Why Does Putin Have Two Members Of Congress From California Representing Russian Interests?

Un-American Activities In The House by Chip Proser

Former Texas Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), was appointed U.S. ambassador to NATO by Señor Trumpanzee. Yesterday she was a guest, from Brussels, on both Face the Nation and on Fox News Sunday. On the latter, she told Dana Perino that she thinks "Russia is trying to flip Turkey. They're trying to flip many of our allies. They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world and that is NATO." On the former she told Margaret Brennan that "we are seeing Russia with malign on so many fronts right now, especially... on social media, where they are sowing discontent and even false information to try to divide our allies." Note in the video below how uncomfortable she is when Brennan asks her for reassurance that Trump won't recognize Putin's swallowing up of Ukraine and how she dodges the question entirely:



This week Trump is expected to slam NATO members (our allies) and then fly off the Helsinki to report back to the man who hated him the presidency. Putin didn't help Trump steal the election because he thinks he would be a great president. Quite the contrary; Putin executed the great coup in the history of Russia because Trump is weak and incompetent idiot who agreed to deliver on all Russia's priorities, destroying NATO being one of them.

Many Republicans in the Senate and House-- for all their rubber stamping and enabling of Trump-- are very uncomfortable with Trump's supine posture towards the Kremlin and worried about what he's going to give away to Putin at their secret meeting in Helsinki next week. But that's not the case with Putin's two congressional puppets, both from California, Orange County's Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48) and the Central Valley's Devin Dunes (CA-22). A few days ago, Rohrabacher and Ted Lieu, also from California, but a patriot, were guests on Fox's The Issue Is. Forget for a moment that Rohrabacher is certifiably insane, Lieu reminded viewers that Rohrabacher was warned by the FBI that Russia was trying to use him as "an agent of influence [and] that he was so close to Russia that they had a code name for him... I don't know why he's that close to Russia but, it is what it is," while Fox showed footage of Rohrabacher alone in an office shaking hands with Putin.



A year ago the Washington Post reported that, after a meeting with the prime minister of Ukraine (one day after Russian spies hacked the DNC for Trump), Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, Congress' top 2 Republican House Leaders, initiated a conference call with GOP members. On that call, McCarthy told the members that he "guarantees" them that the DNC hack was by the Russians to get the opposition research on Trump. He added, "There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump... Swear to God." Ryan, nervous, interjected: "This is an off the record. No leaks, right? This is how we know we're a real family here." A crime family? It leaked within hours of course. Ryan and McCarthy denied the conversation ever happened when The Post approached them with the transcript. They called it fiction. After claiming the transcript was "false," once The Post told them one of their "family members" had made a recording of the conversation and turned it over to the paper, Ryan said McCarthy was only joking. No one mentioned at the time that there were three Republicans on Putin's payroll and that McCarthy had left off his close friend and ally, Devin Nunes.

At some point even Nunes' constituents, whose congressman does more for Trump and Putin than he does for them, are going to demand better representation in Washington. Rowan Scarborough wrote, admiringly, about Nunes' latest escapade over the weekend for the very right-wing Washington Times, Devin Nunes calls for House probe of 42 Obama-era anti-Trump activists. "Nunes," he wrote, "is referring 42 Obama administration officials, FBI agents and outside political activists to a House task force for an investigation into how the Obama Justice Department targeted the Donald Trump campaign. If the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Judiciary Committee agree, their task force would conduct the most extensive probe to date on anti-Trump government operations in 2016." He's asking fellow super-partisan crackpots, Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), both of whom are retiring in January, for assistance.

Last year, amid a probe into Russian election interference, Mr. Nunes veered from the Trump collusion narrative. His new inquiry was sparked by indications that a piece of evidence driving the FBI probe-- the Democratic Party-financed dossier-- was unverified and at worst a hoax.

Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was paid by Democrats to write the dossier and who told a Justice official he was “desperate” to destroy the Trump candidacy, is not one of the Nunes 42.

Fusion GPS hired Steele to investigate his connections to the Russians during the Republican primary and it was the GOP propaganda sheet, the Washington Free Beacon who got the money from Marco Rubio backer Paul Singer to pay for it. After Rubio was crushed by Trump, Singer closed upon his wallet and Mark Elias, an establishment Democratic attorney started paying Fusion GPS for Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Washington Times is aware this started as a Rubio effort, funded by Singer, but would rather deceive its readers into thinking Hillary Clinton was behind it. Now that's fake news.

I haven't been a big fan of either Nunes' or Rohrabacher's general election opponents, respectively Andrew Janz and Harley Rouda. But both were the legitimate winners of their primaries and... at least neither is a Blue Dog. More important, the Democrats in their districts choose them and there is no one else who can get rid of the two Putin patsies. They both raised plenty of money. Rouda raised $1,939,411 and has $600,203 in cash left, more than Rohrabacher's $433,735. And Janz raised $1,852,763, not as much as corporate whore Nunes, but enough to run a competitive race. I wouldn't hesitate for one moment to urge Orange County voters to replace Rohrabacher with Rouda and I'd only hesitate for a moment before urging voters from Clovis and Fresno down through Dinuba and Visalia to Tulare to replace Nunes with Janz. Putin doesn't deserve to be represented by two members of Congress-- let alone two members from California. Do you know what the word shanda (שאַנדע) means? That what it means.

Are Texans Having Buyer's Remorse Over Ted Cruz?

And no one likes a loser

Yesterday I heard Peter King (R-NY) and Charlie Dent (R-PA) each go on CNN to rail against Ted Cruz's extremism. They were speaking for dozens of non-Confederate Republicans in seats where successful candidates need independent voters-- and for more than a few Republican senators who wish his nut job father had never moved to America. But what about Texans who supported their junior senator and sent him to Washington on his mission of mayhem?

This week, the editors of the Houston Chronicle began an editorial by asking, "Does anyone else miss Kay Bailey Hutchison?" Hutchison, unlike Cruz, was a mainstream conservative. Cruz isn't a conservative at all. He's a wrecking ball and a dedicated-- and dangerous-- reactionary.

We're not sure how much difference one person could make in the toxic, chaotic, hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington, but if we could choose just one it would be Hutchison, whose years of service in the Senate were marked by two things sorely lacking in her successor, Ted Cruz.

For one thing, Hutchison had an unswerving commitment to the highest and best interests of Texas at all times. This revealed itself in a thousand different ways. Hereabouts, we miss her advocacy for NASA, the Port of Houston and the energy industry. And we know she worked just as hard for Dallas, San Antonio and a hundred smaller Texas cities and towns.

And dare we say it? We miss her extraordinary understanding of the importance of reaching across the aisle when necessary. Neither sitting Texas senator has displayed that useful skill, and both the state and the Congress are the poorer for it.

One reason we particularly believe that Hutchison would make a difference in these hectic days is that if she had kept her seat, Cruz would not be in the Senate.

When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November's general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation-- that he follow Hutchison's example in his conduct as a senator.

Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution.

We feel certain she would have worked shoulder to shoulder with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in crafting a workable solution that likely would have avoided the government shutdown altogether. But we'll never know.

That sounds like the endorsement was withdrawn.

