Archive for June, 2011

I’m Not Saying It’s The Seventh Sign …

June 28, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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… but it’s at least the sixth.

Pope Benedict XVI tweeted for the first time today, the Vatican has confirmed.

The Pope used his inaugural tweet to announce the launch of news.va, a Vatican news and information portal. He added “Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus.”

Vatican officials said that Benedict used his own finger to send the tweet on a touchpad.

Yeah, I hate it when the Pope uses someone else’s finger to tweet.

And notice the message – no guilt or pedophilic undertones.  Way to go, Pope!

Thanks to Dawn for the heads-up.

Ring! Ring! General Sanchez, Texas Calling On Line 2

June 28, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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It has been said that Republicans want to fall in line, but Democrats want to fall in love.

I’m not in love, or at this point even like, with General Ricardo Sanchez.  He may be a nice guy personally, but he ain’t romancing the Juanita.

General Sanchez, At Least That's What We Are Told

First off, comes his reluctance to even show up at Democratic functions.  So far, he’s been seen less than Elvis.  At least Elvis shows up at the Dairy Queen every now and then.  I am one of the handful of people in Texas who knows for a fact that he even exists, and I don’t know if who I saw was a Sanchez impersonator and the real Sanchez was over at the Dairy Queen with Elvis.

Second off, I know kids running for class president with a better website.  And it doesn’t help me that on the three issues he even has an opinion about, he’s not a Democrat.

On Immigration:  “We simply cannot provide illegal immigrants with blanket access to all of the services and benefits that are afforded to our citizens.”

On Education:  “the application of school vouchers would not be something I would be opposed to”

On Jobs and the Economy:  “The best approach to creating jobs in Texas is for us to provide tax cuts, incentives, and increase financing support for small businesses.”

Best I can tell, those are also John Cornyn’s core beliefs. I guess this is a real clear signal that we’re going to ignore the Democratic base in Texas again.

The third strike came yesterday and today.

Yesterday, Ole Bubba tried to call General Sanchez to invite him to a major Democratic event in a county he has to win if he intends to win statewide.  If you go to Sanchez’s website, there no way to contact him.  So, Ole Bubba called the Texas Democratic Party to see if they had a way to contact him.  They did.

They gave Bubba a Washington Dee Cee  phone number of a political consulting firm.  Holy crap on a barbeque spit.  The only way to reach him is a DeeCee consultant?

I ain’t in love.

Then, today I get an email from his wife.  It was a forward of a fund raising email he sent out saying, “we need leaders who believe that progress and patriotism must take priority over politics and partisanship.”  Nothing in the email gave me a reason to support him other than he wants to make nice.  I don’t do nice.

Anyway, here’s the email she sent.  Click the little one to get the big one.

Now, what I want you to do is go to the top of that email and under the words FW: First Challenge, you will find Elana’s email address.

sanchezforsenatefinance@gmail.com

Good Lord, if you’re going to hire a consulting firm, at least hire one smart enough to get Elena an email address, even if she never sees it, so at least people will think this is an authentic email.

And as of today, if you Google General Ricardo Sanchez, you have to go to page two to find anything positive about him.

Where the hell is Rick Noriega or Wendy Davis now that we really need them?

And, guys, I am sorry that my rants are getting to be so damn long, but I didn’t have time for a short one.

I’d Like To Buy The World A Koch

June 28, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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He has been called a mediocre man; but this is unwarranted flattery.  He is a man of monumental littleness.

Theodore Roosevelt on John Tyler because Rick Perry wasn’t born yet

Rick Perry has gone to kiss some Koch hiney.

“We are assured that no taxpayer dollars were used for Perry’s trip,” Juanita remarks. “But when the Koch Brothers are involved it’s not only taxpayers dollars but their very souls that are being bartered for political power.”

We are certain that Rick has honed up his lies, shinned his spurs, and handgunned a few more non-threatening critters to death in preparation for this meeting.

Tumbling Governors

June 28, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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Republican Governors have a short shelf life.

Thanks to Carl for sending this because I missed it at TPM, which is usually a daily read for me.

Click the little one to get the big one.

It is amazing to me how quickly they get moldy.

Thanks to Carl for the heads-up.

This Month’s Long Rant

June 27, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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There’s an idea floating around that I want to share with you.  It may not be an electric light idea, but it’s an idea.  This idea might help the Texas Democratic Party get some folks to the polls and charged up.

Now, this is long and only mildly interesting to Texas Democrats.  But, if you folks from foreign states have anything to add to help us, jump right in.

In the last election, Texas Democrats did badly.  Even for a party that holds no statewide offices, we embarrassed ourselves.   We would not have done worse if our candidates had been caught red handed tweeting pictures of Debbie Riddle’s private parts.

