Common Sense

"One of us, one of us"

Inspired by Greg Wythe when he bestowed the title of Honorary Texan on Paul Hackett, Texas Bloggers, led by Burnt Orange Report, Off the Kuff, PinkDome, and Greg's Opinion are calling today upon all Texans (and friends of Texas) to join ranks and donate towards the very cause we have been arguing for this past week- Run Everywhere, because it's what our Party and our Democracy needs.

His success is our success, not just as Texas Democrats, but as Democrats period. "Paul Hackett is hereby granted "Temporary Texan" status from now and election day in the Ohio 2nd (August 2). I'm pretty sure I have no legal standing whatsoever to convey Texan-ship, but who am I to let that stop me?"

Certainly not us Greg. So join us today, in a special edition, Texas Thursday, for Honorary Texan Paul Hackett. Let's roll.

Vote for Chris Bell

Chris Bell is officially running for governor on the Democratic ticket.

Over the past half year, I have traveled all over Texas, literally exploring the race for governor. You have indulged me in this process as I sought the answers to some important questions, some personal (and Alison's doing better every day, thanks) and some of them public: Can a Texas Democrat win? Are Texas Democrats ready to try something different? Do people see what is happening in Texas the same way that I do?

Well, I have my answers, and today I am proud to share the news that I've decided to run for governor.

I'm fairly optimistic about our chances to win the governor's mansion.The more people who get involved in the process, the more likely Chris is to win. Assuming tat Rick Perry wins the GOP primary, Chris will have the oppurtunity to reach out to moderate and independent Republicans to join the "New Mainstream." We can win.

I think the best way to celebrate is to donate a few bucks to Chris' campaign, so give all you can.

CAFTA is so Kafka-esque

And if you get my reference to another reference about people using the phrase Kafka-esque in the wrong situations, you probably watched way too much MTV in the mid 90s.

Anyway, CAFTA passed the House tonight. My Congressman, Chet Edwards voed against. Way to go Chet.

It's late enough

Are the kids asleep? Is anyone around? Good. Then it is late enough that I can llink to this soundboard from the new movie The Aristocrats.

What is it you ask? It is a movie partially directed by Penn Jillette about 100 comedians all telling the same joke. That doesn't sound that good until you find out that it is the dirtiest joke known to man, known as "the aristrocrats" and that each one tells it in their own way. The delivery is the key and it is what keeps the joke fresh and interesting for multiple consumption.

I have it on good authority that the dirtiest delivery comes from Bob Saget, the dad from Full House and former host of America's Funniest Home Videos.

If you look to your left

You'll notice a link to No Nonsense in November under Texas Bloggers. That is the campaign, headed by former Rep. Glen Maxey, to vote down the amendment to the Texas Constitution to ban gay marriage again.

Go on and give them some love... and possibly some money. Statewide campaigns don't come cheap.

I'd forgotten about him

You know, I had totally forgotten about Tom DeLay and what a scum-sucking evil bastard he is. Thankfully, Think Progress hasn't and they have a letter from Rep. Henry Waxman to Speaker Hastert about an accounting discrepancy.

A $1.5 billion discrepancy!

One that Tom DeLay put into the energy bill after the conference committee closed. That's right, after. What was the money for? It is "a $1.5 billion giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas."

And who would administer this money? "The subtitle appears to steer the administration of 75% of the $1.5 billion fund to a private consortium located in the district of Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Ordinarily, a large fund like this would be administered directly by the government."

So $1.5 billion for oil and gas companies to be handed out by people in Tom DeLay's district, who, if we checked, I'm sure would also be found on his campaign contribution rolls. And he put this in the energy bill after the conference committee closed and the final bill was decided upon.

I dare anyone to tell me this is anywhere near the vicinity of ethical. Go on, I double dare you to defend this.

Hi Shane

Thanks to Kuff, we get to meet Shane Sklar, a conservative Democrat and candidate in the CD-14.

Pop on over to his Web site and check him out. He may be just the kind of Democrat you would like to give financial support to.

You oughta get a medal

I really can't understand the pathology of people like John Gibson or Sen. Pat Roberts.