UPDATE: Even Jennifer Rubin…

The GOP's in-house mouthpiece at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin, is laughing at her stumbling, flailing amigos. She's got a funny list up this morning of the 20 signs that you've drunk the Kool-Aid (like she did years ago).

1. You think Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has it nailed when he tells the Value Voters Summit that the Dems are “feeling the heat” in the shutdown fight.

2. You think the problem is Ken Cuccinelli isn’t conservative enough.

3. You think if only the shutdown went on longer the GOP would win this fight.

4.  You think poll numbers showing the plummeting favorability of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Cruz’s 2-to-1 negatives are “skewed.”

5.  You think that if the GOP doesn’t win the shutdown fight it will be because of the mainstream media.

6.  You think Americans want to shut down the government to get rid of Obamacare.

7.  You think the problem is that Cruz didn’t talk long enough or that the media didn’t cover his 21-hour speech fairly.

8.  You think the right-wingers who lost Senate races in 2010 and 2012 should run for the Senate in 2014 because the GOP “let them down.”

9.  You think it is better to have 30 “true conservatives” than 51 Republicans in the U.S. Senate.

10. You think Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had it wrong when he backed immigration reform and right when he went to bat for the shutdown strategy.

11. You think the biggest threat to the GOP is politicians like Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). You think it’s about time someone primaried Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) or John Cornyn (R-Tex.) from the right.

12. You think the GOP should have stood pat on the shutdown.

13. You think Hispanics will never vote for Republicans so there is no use in pursuing immigration reform. You think it is fine for the GOP to win elections relying almost entirely on white voters.

14.  You think Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is a sell out because he thinks repealing Obamacare can only happen by electing a GOP Senate majority and capturing the White House.

15. You think Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have betrayed the conservative movement.

16.  You think the GOP needs candidates like Ted Cruz to run in for Senate places like Michigan, Virginia and Colorado.

17.  You think the GOP would have done better with Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul as its 2012 presidential nominee. You think Santorum blew it when he stopped talking about contraception.

18. You think Republicans should run hard at the national level on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

19.  You think President Ronald Reagan would decry compromise and support primarying the Senate minority leader.

20.   You think right-wing talk radio hosts are a good barometer of American public opinion.

Boehner Opts To Leave The FAA In The Lurch

The Republicans were perfectly happy to scurry out of town for a month with the unexpected and unprecedented victory Barack Obama handed them on a silver platter. Obama and his apologists are-- laughably-- trying to deny this is a huge win for the GOP. Right after the vote one of Capitol Hill's most notorious hacks and most practiced liars, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was telling TV viewers it was a vote to protect Social Security and Medicare and Yay, my-best-friend-Gabby-is-back-America-is-great. Anyway, Chris Hayes sat in for Rachel Maddow Monday night and he came up with a rather compelling graphic (above) that I'd love to see Wasserman Schultz explain.

So as I was saying before I interrupted myself with a detour down Wasserman Schultz Mania Lane, the GOP has scurried out of town to celebrate their startling victory. And to add insult to injury they decided to leave the closing of the FAA unresolved 'til they wander back in September. Let's start with a look at what newspapers are saying about the Republican Party's latest nihilistic threat against the normal functioning of the government:

Last week, contractors across the country were told to stop work on critical airport modernization projects after Congress failed to pass legislation giving the FAA the authority necessary for work to continue. Dozens of “stop work orders” were issued for major projects designed to build and modernize control towers and other aviation infrastructure from coast to coast. Construction workers, engineers and planners were told not to come to worksites across the country after the FAA was forced to issue stop work orders on projects ranging from the construction of new air traffic control towers to the rehabilitation and modernization of air traffic facilities. Nearly 4,000 FAA personnel, many needed to oversee various aspects of these projects, were furloughed beginning on July 23. The Association of General Contractors estimates that as many as 70,000 construction workers are unable to work because of Congress’ inaction. Stopping work on these projects could significantly increase the ultimate costs of construction for taxpayers. 
                                     
“Since 2007, lawmakers have been unable to reach agreement on a broad measure to finance the Federal Aviation Administration, so they have passed 20 temporary ‘extensions.’ Yes, you read that correctly. Twenty. But, as of 10 days ago, Congress couldn't even agree on another extension. Compromise […] can't come soon enough. Like spoiled children, members of Congress have stamped their feet and scored their points while other people pay for their inaction. If the lawmakers were back in school, they'd deserve to be in the time-out corner.”
     --USA Today, August 2, 2011
 
“The FAA is “another victim of partisan politics in Congress... And here we are. A prolonged halt to needed airport modernization is not in the country’s interest.”
     --Washington Post, July 26, 2011 

“Now Congress has managed to bring much of the Federal Aviation Administration to a standstill… locally, needed expansion and resurfacing projects at Orlando's two commercial airports could atrophy mirroring the inertia of Republican and Democratic congressional leaders who can't-- or won't-- move their way around the labor issues and subsidies for rural airports that separate them. Pathetic.”
     --Orlando Sentinel, July 27, 2011 
 
“The F.A.A. has also had to furlough some 4,000 workers. Needed airport construction projects-- to maintain runways, build new traffic control towers and upgrade other facilities-- have been halted across the country. The only good news is that the air traffic control system is still working because traffic controllers are paid from the Aviation Trust Fund, which still has a positive balance.”
     --New York Times, July 27, 2011 

“At a time when jobs are scarce and the construction industry is ailing, this is the worst time possible for a halt in funding…The real problem is Congress’ inability to iron out partisan disputes, a failure of governance at the most basic level…These are serious issues, but surely reasonable lawmakers can come to an agreement without shutting down a vital government agency.”
     --Miami Herald, July 27, 2011  

“The way the FAA shutdown has come about is anything but good government. And it could damage the fragile economic recovery… Federal lawmakers need to step up and continue funding for the agency.”
     --The Denver Post, July 28, 2011 

“Americans are frustrated with our congressional representation, and holding the world's best air travel system hostage magnifies just how inept and ineffective Washington has become.”
     --Charleston Daily Mail, July 26, 2011 
 
“One of the greatest strengths of the U.S. economy has long been its transportation system… But how much longer will that be true if petty political differences can't even be put aside long enough to keep an agency that is critical to that system on the job?”
     --Reno Gazette Journal, July 26, 2011 
 
“Congress’ failure to act and pass a short-term extension is preventing critical improvement projects from getting off the ground – projects that support and create good-paying jobs in Colorado and across the country.”
     --The Denver Post, July 28, 2011
  
“Failure to pass a clean extension bill is needlessly putting Americans out of work in a fragile economy.”
     --The Sacramento Bee, July 29, 2011
 
“…It is simply outrageous that members of Congress would put an ideological argument above the important work the FAA does… And how, as our nation sluggishly continues to try to recover from the recession, can you throw 4,000 FAA employees, and an unknown number of contractors, out of work? They are all just victims of the current political climate, where an inability to compromise has become an inability to govern.”    
     --Press of Atlantic City, July 29, 2011

“…The inability of Congress to reach a compromise on raising the nation’s debt ceiling isn’t the only example of how partisanship and, dare we say, sheer incompetence is getting in the way of conducting the people’s business. Not to mention interfering with its much-repeated pledge to put America back to work. That became crystal clear this past weekend, when the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to furlough roughly 4,000 workers…”
     --Nashua Telegraph, July 28, 2011
 
