If you are not the highest ranking official in any meeting, you are subject to being the scapegoat when it all falls to shit. (See George Tenet)

If you are the scapegoat, a tell-all book is step 1 on your road to redemption. Plus it just feels good. (See George Tenet)

[CNN]

Some crazy asshole tried to blow up the Austin Women's Clinic Health Center in South Austin. What the hell kind of world are we living in when even the blue state of Austin is hit by such insanity/inanity?

Senator Rep. Juan Garcia joined the chorus of legislators upset at some errors in a report detailing gifts accepted by outside sources. "Blasting a message like this out that's now viral all over the blogs is disheartening to those of us committed to addressing the invisible hand wielded by the lobby over the members. I thought we were on the same side of this problem."

Those damn blogs. If only the legislators themselves were this quick to notice when they made an error and then fixed it with the speed and efficiency as the Texans for Public Justice did! Can you imagine? No. Me either. But, on the bright side, Senator Garcia knows what viral and blog mean.

Quick update: the photos here totally kick the above photo's ass.

About half of all men and women are infected with HPV at some point in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency recommends that girls get the vaccine when they are 11 or 12 so they will have immunity before they become sexually active.

HPV Causes 93 percent of all cervical cancer in women. [About.com]

The overall (all stages combined) 5-year survival rate for cervical cancer is about 72%. [Cancer.org]

There's an article about state lawmakers taking trips funded by lobbyists in today's paper. No one gives three shits about it, because everybody does it, no one is going to vote to change it and it's boring. But, Rep. Mike Krusee R-Williamson County is quoted:

You, sir, are an ass. This quote ought to be the main plank of the Republican Party's platform. People (the voters) may disagree with us, people may be be critical of our policy positions and initiatives but we will not be deterred from our stubbornness, blatant disregard for the will of the people we were voted to represent.

Basically, I'm entitled to do whatever the hell I want to do once I'm elected and the rest of y'all can just suck on it. I would suggest Rep. Krusee take a class in "class" and civic duty before he shoots off his big mouth again with such a doozy of a quote. [Statesman]

Man: It's not my fault the guy was a fucking idiot... It may have been my fault that I told him, though.

Overheard in the Office.com
New Street Station
Birmingham

Wal-Mart can now be blamed for the recent layoffs at Circuit City and the closing over hundreds of electronics stores across the country. The reason? They're forcing suppliers to give them the lowest price on high demand items like flat panel televisions. Wal-Mart is a phenomenon that invites harsh criticism. Sure, they offer deeply discounted prices on a variety of craptacular products, but they leave devastated communities in their wake.

How? The electronics market meltdown is just the latest. The first were mom and pop retailers, then regional retailers, then grocery store chains (including my favorite, Winn-Dixie) and so on and so forth. Additionally, Wal-Mart receives tax concessions to enter a small town then hires part-time employees that are not provided with health insurance and use county services putting a burden on the county budget, etc. Fun, huh?

What does this have to do with politics? Everything and nothing...it just pisses me off.

The Senate voted to overturn Perry's HPV campaign, seriously jeopardizing his campaign contributions for Merck. Oh, and also condemning many young girls to cervical cancer and death. But, you know, whatever. Dead teenage girls don't vote anyway.

The House passed the Mary Denny bill tonight, 76-68. Rep. Anchia condemned the sponsors of the bill for the inability to identify one instance of someone impersonating a voter. He said it was a pig...a pig with lipstick...then he gave up on that analogy and just said it was really bad.

Speaking of really bad, Mark! I mean The Honorable Mark Strama what the hell was with your suit today? Did you borrow it from someone that shops at JCPenny's? Maybe it just didn't come across on camera very well, but it certainly wasn't tailored to fit. You are so not getting best dressed this year. At least you know something about voting and GOTV and how to prevent fraud. Too bad I was apparently the only one that heard you...even chuckling when you pointed out that what's her face couldn't table your amendment, the members decide that. BURN!

The stink of this bill can be smelled across the state.

Update: passes 76 to 68 to engrossment, with 3 who apparently forgot how to use their voting machine.

And Rep. Brown just gave a shoutout to Mary Denny. We miss her, too.

P.S. The comment and links pages are FINALLY fixed. Comment away with fast page load times back.

The Associated Press gives a good overview of the scandal plagued Bush Administration. Theme: Loyalty versus Competence.

Sheryl Crow was apparently offended at a dinner when she felt Karl Rove was rude to her. Uhm, if you are an invited guest to a formal dinner it is not the appropriate time to heckle people on the staff of your host. As much as Karl Rove makes me shudder, I have the upbringing to know walking over to his table at a black tie dinner to call him a douche is highly inappropriate. Jeers to you Sheryl.

I rented a Hummer and drove through fields of wildflowers. You?