Gibson has said that somebody had to out Joe Wilson's wife, so it might as well have been Karl Rove to do it. He even went on to say that Rove should get a medal. In Gibson's world, I guess the CIA is working for the Soviets and we need to identify as many of their covert agents in public as possible.

And A, href="http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/election2004/12238817.htm">Roberts said he would launch a Senate investigation into the CIA's use of covert status since maybe they use it too often. After all, Valerie Plame is nothing more than a paper pusher and doesn't need the status. How much you wanna bet that after Roberts spends a few million dollars investigating this, he finds that when Democrats do it is illegal and when Republicans leak information it is wrongly classified?

BTW, we don't actually know details about Valerie Wilson's job because it is classified. So if you know without a doubt her entire job history, I'm sure prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would like you to talk to him and his associates.

How hard is it to condemn someone for doing something wrong? If somebody in my party did something like this I would be screaming for their head. Why can't the Republicans do the same? Outing covert agents is not a good thing. If the paper says "Top Secret" that means don't tell anybody, no matter what. We know he told Matt Cooper that "Wilson's wife" was in the Agency. The only way he could have known that was by reading classified documents. If he had heard that and repeated it without checking to see she was covert, he is still in breach of the document he signed in order to get "codeword" status to read classified reports.

Admit it was wrong for him and whoever else might have been involved in the leak to do this.

Let's talk family values

A man in Nebraska is faces up to 50 years in prison for having sex with a 13 year-old girl. I think we're all shouting hooray so far. The problem is that the girl, now 14, is 7 months pregnant and legally married to the man. Kansas has no statute with a minimum age for marriage, it only requires that both parents of a minor or one parent a district judge consent.

The girl's mother gave her consent after they learned she was pregnant, and the 22 year-old man's parents both consented to the marriage. So they went over the state line into Kansas and were legally married.

“The idea ... is repugnant to me,” said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. “These people made the decision to send their ... 14-year-old daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile.”

I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but I'm pretty sure that what is personally repugnant to the Nebraska attorney general is not grounds for prosecution, especially since he has admitted that their marriage is valid. He just says that the Kansas law is "ridiculous" and plans to prosecute anyway.

I'm not about to go into a soliloquy defending this guy, because I'm not. But, just on the merits, this looks like 'judicial' activism. I put that is quotes because this is an attorney general not a judge, but it is the same sort of thing. Bruning doesn't like a law in another state, so he's prosecuting people in his state that have done something legally.

Now, there is some murkiness on the sexual assault charge. Legally, you can charge someone with sexually assaulting their spouse. But to declare any act with one's spouse sexual assault? There is also the fact that she was pregnant before they were married. It does not say that he was the father, but I'm making that assumption. Still, her mother consented to marriage after she learned that.

Putting aside the fact that I find what he's doing morally repugnant, I can't see why one person's morals are more legal than the letter of the law. If we had the reverse in this case, an attorney general that did not think pedophilia was wrong and an unmarried 14 year-old girl being assaulted, would we apply his personal morals as the standard? Of course not.

Or an attorney general who prosecutes a gay couple who have been legally married for breaking a sodomy law (assuming the Supreme Court had not already ruled those unconstitutional)? The problem I have is that one person is applying his personal morals as the legal standard when the girl's family, the girl, the man and the man's family all seemed OK with the situation. If not OK, they were at least willing to consent to this course of action. Now, the man will almost surely get convicted and spend the next 50 years in prison, leaving a 14 year-old girl a practical widow and single mother. If their way is bad, Bruning's way is possibly worse.

Because I have to throw my two cents in

The annual 50 most beautiful people on Capitol Hill issue of The Hill came out Tuesday. Next year they may want to lower it to 30, just so they don't have to reach so far on some of them.

Not to be outdone, Common Sense present the "5 most beautiful people on the Hill" from The Hill's Web site post. We'll talk about making it an annual thing.

Number one, Ayame Nagatani

Number two, Kate Deumite

Number three, Briggite Buehlman

Number four, Bettina Inclan (she might have been higher in the list if not for the apparent 'hairricane')

And because he's so dreamy and awesome, number five, Sen. Barack Obama