“Congressional squabbling is blocking reauthorization of funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result, $2.5 billion in airport improvement projects have been halted and about 4,000 FAA workers have been furloughed. The issues ought to be resolved quickly... Essential transportation services should not be held hostage in the meantime.”
     --The Detroit News, July 29, 2011
 
“Unlike the debt ceiling standoff, with its competing claims of trillions in cuts, the FAA impasse involves only a tiny slice of the federal budget. Yet its effects are plain -- workers furloughed, construction stopped -- just to make a misbegotten point.”
     --The NV Daily, July, 28, 2011 

“Such sorry decision making shows how out of touch politicians are with average Americans. Jobs are the No. 1 concern across our great nation and Congress effectively killed public and private jobs by failing to reauthorize this [FAA] law.”
     --The Billings Gazette, July 29, 2011

Boehner, Cantor and their empowered cronies DO NOT CARE. Nothing, short of the voters, can stop them now. And that's a long way off. The $200 million per week in lost ticket taxes? They're perfectly happy to see their right-wing allies at Delta collecting and pocketing those taxes for themselves, knowing full well that Delta will kick back some of the dough to right-wing organizations and right-wing politicians. Delta, after all, has quite a record as THE anti-working family airline-- and as a very active fascist tool in the right-wing network.

It should come as no surprise that Delta Airlines is using its lobbyists and campaign donations to try to overturn a decision that makes it less difficult for workers at airports to organize. That's what corporate America does, even during times of economic hardship-- they maximize profits at the expense of good jobs. But Delta's lobbying has taken it one step further. With millions out of work, Delta's opposition to the legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running has stopped it cold-- and Congress will conclude its business for the summer without passing it. That means thousands of workers responsible for the safety and operation of airports all over the country are getting furloughed without pay.

Delta's been spending money wisely to try to overturn the decision to let workers organize more easily. They spent $1.6 million on lobbying during the first half of 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (Over the past ten years they spent at least $32 million to influence Washington.) Their PAC has given $826,243 to members of Congress since 2000. Adding additional incentive for Republicans in Congress to stand with them, Richard Anderson, Delta's CEO, made a $5,000 contribution to the Senate Republican's campaign committee earlier this year-- apparently his first one ever.

It's yet another example where common sense gets a back seat-- or perhaps is left on stand-by-- to corporate CEOs and the lobbyists lining members' pockets.

Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) was aghast at Boehner's dishonable move! Hutchison:

"[I]t is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment on an FAA extension, and shut down airports that are being repaired and built in our country, jeopardizing an estimated 75,000 jobs, jeopardizing the certification of a major new airplane that wants to get out there and start being used, and an airport trust fund, an aviation trust fund that will lose over a billion dollars because we're not collecting the tax, and the airlines are pocketing the money by having a higher ticket charge, mostly, they may not all be doing that, but most of them are. And Mr. President, that's just not right. And we're gonna have to make that up because there are contracts pending that are gonna have to be paid for. It's not fiscally responsible and it's not honorable, and it's time for us to pass a clean extension of the FAA.

 

How Long Will Big Oil And Their Paid Political Shills Keep America In the Dark About A Viable Energy Future?

Since they pay so little in taxes and get billions in taxpayer subsidies, oil and gas companies have unlimited resources at their disposal to run annoying, misleading ads on TV brainwashing dull couch potatoes about their awesomeness. I immediately change the channel when any of them come on. The video above is a very different kind of clip-- and not one you're likely to see on American television.

The clip is about a town in gloomy Cornwall (southwestern England), Wadebridge, that will have a third of its energy needs met through solar, wind and other renewables in 4 years. Why there and not here? Here where we have all the sun and wind anyone could ever hope for. Well, remember those Oil and gas companies with all the money I mentioned above? They buy politicians to carry out their oily agenda the way you buy a paperback to read on a train or plane. Last week the League of Conservation Voters sent an alert out to their members that, as they phrased it so elegantly, "48 U.S. senators just voted to hand billions to greedy and destructive oil companies." That was Tuesday night and that was enough to block a bi-partisan majority from moving legislation forward meant to end $21 billion in tax subsidies for Big Oil over the next ten years. All the Republicans but Collins and Snowe voted the way the Oil companies pay them to vote. And all the Democrats-- except Oil whores Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich and Ben Nelson, who crossed the aisle to vote with the GOP-- voted to end the wasteful, budget-busting subsidies.

"These politicians," promises the League, "are hoping Americans won’t notice they are doing the bidding of the same oil companies who are raking in record profits by destroying our environment. They’re wrong."

Friday, Rinaldo Brutoco and Madeleine Austin, World Business Academy put the Senate's disgraceful shillery for Big Oil into context at Truthout.

The Congressional votes create a strong contrast between the US and other countries, including Germany, China, the Scandinavian countries, and most recently, Japan, who are leading the way to a new planetary fuel system that will replace oil and nuclear energy with renewable energy. In response to its nuclear disaster, Japan has renounced its plans to build new nuclear plants and announced it will redo its energy system "from scratch." Germany is using the Fukushima disaster as an opportunity to curtail nuclear power and boost its strong clean technology export sector. Other countries have curtailed or suspended their nuclear plans. But the United States, once a leader in science and technology that beat other countries to the moon, remains controlled by money politics, Big Oil, and climate deniers.

The oil industry is the most profitable industry in the world. US oil companies earn about $3 billion in profits every week, yet get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies every year. In the first quarter of 2011, Big Oil's profits were up 38% from the first quarter of 2010.

The industry's outsize profits didn't stop it from squealing like a stuck pig over proposals to trim $2 billion from its annual subsidies and use the revenue to reduce the deficit by about $21 billion over 10 years.

The oil companies tried to characterize the end of their subsidies as a "tax hike," despite growing and widespread recognition across the political spectrum that tax breaks are just another form of government spending, one of several ways to provide direct support for an industry. Before becoming Speaker, John Boehner (R-Ohio) admitted that "tax deductions, credits, and special carve-outs . . . what Washington sometimes calls tax cuts are really just poorly disguised spending programs …."

As a recent Washington Post editorial about such "tax expenditures" pointed out, "an astonishing amount of "spending"-- more than $1 trillion annually-- is accomplished through the tax code, by way of tax credits or deductions. But there is little conceptual difference between billions spent to directly subsidize particular programs and billions spent indirectly in tax preferences. Either way, it's money the government does not have, and that adds to the deficit."

The Senators who opposed ending the oil subsidies received 5 times more in campaign cash from the oil industry during their time in Congress than the Senators who favored ending the subsidies (on average, $370,664 versus $72,145), according to an Oil Change International and Public Campaign Action Fund analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Who’s benefiting from the US oil industry's taxpayer subsidies? Certainly the oil companies' CEOs. Last year the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, the 4th largest US oil and gas company based on market capitalization, was near the top of a list of the median pay for top executives at 200 major companies. Occidental's CEO took home $76.1 million, up 142% from the year before, despite a majority "no" vote by shareholders on his pay package.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson earned $21.7 million in 2009-- 12 times more than the $1.8 million earned last year by the CEO of the Norwegian energy company Statoil, which is 2/3 owned by the Norwegian government. Tillerson’s pay was "more than double the combined $8.3 million that Statoil paid its nine top executives in 2010." [The comparisons are based on the most recent pay figures available.]

