battle lines between the two main contenders for the Tea Party primary. In this first skirmish, it is obvious that it’s Cruz who has his finger on the pulse of the Christian Right.
But what’s that got to do with the Tea Party, you might ask? The movement is supposedly kaput, having retreated with its proverbial tail between its legs after Ted Cruz embarrassingly read “Green Eggs and Ham” on the Senate floor. And anyway, Liberty U is the Christian Right, not the Tea Party.
But that fundamentally misunderstands what the Tea Party actually is. It’s not a movement, it’s a brand. Or, more specifically, a re-brand that was formed in the wreckage of the Bush administration’s spectacular political flame-out when the True Believers badly needed to distance themselves from the GOP’s failure. It is simply the conservative movement in a tri-corner hat. And that movement, as Ronald Reagan described it, famously sits on a tri-legged stool of traditional values, strong defense and small government. How those issues are emphasized is a matter of the political zeitgeist of a given time.
At the time the Tea Party allegedly sprang up out of nowhere the country was still reeling from the war in Iraq and a financial crisis that shook the economy to its core, so it naturally marketed itself around economic issues. Therefore, the Tea Party was assumed to be populated by people who cared little about social issues and defense and instead signaled the beginning of a new, highly motivated libertarian faction in the GOP. But polling showed the Tea Party largely overlapped with the Christian Right and the traditional Republican hawks. In fact, they are the same people.
Digby points out exactly who the tea party loyalists are:
And it must be noted that the right wing of American politics is inherently reactionary and always animated by certain impulses, however they might be identified at a particular time. As sociologist Theda Skocpol, author (with Vanessa Williamson) of the book “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” described them:
They are overwhelmingly older, white, conservative-minded men and women who fear that “their country” is about to be lost to mass immigration and new extensions of taxpayer-funded social programs (like the Affordable Care Act) for low- and moderate-income working-aged people, many of whom are black or brown. Fiscal conservatism is often said to be the top grassroots Tea Party priority, but Williamson and I did not find this to be true.
(They could have called themselves the “Get Off My Lawn Coalition,” but Tea Party has a nicer ring to it.) That description goes to the far right’s motives and those don’t change much. And one can see how both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz might feel they have a claim to these voters. But only one of them really does.
The same has happened at the state level in Texas. Where at one time these folks were thought to be a Libertarian strand of the GOP, they’re now basically the same ‘ol prople. Their issues are God, guns, and gays. And no statewide candidate is using the Cruz playbook more then Texas Rush.
In January, Patrick’s campaign wrote on Twitter, “Obama created this illegal invasion” and “Help me fight for Texas’ future! Do you agree w/conservative vision to stem the illegal invasion?”
By last week, after even gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott’s adviser urged candidates to tone it down, Patrick’s campaign tweeted more sedately, “Inaction on border security is unacceptable.”
Gone are insults against foreigners’ Texas-born children and grandchildren in public schools. (Potential first lady Cecilia Abbott is the granddaughter of immigrants from Monterrey, Nuevo León.)
Patrick’s spokesman, Allen Blakemore, said Patrick met with Villaba but didn’t change positions.
Villalba said he thinks Patrick “really does want to understand this [Latino] population better.”
Blakemore called Patrick “the same old Dan” but said he looks forward to explaining his view.
Every state has its challenges. California has drought. Oklahoma has tornadoes. Colorado has forest fires.
And Texas has Dan Patrick. The Republican state senator intends to ride a wave of anti-Hispanic nativism straight to the lieutenant governor’s office. If this happens, Patrick will help do for Texas what former California Gov. Pete Wilson did for California: turn it blue.
The only way That can happen is if millions of Texans who don’t normally show up to vote, do show up in 2014.