The Texas Democratic Party hasn’t had any new ideas since before Elvis died.  Basically, it’s hold your head down, don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself, and hope voters think you’re a Republican.  All we have stood for is election.  There is no longer a core set of beliefs and a clear consistent message coming from the Texas Democratic Party.

Good Lord, take Bill White for example.  He spent over ten million dollars and ended up flopping around like a catfish on a hot pier.  Honey, for ten million bucks I could get elected Queen of Idaho.  If I lived in Idaho.  And, admittedly, was a nicer person.

The Texas Democratic Party added  an old white guy on payroll to be in charge of messaging.  He’s been a paid political adviser since 1969.  He hasn’t had a winning message in a decade or two, so I seriously doubt that throwing more money at him is gonna help at all.  And if more money does help, I’m hacked-off about the money we paid him to fail pathetically in the past.

So, there is some basic reassurance that no matter what we do, it couldn’t be worse.  There is no down from where we are.  We have to look up to see bottom.  We keep doing the same damn thing over and over and over and we have a heaping pot of diddle squat to show for it.

So, here’s the idea:  put referendums on the Democratic primary ballot.

Not world shaking, huh, but new and revolutionary for Texas Democrats.

Maybe putting referendums on the primary ballot would (1) get people interested in issues to the polls, and (2) help define what Democrats want for Texas.

For example, how about a referendum saying that we strongly reject the Ryan plan for Medicare vouchers?  Or that privatizing social security is dog dump dumb?

How about a referendum to decriminalize marijuana?  And we could throw in medical marijuana because it’s just the humane thing to do.

We have to let Texans know that the Dream Act is a core value of Texas Democrats.  So, let’s let every Democrat who votes – the grassroots –  send a message about it.

It would make me stand tall to vote for turning minimum wage into a living wage.  I would feel like my voice is being heard.

Now some folks in the State Party are already loudly objecting to this.  One old fella who has been around longer than Noah sarcastically tossed the idea aside by saying, “Oh great.  Republicans will vote in our primary to vote on these referendums and then pick the weakest candidates.

Well, in short, no.

They have their own hotly contested primary next year.  They won’t care about ours.  Plus, what weak candidates are you talking about?  Nick Lampson?  Charlie Stenholm?  Martin Frost? Aaron Pena?   Chet Edwards?  If we get weaker candidates than we are already getting, we might as well turn our party over to Ross Perot and Kinky Freidman because as least they’re entertaining.  It seems to me that letting Ben Barnes pick our candidates by whether or not they support his corporate interests isn’t working all that dandy.  Remember:  this is Barnes’ take on an exciting candidate website.

Another old timer said that we don’t want to tie our candidates to radical ideas that come out of these referendums.

That hurts.  No, seriously, that is painful.

Maybe, just maybe, our candidates lose because all they stand for is election.  What’s wrong with standing for a woman’s right to chose?  What’s wrong for standing for the middle class with fair wages for a fair day’s work?  Should Democrats turn their back on a common sense drug policy or the Dream Act?  Cripes, we’re not asking them to grant sainthood to Saul Alinsky.  We’re asking them to be Democrats.

These referendums are designed to get young folks, older folks, labor, women, African Americans, and Hispanics to the polls.  If that happens, we will get the best candidates. You can bet on it.

The people who are objecting are the same folks who said that a contested primary would tear our party apart.  Bullcorn.  Barack Obama would not the president today without the rigors of a contested primary.  Our party’s finest hour in the past decade was the Clinton / Obama debate in Austin.

The Republicans actually spit at each other during their primaries and they win all over Texas in November.

The Democratic big tent is deflated.  This is one, tiny, maybe even insignificant idea to kick start the air pump.

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NOTE: If you think this is a good idea, call or email your State Democratic Executive Committee Member.  The list is here.

George Will Make Stuff Up

June 27, 2011 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

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We have an alert customer around here named David.  David caught George Will’s editorial about Rick Perry and focused in on this little item (italics mine) —

Pausing in his enjoyment of a hamburger the size of a hubcap, Perry, the Eagle Scout son of Democratic tenant farmers, says that he entered politics as a Democrat: “I never met a Republican until I was in the Air Force.”

George Will: Not a Fact Checker

Rick Perry’s parents were wealthy ranchers and cotton farmers in West Texas.  His dad was also a county commissioner in Haskell County.  Rick Perry was not born in a log cabin.

So, appropriately enough, when the Dallas Morning News reprinted Will’s column, they left out the tenant farmer thing.  It’s by subscription only so here’s what happened.

Pausing in his enjoyment of a hamburger the size of a hubcap, Perry says he entered politics as a Democrat: “I never met a Republican until I was in the Air Force.”

So, if you start reading that Rick was born in a manger in a tenant log cabin and read his homework by the light of the fireplace as they burned their meager furniture to stay warm, please remind people that he’s living in a $10,000 a month rented mansion because that’s the lifestyle he was born into.

Thanks to David for the heads up.