The average American pays a higher income tax rate than ExxonMobil, which is the most profitable Fortune 500 company for the 8th year in a row.

This week Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) gave the Republican weekly radio address. CNN reported that she called for changes to the country's energy policies that exactly reflect the demands of Big Oil. In fact, she sounded exactly like one of the paid ads they run-- which in effect, she was. Not that you'd know that from CNN or any other media coverage.

"We have vast resources under our land and we need to safely explore and develop them to have a stable energy supply for our consumers and our economy,” she said. ... [I]n her address, Hutchison chastised the Obama administration for “seeking to impose more regulations and taxes on oil and gas companies.”

“This is placing our own valuable resources out of reach and stifling job creation-- their proposals will actually increase pain at the pump,” Hutchison said.

The Texas Republican also singled out the six-month offshore drilling moratorium imposed by the Obama administration following the April 20 explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, lamenting that the drilling freeze continues to negatively affect the energy production industry.

“While companies were forced to stop operations, they had to continue paying to lease lands they were prohibited from using. Leaseholders sat idle for a year, losing valuable exploration time through no fault of their own,” Hutchison said.

Obviously Hutchison didn't mention that she's received $2,141,025 in legalistic direct bribes from Big Oil-- more than any other sitting senator except John McCain, who pulled ahead of her only because of his presidential run that Big Oil was so aggressively behind. I can understand why Hutchison would want to mislead her listeners by not mentioning it. But what about CNN? Wouldn't you think that just maybe they would find it relevant to their reporting? Or are they worried all those annoying, misleading ads will be pulled?

This morning Russ Baker published a piece at WhoWhatWhy explaining the background-- sickeningly-- of why the Senate couldn’t even pass a measure that timidly taxes Big Oil.

As I discovered in researching the background of the rise of the Bush family for my book Family of Secrets, so much of the unknown origins of political intrigue—from the strenuous lobbying effort to get the freshman Congressman George H.W. Bush appointed to the House Ways and Means Committee as a freshman, to John F. Kennedy’s political problems, to even Watergate-- could be ascribed in part to the oil industry’s urgency for protecting tax breaks. Sometimes, the tax breaks have been the most important part of the industry’s profits. The most recent, defeated bill, sought to get rid of a number of loopholes and advantages.

One of the key provisions in the bill concerned the oil depletion allowance. The allowance permits firms to recover their “capital investment-- the costs of discovering, purchasing, and developing the well-- over the period the well produces income.” The senate bill did not propose getting rid of this highly attractive allowance, only modifying it so that the five biggest companies could not use a formula called “percentage depletion,” in which “total deductions could (and often do) exceed the taxpayer’s capital investment.”

So-- get this: all the Senate Dems were doing in the area of the depletion allowance was trying to keep just the five biggest companies from deducting more than their actual capital investment. They weren’t trying to get rid of this long-controversial depletion allowance, and weren’t trying to prevent any other oil companies from deducting more than they spent. Amazing! And this tepid measure still didn’t pass. (Of course, there were other provisions, including trying to block oil companies from sneakily reclassifying royalties paid abroad as “taxes” so they could deduct them domestically-- a tax connivance on par with the depletion allowance in its one-sided benefit for the industry and harm to the greater good.)

And the sickening part I promised? Flip over to Russ' blog to read the sordid history of Big Oil in contemporary American politics... if you have the guts to hear the truth.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Doesn't Want To Be Teabagged-- Announces Retirement

Kay Bailey Hutchison is a down-the-line mainstream Texas conservative. Her ProgressivePunch lifetime score on crucial votes is 4.23, exactly tied with Oklahoma reactionary Tom Coburn. Her record is further right than GOP Establishment vice presidential top choice John Thune (R-SC), further right than John McCain's (11.46), Richard Shelby's (6.31) and John Ensign's (5.30), among others. She scores perfect zeros on issue after issue important to delusional teabaggers-- from education, the anti-UN mania that has swept the GOP again and gun-nuttery to the unfair tax policies favoring the wealthy that the Republicans and teatards love and beating up on public employees and their unions. She has a record any reactionary imbecile should love. But this morning, despite a 58% approval rating among Texas Republicans, she announced that she's not running for reelection. On her Facebook page she wrote that "the last two years have been particularly difficult, especially for my family," referring to the knee-jerk teabagger attacks against her.

Having lost a horribly divisive primary against teabagger secessionist (and ex-Democrat) Rick Perry, she had every reason to believe that she could be the next William Bennett (R-UT), who was deposed by his own state's radicals for not being "conservative" enough, even though he's extremely conservative. Having watched Lisa Murkowski lose the Republican primary in Alaska against nihilistic extremist Joe Miller and Mike Castle lose the GOP primary in Delaware against embarrassing circus clown and former witch Christine O'Donnell, she probably thought she would be better off bowing out gracefully. Jim DeMint already had one of his teabagger lunatics, Michael Williams, in the race against her. Below is a video of Hutchison speaking with a gaggle of teatard morons, the kinds she would have to face for the next year if she decided to run:



Here's some astute analysis from PPP's Tom Jensen on what this means to Republican incumbents:

Hutchison's approval rating with Republicans on our last Texas poll was just 58%. To put that number into some perspective Lisa Murkowski's approval with Republicans in January of 2010 was 77% and Mike Castle's in March of 2009 was 69%. They both started out in a much better position against their Tea Party opposition than Hutchison would have, and they both lost anyway. A poll we conducted in September of 2010 found that only 25% of Republicans in Texas would support Hutchison for renomination to 62% who preferred a 'more conservative' challenger. It's doubtful Hutchison really would have lost by that sort of margin, but she certainly would have been in deep, deep trouble had a Tea Party challenger emerged.

The fact that someone like Hutchison who has generally been among the more popular Senators in the country and has always won by wide margins has been at least partially pushed out by the Tea Party is indicative of a new reality for Republican Senators- pretty much no incumbent is safe if these folks decide to target them. Among GOP Senators up for reelection next year we've found a 71% approval rating for Arizona's Jon Kyl with Republicans, a 53% approval rating for Maine's Olympia Snowe with them, a 74% approval rating for Massachusetts' Scott Brown with them, a 59% approval rating for Nevada's John Ensign with them, and an 84% approval rating for Wyoming's John Barrasso with them.

With the exception of Barrasso every single one of those folks has worse numbers with Republicans than Murkowski did just seven months prior to losing the primary, and most of them have numbers pretty comparable to where Castle's were as well. Now obviously not every single one of these folks is going to draw a viable, well funded Tea Party opponent. But if they do any of them could be in a lot of trouble- there is pretty much no Republican incumbent immune to a challenge from the right these days and Hutchison evidently saw the writing on the wall and got out. Not saying that's the only reason she retired but I'm sure it's a piece of it or else she would have made this decision a long time ago.

With Hutchison out of the race, don't look for DeMint's teabagger to become the favorite. Elizabeth Ames Jones, like Michael Williams a railroad commissioner, was already in, as was ex-Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is likely to jump in and would probably be the front-runner when he does, although the same could be said for Attorney General Greg Abbott or Hutchison ally and Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.