The United States has issued a travel advisory for parts of Mexico. Drug violence (especially around Nuevo Laredo) is once again out of control. The travel advisory comes as emboldened traffickers have posted written death threats against government officials and their families – attaching them with ice picks to the bodies of murder victims, U.S. and Mexican officials said. Ok, WTF is wrong in Mexico. If drug dealers/cartels or whatever murdered an 'official' in America and put a death threat to other 'officials' on his body with an ice pick don't you think that entire city would be swarming with every police authority we could bring to bear? Does Mexico have an army or anything? What are they doing these days, don't they have the time to run up there and do something? [DMN]

State Rep. Harold Dutton, was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated late Wednesday night. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Seriously, even I have the phone number for a taxi programmed in my Blackberry. [AAS]

Somehow he just doesn't fit the role.

[via ThinkProgress]

Yes, we do love Youtube. Mary Denny's voter ID bill, now being carried by Leo Berman, will be on the floor on Monday.

Did you know that Maryland is the most liberal, whacked-out state in the nation? Neither did I!

Complete Nutjob. (YouTube)

about the killings on a university campus. Clearly, a sad and tragic day for students, faculty, parents and community and one that in retrospect we will all learn something about security...or our complete lack of it.

The person that did this, with his manifesto and videos, was no martyr. He was schizophrenic or somehow else deranged. He should have had a lobotomy years ago. Maybe the real fault of our society is trying to mainstream people that clearly should not be mainstreamed. Anyone reading anything else into his message is crazy and should be poked with a stick until they become annoyed and cry.

If someone in your office came to you and said, "We have this new product we need to roll out. If we do it in May it will hit the budget at somewhere around $10 million. If we wait until November and roll it out with our regular Fall schedule it will only add a small incremental increase in the budget. Oh, the $10 million is not in our budget." What would you say?

The Texas Legislature says, "Whatever. It's not my budget, it's someone else's. Just do it. We'll be able to sell it as a tax cut!" Once again, irresponsibility comes to mind.

I especially appreciated the tone that Travis CountyClerk took with the legislature.

Yesterday the state affairs committee met, as they do. Sue Richardson spoke as a witness reprezentin' the good members of Texans for Responsible Government, for the approval of (get ready) HB 127, HB 38, HB 291, HB 904, HB 905, HCR 11, HR 97, and HB 2998 (any bill having to do with holding off illegal immigration). You can watch her here (if you have a RealPlayer, starting around 46 minutes in). In her spiel against illegal immigrants, she compares legal immigrants to jelly beans ("like our legal immigrants, we love jelly beans"). She keeps playing with jelly beans while discussing how our state is overly compassionate to illegal immigrants from Mexico, and how they are responsible for the downfall of the American empire (I exaggerate slightly): they drink all our water, steal our spots on the beaches, etc. It gets better, though.

The best part of all is when Ms. Richardson surmises that the illegal immigrants are going against God's commandment not to covet and that coveting (covetousness?) is the reason so many immigrants come to America. Now here she truly loses me. Even though I know the words to certain "Jesus Christ Superstar" numbers, I'm no Biblical scholar. HOWEVER - I always thought G-d was talking about not coveting your neighbor's hot wife/husband/slave/donkey, not "coveting" the American way. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I was on the state affairs committee, at this point in her speech I would have been stifling my giggles . . . and hungry for jellybeans.

David Ritcheson was flung into the national spotlight when he was attacked at a party in Houston. You may remember the Mexican-American teen that was 'sexually assaulted with a pipe' and beaten and burned with cigarettes. While the attack was a brutal reminder of the brutality that exists today, it was also labelled as a hate crime.

Young Ritcheson will testify before Congress in the hopes that uniform and harsher hate crime laws will be enacted. Personally, we'd rather address why we as a nation encourage and tolerate hate in the first place. Why do we fuel it with inflamed rhetoric? Why does even the most benign political issue turn into a shouting match?

Maybe Patrick Rose will carry this legislation here in Texas. Didn't somebody beat him down because he is a *cough* Democrat? That's kind of like a hate crime.

We here at PinkDome are going to make an effort to offer you the latest in Internet gadgetry: something called "YouTube," which offers online "videos" - basically moving pictures with sound. Revolutionary!

So to keep us on our toes, please let us know whenever something good happens in the Lege - whether it's in committee or on the floor of either chamber, we'll try to capture it for posterity and your amusement. Don't be shy, now.

Here's PinkDome's YouTube user profile, so you can peruse all four of the videos we have online so far. Four!

The advertisements were the root of our slow load time on the site. I have since removed them altogether. Sorry it took me so long to figure it out and then to fix it. Well, you know, as sorry as someone like me can be about something as stupid as this.

Muah.

Now in YouTube format so all can enjoy.

Photographic representation of Whitmire v. Patrick on the Senate floor today:

The DC Madam has named one of her regulars, a military strategist responsible for the shock and awe campaign. We always wondered how they came up with that name, who knew it was someone's response when told what the hourly rate for a night with Tiffani cost?

SB 439 is absolutely the most ridiculous piece of legislation this session. It all stems from the mother that has completely refused to acknowledge her child is terminal and can no longer be helped by agressive treatment. No other hospital is going to take the case, and doctors and ethicists do not decide to stop treatment if there is a chance people will survive. The Texas Legislature stepping in with SB 439 is absolutely inappropriate.

