I’m new to Texas and Texas politics, but I have to admit I had no idea how dirty a campaign could get until I dropped down in this State. There is a local race here for State Representative between incumbent Norma Chavez and challenger Naomi Gonzalez. When I arrived in November they were both fielding attack ads accusing each other of impropriety. Naomi Gonzalez was using donor money to fund her college graduation party. Norma Chavez was skipping work and behaving like an absentee representative. By the time we’d returned from Ecuador the rhetoric was heating up. They started calling each other Republicans (seriously!), even though both are registered Democrats. When that didn’t get the desired response Norma Chavez accused Naomi Gonzalez of being a lesbian. I swear I am not making this up.   Gonzalez then produced a grandmother who refused to vote for Chavez because of the dirty campaign she’s running. Think that was the end, oh no, this is Texas. Chavez challenged Gonzalez to produce the grandmother claiming she didn’t exist.  These women grew up 3 miles apart.  They come from similar backgrounds and have similar platforms, but they are behaving like a couple of crazed cholas.  I think it’s time to start looking for a write in candidate.

So I got this e-mail today and I had to laugh out loud.  I’ve been offered money from Nigerian Lawyers, marriage proposals from Russian woman, and um, enhancements for my “equipment”, but I’ve never been accused of making more money.  Especially not in the past year.  Dude!  You have no idea how wrong you are!

From:  Tax Commisar

Dear taxpayer,

The Federal income tax is a progressive tax, meaning that the more you earn, the higher your tax rate. Your tax rate depends not just upon your taxable income, but also upon your filing status (single, married filing jointly, etc.).

You’re in a higher tax bracket because:
- your annual income for the last tax year has increased.

Please review your annual tax report immediately at: get report

Bush on Lessons from Previous Disasters: Don’t Set Expectations Too High
This was an actual headline over at ABCNews.com this week.  I’m sure the Haitians, who’ve just suffered a 6.1 aftershock today, will be delighted to hear that our former President is riding to their aid.  To be fair to the Demander in Chief that’s not exactly what W said.  Still remembering how he handled Hurricane Katrina it does sound like him doesn’t it?  Set the bar low, story of George W. Bush’s life.  How sad that he’s even involved in the Haiti mission.  Frankly I’d have preferred to keep the Bush, Sr./Clinton tag team intact.  I mean what’s W going to do ship ‘em beer and pretzels?  Time for you to retire from public life buddy and just go away.

… and here’s the original (in miniature) with a link to the post at Daily Kos:

When I wrote my Dancing with Statesmen post I was kidding people. It wasn’t a suggestion.

ABC announced the new line up for Dancing With the Stars this week and I was shocked to learn that Tom DeLay is joining the cast.  Yes they’ve invited the former House Majority leader to burn the floor.  I guess Hollywood truly is out of ideas because in this case life really does imitate fiction.  All I can say is it was my idea Disney execs.  I know you’re just a bunch of 20 something Wharton grads, but you need to learn the meaning of the word satire and stop stealing from bloggers.  I am not your muse, but I can be bought.  So… “Where’s my freakin’ movie check?!”

Back in March of 2008, I started the Blogs Against Kleptocracy series with a post about industries imposing ‘nonsense taxes’ on consumers, taxes that compensate an industry for either failing to make money or failing to adequately address fundamental changes to their business model.  And to illustrate the point, I made up some examples of nonsense taxes including this:

Big Coal will lobby for a ‘green tax’ that compensates them for revenue lost due to consumers switching to green power generation, buying energy efficient appliances, and turning off lights. Reduce your electricity consumption by 20%, and BANG! the tax kicks in.

At the time it seemed like a joke, but a year later Xcel Energy is proposing just such a tax—in this case a fee for customers who have the temerity to install solar panels, cutting their energy consumption or eliminating it entirely. Don’t use enough of Xcel’s energy, and bang the fee kicks in. And to add insult to injury, Xcel describes this as a way of ‘leveling the playing field’ for their non-solar customers, arguing that solar customers are getting a ‘free ride’. Despite the fact that no non-solar Xcel customer pays extra to fund anything having to do with solar energy redistribution or energy efficiency incentives.