The Republican primary is probably the de facto election, since Democrats are so conservative in Texas that they couldn't inspire any progressives to bother voting and conservatives know which party is theirs. The three most likely conservative Democratic Party sacrificial lambs are ex-Comptroller John Sharp, ex-Houston Mayor Bill White and just-defeated ex-Waco Congressman Chet Edwards.

In Texas, At Least, The Tea Party Mask Falls To The Ground And What We Find-- Oh Noes!-- AN UGLY REPUBLICAN

Last week Aaron Blake wrote in the Washington Post what everyone in Texas already knows, that Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of the most conservative members of Congress, could be facing a tough primary challenge in 2012-- from the right. He speculated that she might not even run again, although conventional wisdom Inside-the-Beltway is hat she's addicted to senatorial prerogatives and wants to stay on in Washington.

Hutchison was on the wrong end of a bruising, lopsided primary loss in March to Gov. Rick Perry (R) in which she saw her sterling public image take a big hit. Perry, who began the race as an underdog in the minds of many, nailed Hutchison over her vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout and her ties to Washington. He wound up beating her by more than 20 points.

...State Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones and former Secretary of State Roger Williams are both actively campaigning for the seat, and several other candidates are threatening to run regardless of Hutchison's announcement.

Among the undecideds are a number of well-known candidates, including wealthy Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams and, potentially, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.

Dewhurst would be formidable because he would instantly be financially competitive due to his personal wealth and already has a cultivated statewide profile (he was just elected to his third term as lieutenant governor with 63 percent of the vote). He also has the luxury of taking his time to make a decision because of his high name identification and money.

At the same time, he's not regarded as a great candidate, and because he is part of the establishment, he wouldn't bring the tea party, insurgent-type profile that was so successful in the 2010 Senate primary season.

The candidate that fits that bill the best would appear to be Michael Williams. But Williams, like other tea party candidates, could face a funding problem, which is even more deadly in such a big state.

Williams is widely regarded as DeMint's boy. And yesterday's Hill ramped the story up a notch: Texas Conservatives Target Hutchison. Texas teabaggers claim there are over half a dozen teabagger extremists who are frothing at the mouth to take her on.

In the gubernatorial primary, one of Perry’s most effective tactics was to paint Hutchison as too far to the left for the Texas GOP. Her vote in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) proved Perry’s trump card. His campaign tagged the senator with the moniker “Kay Bailout Hutchison” and successfully branded her as a Washington insider. She lost by more than 20 points. 

“The way that primary unfolded tells you all you need to know about her vulnerability if she runs again,” said Republican strategist Mike Baselice, who suspects Hutchison is leaning against a run. Baselice was Perry’s pollster in 2010.

Wright said the state’s Tea Party movement sees Hutchison as a relatively easy target. He named Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams as an early favorite of the group. Wright said Williams appeared at more than 150 Tea Party gatherings across Texas and “is saying all the right things” to activists. Williams hasn’t made a formal announcement.

In the hopes of making herself more palatable to the far right, Hutchison, one of the Senates' biggest earmarkers, flip-flopped and signed on to the earmark moratorium and has vowed to oppose the DREAM Act she voted for in 2007. And she'll be crowing about voting the 100% bigot line this week when she screams "faggot" at the gay men and women serving in the U.S. military as she casts a vote against repealing DADT and tries desperately to reclaim the anti-gay mantle teabaggers are demanding.

A few weeks ago John Cornyn, Texas' other Republican Senator and head of the NRSC, manfully stepped up to the plate and told Jim DeMint he better stop undermining conservative GOP incumbents in favor of radical right sociopaths like Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller and Sharron Angle. DeMint laughed in his face and redoubled his efforts to drive Hutchison out of the Senate. Texas doesn't have a viable statewide Democratic Party and the GOP could nominate Benito Mussolini and win.

Getting the message, Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn? These nuts will drag you down. Plus final election thoughts

You might have thought there was no more unimpeachably conservative senatorial tandem than Texas's Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Ha! To the Lone Star Loons, they're practically socialists.

by Ken

As I've pointed out a number of times, the fact that tomorrow's elections offer hardly any races of national electoral significance isn't going to stop the Village media mavens from reading all sorts of significance into the results. And does anyone doubt that by this Wednesday -- hell, by about 9pm ET tomorrow, the Village idiots, getting their talking points from Teabag Central will be fulminating about how everything is changed and that madman Obama must repent of his wild socialistic ways?

Of course they won't spew the straight Teabag Line, which is that there is almost literally no such thing as being "conservative enough," unless you happen to have James Dobson's hand up your butt working your mouth. Which reminds me --

DID YOU HEAR THE LATEST FROM THE LONE STAR LOONS?

My God, you can't make this stuff up. The Texas ultraloons, of course, are backing that dimmest of dim bulbs Gov. Rick "A Man, A Plan, Great Hair" Perry for reelection over his expected primary challenger, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and are now in a tizzy over the, um, "revelation" that one of two men whose credentials were passed on to the White House by both Senator Hutchison and the state's other Republican senator, John Cornyn, to be the new U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas is gay!

According to Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman, Robert Pitman, currently a U.S. magistrate in Austin, "is highly regarded in legal circles. In a recent bar poll, lawyers rated him the most competent judge in Travis County."

Apparently this bit of wingnuttery goes too far even for Big John Cornyn, a man clearly unused to taking potshots from his right flank. Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin is quoted by Gillman commenting: ""A person's sexuality has no bearing on his qualifications for a job. ... It's just not even remotely considered." Yes, that's John Cornyn's spokesman

They're so far a little mushier in Senator Hutchison's office. Spokesman Jeff Sadosky said, "Senator Hutchison made her recommendations based on the merits of each individual's qualifications and their abilities," but wasn't prepared to say whether the senator knew that this one of her recommendations is gay.

Mind you, the senators can't even be said to have "nominated" Pitman to the job. He's simply one of two applicants they passed on to the White House with their approval. But, as Gillman reports --

Tim Lambert, president of the Texas Home School Coalition, a former member of the Republican National Committee – and, like nearly all prominent social conservatives in Texas who have picked sides, a Perry supporter – called the recommendation "very unusual and disturbing."

"I suspect that a lot of Republican primary voters would find it interesting that Senator Hutchison would make that recommendation," Lambert said.

RACE TO THE CENTER

So no, the Village idiots won't be going quite to the Teabag-Pure Right. No, they'll be going where they always do, reflexively: for a group hug in the magical, mythical Center, which is pretty far right, but not quite that far.

New Jersey

Of course, assuming -- as the recent numbers are suggesting -- that New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine squeaks through in his reelection bid, the lesson would seem to be otherwise, since Corzine's public values remain rather consistently progressive. Meanwhile his Republican challenger seems ever closer to indictment. Blue Jersey's Huntsu reported Saturday that something very like an evidence trail appears to be developing to back up the general supposition that as U.S. attorney Chris Christie made a special practice of illegally leaking politically damaging information about Democrats.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Anyone who's considering voting for Chris Christie, in a state that doesn't have a lieutenant governor, should insist on a clear statement of the gubernatorial succession rules covering all contingencies -- for example, if he's indicted after being elected but before taking office, and whether he's required to resign as soon as he's indicted, etc.

[CORRECTION: As commenter Devin McCullen points out, beginning with this election New Jersey voters are electing a lieutenant governor. So the person I'm suggesting prospective Christie voters should be focusing on is his running mate, Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno, their all-too-likely next next governor. (Thanks, Devin!)]

Virginia

Meanwhile in Virginia, surely the collapse of Creigh Deeds's gutless, misbegotten gubernatorial campaign suggests the opposite of the Village Conventional Wisdom. Deeds was so busy running as far right as his little legs would take him that we never got a chance to see whether a campaign built on principled progressivism would have had a better shot at unmasking the Republican candidate, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, as the theocratic right-wing zealot everything in his career tells us he is.

There is some forlorn hope that the widespread disilllusionment with Deeds among Virginia Democrats won't produce the ultimate disaster: the sweeping in of some unusually toxic down-ballot sludge, starting with the GOP candidate to succeed McDonnell as attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, an exponent of "natural law," whose idea of natural law seems to be the sum of his massive far-right bigotries and prejudices. Cuccinelli is so extreme as to have roused the slumbering Washington Post into editorial an editorial declaration that "As attorney general, [he] would be an embarrassment to Virginia."

In the case of Cuccinelli and some of the other down-ballot GOP horror shows, one can only hope that masses of Virginia Democrats can rise above their appropriate ennui regarding the governor's race, and don't wish to reward the hapless Creigh Deeds with their votes, to at least take a stand against the riffraff below.

Virginia extra-credit question

Would Virginians be better or worse off if Mr. Moneybags, Terry McAuliffe, had succeeded in buying the Democratic gubernatorial nomination? Discuss.

FINALLY, IN THE LGBT RIGHTS RACES . . .

The late numbers come in are frankly alarming. It's always dangerous to underestimate how much damage all the right-wing money and religious hate-mongering can do. There are too many people who can too easily be persuaded by propaganda that it's their civic duty to vote down someone else's basic rights -- and too many people who think it's just fun to do so.

#

Texas Republican Civil War Officially Kicks Off

No one is surprised, of course, that thoroughly conservative Kay Bailey Hutchison, has officially entered the Texas gubernatorial race against far right extremist and secessionist incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry. This morning she was out for blood.

“Now he's trying to stay too long-- 14 years, maybe longer,” Hutchison said. She accused Perry of leaving the state with record-high property taxes, spiraling debt, excessive school tuition and dropout rates and the largest number of uninsured children in the nation. “Ten years is enough. We can do better."

“We need results, not politics. And that starts with term limits for Texas governor. For any governor, eight years is enough,” Hutchison said. “We can’t afford 14 years of one person appointing every state board, agency and commission. It invites patronage. It tempts cronyism. And it has to stop, now.”

Hutchison, who has served Texas in the Senate since 1993, promised “a clear, conservative vision for the future of Texas,” focusing on fiscal discipline, education, transportation, healthcare and government reform.

The three-term Republican also promised her party would change its ways under her guidance, growing instead of shrinking.

“For the last decade, the Republican Party in Texas has been shrinking. We’re losing elections we used to win easily,” she said. “As Republicans, we can continue down the road of shrinking majorities. Or we can inspire, unite, and grow our party.”

Texas has no campaign finance rules and this contest is likely to be one of the most expensive non-presidential primaries ever fought in history, eating up tens of millions of dollars in right-wing money that would otherwise be deployed against Democrats. Hutchison's pending resignation from the Senate will also kick off a vicious battle for the special election to fill that seat.

Saturday Jim McKinley took a look at the GOP rifts in Texas at the NY Times. He reminds his readers that Perry is an "ideologue whose recent flourishes include expressing sympathy for secessionists and supporting a failed effort to add a 'choose life' logo to license plates. Perry himself calls the battle against Hutchison "a civil war-- brother against brother."

Mr. Perry’s opponent is Kay Bailey Hutchison, the state’s senior senator. On most issues, Ms. Hutchison is also a steady conservative hand, but her tone is more moderate, her positions on social issues are more nuanced, her votes on government spending are more pragmatic.

...“I do not want a governor who is going to narrow our base, make it dwindle,” Ms. Hutchison said in a speech this week. “That is what has happened at the national level, and that is not going to happen in Texas.”

“I will work to build the Republican Party,” she added, “not make it narrower. I am for Ronald Reagan’s big tent.”

Elected to the Senate 16 years ago, Ms. Hutchison, now 66, has wanted for a long time to be governor. She pulled out of the governor’s race in 2006 only after several major Republican donors persuaded her that Mr. Perry would not run for a third term.

Mr. Perry, 59, denies he ever made such a promise, though some Republican donors now supporting Ms. Hutchison insist he did. In any event, the bad blood has made it impossible for party leaders to head off a primary fight this time around, several prominent Republicans said.

Ms. Hutchison argues that Mr. Perry’s aggressive courtship of conservatives has alienated moderates, independents and minorities. The party lost all the state’s major metropolitan counties in the presidential election last year, an ill omen for the future, and its majority in the Texas House has shrunk to a single seat.

The senator has the support of a handful of people who helped put George W. Bush in the White House. She has also attracted the support of Republicans with deep pockets from Dallas and Houston who backed Mr. Perry in the last two elections.

Some of those people fear that the rightward tilt of the state party organization leaves an opening for a Democrat to win back the governorship for the first time since Ann Richards captured it 19 years ago. Others say Mr. Perry has not done enough to cut taxes on property and businesses.

Mr. Perry, on the other hand, enjoys strong support from evangelical leaders and the voters who usually turn out heavily in the primaries: members of antitax groups, religious conservatives, creationists, foes of abortion and a variety of other Texans opposed to big government.

Kinky Friedman, who ran as an independent last time, is running as a Democrat this time. It's likely that other Democrats will jump into the race as well. Meanwhile, did you know that red, red Texas has the highest property taxes in the whole US? I wonder how long it would take for them to quintuple if the state actually goes ahead and secedes.

Will Texas joke Gov. Rick Perry name a wingnut foe of public schools (and avowed Obama-hater) to head the State Board of Ed?

Texas gubernatorial dim bulb Rick Perry -- having it all

"All things come to those who wait."

-- old saying

"She wrote in her book that sending our children to public schools is 'throwing them into the enemy’s flames even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.' ”

-- TFN Insider, quoting rumored Texas SBOE chair nominee Cynthia Dunbar (right)

by Ken

Is Texas Gov. Rick Perry having it all or what?

Sure, he faces the formidable roadblock of a fellow Republican, popular U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, threatening his reelection -- and bringing to her primary challenge the unfair advantage of a measurable IQ. But otherwise, things are going just great for our Rick.

* First it was former Illiois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, with all that fancy-pants Democratic hair (like Democrats know how to do hair!), getting himself into all that trouble and eventually getting thrown out of office, leaving no doubt about who has the Loveliest Gubernatorial Hair.

* Then Princess Sarah, governor of the only state bigger than Texas, up and abdicated her throne, and there went the most credible challenge to our Rick as the Dimmest Gubernatorial Bulb.