So now, in the Kleptocracy that this country has become, consumers will progressively be penalized for not consuming.

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If you are black, Latino, female, Jewish, Catholic, physically handicapped, Asian or of any other super-sensitive genetic make-up – Give Me A Break! And I don’t mean an arm or leg. I’m raising the argument here for the ‘White ‘it’s all your fault anyway you bastard’ Guy’.

Being a White ‘it’s all your fault anyway you bastard’ Guy I have to endure every insult imaginable; but do you hear me whining? Well okay, just this once I might be, but I’ve had enough. I want Obama to invite me for a beer, or even better a good rye, to sort this out.

The current attack appearing around the place is that ‘all men are liars’. I’m not a liar – well not often at least. But what about all those ‘super-sensitive genetic make-up’ men out there, are they complaining? NO! Because they read the subtext – “All White ‘it’s all your fault anyway you bastard’ Guys are liars”.

I adore women of nearly all sub groupings, then I get into trouble for that. But I admit to being a bit tentative when it comes to Catholic women. Now how honest is that? No lie there. Then it took years before I realized Muddy Waters was any different, apart from talent, from my white mono-cultural neighbours.

The only thing I have against the super-sensitive genetic make-up folk is they like to spoil some of the best jokes; unless they are the ones making them of course. I’d love to see free trade extended to jokes at least.

The last thing in the world I think Democrats and Republicans are going to do at the end of the day is create a government-run healthcare system where you’ve got a bureaucrat standing in between the patient and the doctor.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

And that’s the whole problem…putting a bureaucrat between the patient and the doctor would displace the blood-sucking parasite that currently occupies that position, the insurance company.

Kvatch

And thus we see how our representatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, will scuttle health care reform. They’ll call it a matter of access, a matter of choice, a matter of money. They’ll tell us that we’ll be better off keeping things as they are, while another 30 million over the next decade loose access to coverage.

THIS IS THE F*CKING PLAN!!!…do anything to continue to line the pockets of insurers, the one constituency that has a vested interest in making sure that people can’t obtain care or, when they do, have to foot the bill themselves. Don’t fool yourselves, American workers are about to be hung out to dry even though 72% of us would prefer a single-payer, or at least government sponsored, system.

Thanks to our conservative California Supreme Court and some Mormon fat cash same sex marriage is once again banned in our State.  I had such high hopes.  Mayor Newsom was right to challenge as unconstitutional the missing right of gay marriage in our state.  I supported him when he decided to take a stand and started marrying off same sex couples as fast as he could.  But they shut him down.  And then they went back and tried to invalidate all of those marriages.  Thank goodness that failed.  All I can say is it is a sad, sad day when I have to fly to Massachusetts to see a gay couple wed.  Oh and the first chance I get to send money to Utah to outlaw polygamy, you better believe I’ll be writing THAT check.

OK… I get it. Everybody want’s to try and squeeze a little more cash from consumers, especially when we’ve started behaving like Jack Benny in bankruptcy. But is it too much to ask that a pair of jeans last more than a year? If fact, I do remember a time when GAP jeans (the brand I usually buy) didn’t self-destruct roughly 12 months after purchase.

No longer… Not only has almost every pair of GAP jeans that the Frogette and I have bought in the last 2 years developed holes, the holes are showing up in a suspiciously similar, overtly embarrassing, place.

Now I could understand if the jeans from one particular batch—which for GAP means a batch from one particular manufacturer, one particular country—all turned out to be worthless. But different batches? Over two years? All developing holes in the crotch just below the zipper seam?!

5 pairs so far, 3 of mine and two of the Frogette’s. What the f*ck?!