We're so accustomed to thinking of these people as figures of fun, objects of derision, that we may lose sight of the harm they have the power to do -- for example, the power to mess with the minds of our children. At the moment my Texas colleague Vince Leibowitz (of the blog Capitol Annex) is sounding the alarm about the possible appointment of a certifiable wingut loon, an avowed hater of both public schools and one Barack Obama, to chair Texas's State Board of Education.

Vince directs us to a post on the Texas Freedom Networks' TFN Insider blog (see the on-site version for links):

Could it get any worse? Could someone who despises public education soon be heading up the board tasked with managing the Texas public school system? Well, the buzz suggesting that Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, may be the next chair of the Texas State Board of Education is growing louder, writes Hearst Capitol bureau reporter Gary Scharrer for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.

Look, we were under no illusions when the Texas Senate wisely rejected the confirmation of Don McLeroy as board chair in May. We knew Gov. Rick Perry would likely choose another member of the board’s far-right faction as chair (even though there are other far more responsible conservative Republicans on the board). After all, the far-right faction represents his electoral base, which he will need in his re-election battle next year.

But surely even the governor realizes that choosing an extremist like Dunbar would be almost inconceivably reckless and irresponsible. Dunbar has clearly expressed her loathing for public education in her book One Nation Under God, calling public schools a “tool of perversion,” “unconstitutional” and “tryannical.” She has also personally rejected the public school system, home-schooling her children. In fact, she wrote in her book that sending our children to public schools is “throwing them into the enemy’s flames even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.”

Just before the November election, Dunbar also authored a vicious Internet rant in which she called Barack Obama a terrorist sympathizer who wants to seize total power by declaring martial law. In another Internet screed, she charged that Obama is promoting Marxism by calling for “shared sacrifice and social responsibility.” (Not surprisingly, both essays have been removed from the Web sites that published them.)

By appointing Dunbar, Gov. Perry would be sending a clear message that he shares Dunbar’s extremism and her contempt for education. He would be putting his political fortunes ahead of the education of nearly 5 million Texas schoolchildren. In short, such an appointment would be a shocking betrayal of all those children and their families.

Vince adds:

Needless to say, if Perry does this, it is part of his ongoing campaign to govern Texas solely for the amusement of one million Republican Primary voters who will likely decide between Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison next March.

Perry’s got to shore up his rightwing base, and a Cynthia Dunbar appointment would no doubt earn him a lot of points in that camp.

#

Who's Most Likely To Hide From The Press During The Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings?

My guess that those with the most to lose from a bitter battle over the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor are Republican Senate candidates, especially the ones in states that have a lot of women voters, moderate voters and Hispanic voters. That would be... all of them. Of the dozen states with the biggest Hispanic populations, only two-- New Jersey and New Mexico-- don't have Senate contests coming up next year. The others, along with their Hispanic populations:

California-- 12,146,508
Texas-- 8,269,407
Florida-- 3,300,333
New York-- 2,881,409
Arizona-- 1,711,429
Illinois-- 1,533,767
Colorado-- 918,899
North Carolina-- 571,307
Georgia-- 563,450
Pennsylvania-- 514,386

As Manu Raju mentioned in Politico today, "voting-age Hispanics represent about 29 percent of Texas’ population." Kay Bailey Hutchison is trying to transition from the Senate to the governor's chair-- and she's out ahead of the secessionist incumbent, Rick Perry, in the polling. But first she'll have to vote on the confirmation. Does she try to out-pander the secessionist or does she hope there are enough mainstream voters left willing to vote in the Texas Republican primary that it's worth voting to confirm? The Burnt Orange Report went over her dilemma earlier today. Are Republican primary voters of the same mind as Tom Tancredo who is, clearly out of his mind? Along with Hate Talk radio, Fox-News, Rove, and a tiny handful of deranged extremists, Tancredo is the face of the opposition to President Obama's nomination. This is what he told Rick Sanchez on CNN this afternoon: "If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino-- it’s a counterpart-- a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." Jesus... this is what the Republican Party has come to!

Florida's Governor Charlie Crist doesn't have to vote for or against but he's being asked what he'd do by every reporter he comes in contact with. His far right opponent, Marco Rubio, isn't going to be accused of being anti-Hispanic for taking a Limbaughesque obstructionist position. Crist is between a rock and a hard right place though if he wants to persuade moderate voters and women voters that he's not going to go to DC and turn into another GOP zombie.

In Missouri Claire McCaskill has been forthright in her praise for the nominee: "She has accomplished great things in her life through the all-American values of discipline, hard work, and integrity. I'm especially glad she has experience as a courtroom prosecutor and a trial judge. There hasn't been a person with more experience nominated in decades. She will be a terrific Supreme Court justice." But it's the other Missouri seat that's open and it pits right-wing extremist congressman and tax-cheat Roy Blunt against Secretary of State Robin Carnahan-- who's way out ahead in the polls. Carnahan is likely to echo McCaskill on this while Blunt is more in tune with Limbaugh. His statement to the press, as he prepares for a tough primary battle against former state treasurer Sarah Steelman who is even further from the mainstream than Blunt. Basically, he's just a corrupt douchebag. She's a fringe maniac, who bills herself as a "Sarah Palin with a brain," and her campaign website looks like it was written by Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter. She's pointing her followers to this post from the Ayn Rand Center regarding the Sotomayor nomination.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, recently nominated for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by the retiring Justice David Souter, is unqualified to become a member of the Court. Why? Because her judicial philosophy explicitly rejects objectivity and impartiality.

In a 2001 speech titled “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” she declared that “the aspiration to impartiality is just that-- it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact” that “our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.” Elsewhere in the speech, she noted that judges are typically unable to “transcend … personal sympathies and prejudices” and that “gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” “There is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives,” Sotomayor said.

Referring repeatedly to her “Latina soul” and “Latina identity,” Sotomayor rejected the view often expressed by the Court’s first female Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, that “a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.” On the contrary, Sotomayor said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

This is a blatant endorsement of subjective emotional decision-making, which has no place on the Court and will swiftly corrupt what’s left of its integrity. The Supreme Court has a solemn duty to interpret and apply the Constitution. That is an intellectual task requiring ruthless objectivity-- which, contrary to Judge Sotomayor, is not an illusory “aspiration” but a requirement of justice. A conscientious judge strives to banish all emotional influences from the decision-making process. But here is Judge Sotomayor declaring herself helpless to resist-- indeed, even welcoming-- the influence of personal intuitions that cannot be grasped or shared by persons of another gender or ethnicity.

She makes Blunt look almost mainstream in comparison: "The most important issue when considering a Supreme Court nominee is their judicial philosophy and whether they are an activist who would attempt to legislate from the bench, or a jurist who respects the authority of the Constitution. This nominee offers proper professional credentials and a compelling life story.  However, her view that judges should make policy raises a huge red flag. The U.S. Senate should neither pre-judge or pre-confirm, but thoughtfully, thoroughly and rigorously examine the record of this nominee to our nation's highest court." Remember, I said almost.

And then there's Blanche. Back to Politico. They point out that she's a top target for the NRSC, although the party doesn't have a serious candidate to run against her. They don't mention that working people and unions are starting to coalesce around the Green Party. What they do say is that "she is certain to hear the argument that Sotomayor’s positions fall outside of the mainstream of voters in her state. She could be given cover if Republicans join in support of Sotomayor; if not, she will certainly face enormous pressure from Republicans in Washington and back home to join in the opposition." And given the fact that she is easily the least courageous member of the Senate, a corrupt hack with no convictions about anything other than re-election, she'll go whichever way the pressure pushes her. What an embarrassment for Arkansas-- and they have two like this!

Rush To The Gutter:

The Crazy Adventures Of Texas Secessionist Rick Perry-- And His Georgia Allies

Forget about all the rumors that Texas secessionist Gov. Rick Perry is another GOP closet queen. What's buzzin' in Austin this week isn't the latest siting of Perry stumbling out of Charlie's onto Lavaca Street but the nasty turn in his re-election bid. A top Perry campaign aide told the Dallas Morning News that Kay Bailey Hutchison had turned the GOP into a whorehouse. Perry refused to apologize.

But the odd thing is that no one was talking about how both Kay Bailey and Perry are absolutely notorious for taking big money campaign donations (i.e., legalized bribes) and then delivering to their special interests benefactors no matter how badly it hurts their constituents. People who wonder why KBH is always voting with the banksters need look no further than her FEC reports that show what a cozy relationship she has with the finance/insurance/real estate sector. Her $4,685,238 in "donations" from these crooked special interests was higher than any other Republican senators other than McCain (who got the dough because of his presidential campaign), Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $5,013,778) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN- $4,685,238). And they always get their money's worth.

But the Perry campaign called her a whore because they claim she's so inclusive that she wants to let voters who support stem cell research into the party! Perry, on the other hand, is another lockstep lemming type Republican looking for country club purity for his shrunken version of the GOP. Most Texans haven't been impressed with his secessionist credo but he seems to have gotten the KKK Republicans in Georgia all worked up and hot under their collars. Four of the 6 reactionary Republicans running for Governor of the Peach state are running on a secessionist or quasi secessionist platform. One of the Democrats in the race, David Poythress, a former commander of the Georgia National Guard, calls it disgraceful and pointed out that "none of these Republican secession candidates ever wore, for a single day, the uniform of our country, ever carried a weapon, or heard a shot fired in anger. Not one ever put their life on the line to protect our freedoms and liberties. But they recklessly call for secession from America. They would, in effect, ban the American flag, and end the Pledge of Allegiance. They would say to the world that when they don’t get their way, they quit. That’s just childish. That’s cowardice, not leadership." Watch him; he makes a good case against these four neo-Confederate slimebags, all that's left of what was once, ironically, the Party of Abraham Lincoln:

Texas, A Three Party State

Some who don't follow Texas politics closely might have been puzzled by the news reported by Burnt Orange Report that Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison chose Democratic Senate candidate Bill White to confide her plans to resign from the U.S. Senate after September 1 to run for Texas Governor in 2010.

Her resignation on that date will trigger a May 2010 special election to replace her in the U.S. Senate.

Its not puzzling that White would want to know. He's already announced to run for her seat; what's puzzling is why Kay Bailey is confiding in White instead of any of the several Republicans who would like to have the news first so they can plan accordingly.

As Phillip Martin wrote on Burnt Orange Report:

Since we posted that tidbit, myself and one other writer on Burnt Orange Report have been told, by several sources, that White has been sharing this information privately from as early as January.

Those who follow Texas politics closely however know why KBH would be sharing her secrets with Bill White rather than any of her erstwhile partymates like Lt Governor David Dewhurst or Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Texas is a three party state. Has been since at least 2005 when numerous wealthy players gave up on the Texas Democratic Party as a viable host organism and began heavily funding "moderate" Republicans.

In 2006 a group led by former Lt Governor Ben Barnes heavily backed Republican turned Independent State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn in her run for Governor, leaving Democrat Chris Bell to twist in the wind.

Who's Barnes? This 2007 post from Burnt Orange Report is the best capsule summary of the man:

A power broker par excellence and charter member of the Me First school of self-centered politics, Barnes long ago stopped letting the greater good stand in the way of his own personal ambition or financial gain.  For him public service and partisan politics are all about which candidates can help him line his pockets-- period.

As Lt. Governor in the early 1970s, he fell all over himself to help a young George W. Bush escape dangerous military service and instead get a coveted spot in the Texas National Guard.  Then, Barnes spent the next quarter-century refusing to talk publicly (privately, he told anyone next to him on a bar stool who was willing to listen) about the favor his did for the Bush Family while first Pappy, then Jebby, then W. rose to power and did irreparable harm to the ideals Democrats like Barnes claim to hold dear.

Along the way, Barnes has repeatedly sold out his party and its principles when the price was right, which it often has been.  He kept quiet about George W.'s military service when Bush made sure that the lucrative Texas Lottery contract would remain his.  He has worked behind the scenes to keep good candidates out of statewide races by cutting off their funds.  And this year, he supported Republican-turned-Independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn over potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates-- including the eventual nominee, Chris Bell-- to safeguard his personal business interests, which include a major contract with the State Comptroller and controlled by Strayhorn.

Don't get me wrong.  Soulless lobbyists are commonplace in D.C. and in Austin.  It's just that most them don't simultaneously dictate Democratic Party decisions at the highest level, from Harry Reid to Boyd Richie.  Barnes does.

For background on Barnes here's a March 2009 feature on Barnes that ran in the Houston Chronicle after he got embroiled in the collapse of his client "Sir" Allen Stanford's ponzi scheme:

From the Sharpstown banking fraud that ended his political career to the current financial collapse of his lobby client Stanford Financial Group, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes has played a constant character on the stage of state and national scandals.

Through it all, Barnes has remained one of Texas' and the nation's most influential Democrats, even if it is mostly behind the scenes.

Barnes lives in Austin. He thrives in Washington, D.C.

Barnes is one of the top money-raisers for Democratic U.S. senators. He and his wife, Melanie, personally gave more than $600,000 to federal Democratic candidates and committees since 2004. Barnes last month donated $1 million to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

When the U.S. Senate was evenly divided early in this decade, then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle called Barnes the "51st senator."

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Schumer at a New York luncheon for 250 committee donors last year singled out only two fund-raisers with exceptional praise. Barnes was one.

The clients Barnes has represented before Congress have paid his firm $24 million since 1999.

Barnes has been a big backer of Kay Bailey throughout her career. Even going so far as to clear the field of credible Democrats for Governor in 2010 so all she has to do is win the primary against sitting Governor Rick Perry.

Bill White is the kind of Democrat that dances to Barnes' tune and in return he's got Barnes' support in the race to replace KBH in the U.S. Senate.

Bill White, while Mayor of Houston, has long practiced Barnes' style of post-partisan pocketbook politics, even doing a fundraiser for Tom DeLay in 2004 when DeLay was facing his first serious challenge from pioneering netroots candidate Richard Morrison.

At a time when Democrats were fighting against DeLay and trying to end his reign of terror, Bill White was helping him raise money against those very same Democrats and extend that reign of terror. Then, when DeLay finally fell, White hired his top district aide at taxpayer expense.

Now Kay Bailey and Bill White, who share a key fundraiser in Herb Buttram (White is Buttrams only Democratic client) are conspiring to put two Barnes allies at the top of the big marquee races in Texas in 2010. No matter what party wins, Barnes figures to be well represented at the highest levels of Texas politics.