Since the University of Florida voted against giving Gov. Jeb Bush an honorary degree because of his anti-affirmative (wouldn't that make it negative?) action legislation, the Florida legislature passed a bill requiring the U of F education building to be called the Jeb Bush College of Education [Think Progress]. Only in Texas Florida.

It's funny because it's true. (via freakgirl)

Why don't we all just move presidential primaries to January 12th after the inaugural?

Long ago, I trumpeted the battle cry of the GOP. Rugged Individualism, Minimal government and, of course, no new taxes. These are the planks of the platform I admire. The focus shifted from reducing government waste and controlling spending and taxes to suddenly you're Mrs. Cravitz with your big fat nose in the personal lives of Americans.

The GOP became the moral police, all the while screwing young boys, raping the middle class, and extorting money from corporate donors. Now, as the federal level reaps what they've sewn with the shift in power in congress, Texas can't wait to get in on the act.

The legislation proposed this session, whether it is in regards to parental notification and waiting periods for abortion, or waiting periods for divorces, or the requirement for pre-marital counseling before the issuance of marriage licenses is a bit much. Last year the gays tried to warn you that the Republicans weren't just coming for the gays...they'd come after you, too. So, they are. The Republican party is coming to save you. You have sinned and the GOP is all that can make it right.

When did the party that used to tell everyone that the government is not your daddy become exactly that? What they don't realize is that we've already grown up and left the house.

The financial aid scandal doesn't affect me directly, but I'm always interested in the goings on in the finance industry. The finance business is full of the most shady, underhanded and deceitful cocaine addicts I've ever run across. The ways they can come up with the legally screw people over is a fascinating thing to behold. Their ability to cajole and misrepresent and walk around the truth is the skill Tom Craddick wishes he had.

What is also interesting to me is the greed of everyday Americans to fall under the spell of perks and gifts to do the things these financial aid directors are accused of doing. People tell me I'm too jaded, that I'm mean or that I don't trust people. It only takes you about fifteen minutes of seeing what's going on behind the curtain to make you realize you need to be out there kicking people's asses for the shit they are up to these days. Crooks and liars, every one of ya!

I suppose it's "old" news by now, but QR and a few other outlets are reporting that some Texas Ds are kicking around the idea of getting convincing Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes to challenge Senator John "I <3 Bush" Cornyn in 2008.

According to Capitol Letters, Barnes said:

"They're friends and they're Democrats and I what I said was that I wasn't going to issue a flat-out denial," Mr. Barnes said afterwards. "But I'm not making any calls. And I'm not doing anything. I'm just listening, OK?"

Remember the fire in Houston at that hideous building? It turns out that an LVN working for a cosmetic surgeon started the fire because she had not finished a project the doctor gave her. Whenever I've not been able to complete a project I usually just whine about it, starting a fire in the office has never occurred to me.

How do people have jobs that require critical thinking and then just one day become batshit crazy? Somebody ask Warren Chisum, I bet he knows.

Lewisville student suspended for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Uhm, if you are an American don't you, like, have to do this?

Ugh, time to start thinking about relocating! Dust-Bowl like drought and more heat in Texas because of Global Warming. Maybe we could all start living underground like moles.

Congressman Ciro Rodriguez let Katrina refugees tell him that the government has screwed them over. In other news, the sun rises in the East.

Gas prices up an average 18 cents. How does public transportation work? Anyone? Do buses stink? Can I work from home a couple of days a week? Is it wrong to ask friends for gas money when I earn more than twice than they do?

God may forgive us our transgressions more easily than we forgive each other. Don Imus isn't pulling himself out of the firing line by apologizing and it made me think about the whole forgiveness/forget thing....as we leave Holy week I wondered what makes one person forgivable and another not? Besides looks. It's easy to forgive a good looking person just as it's easy to hold a grudge against an ugly one. But, that's not what I'm talking about here.

There's a saying, forgive but don't forget. I really think God does forget...He is not keeping score. No one sin is more heinous in His eyes than another. Christians (for the most part) believe that if you repent then all is well. Same thing with the way we expect people to apologize and then they go back on he air or Grey's Anatomy.

I think the issue I have will all of that is the sincerity of the apology. Do I really believe that Don Imus is sorry for saying the things he said? In his core does he believe it is wrong to refer to black girls on a college basketball team "nappy headed ho's"? What he did is not a sin, but it is a part of something more insidious...racial bigotry dressed up in a corporate white collar'd shirt.

Forgive. That's tough for a human to do, I'm glad it's God's job and not mine. Me? I'd just rather punch your lights, call you an idiot and then go grab a latte.

Cause he almost went boom last week:

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?"

You'll recall that during the fall election, former Rep. Rick "Haymaker" Green punched current Rep. Patrick Rose at a polling place in Dripping Springs.

Dude got off easy: a class C misdemeanor with a fine and deferred adjudication. So assuming he doesn't get in trouble for the next six months, the case will be dismissed. Which is plenty of time for him to find another Central Texas lawmaker to slug on the 2008 election day.

When we spend more time yelling at each other than having intelligent discourse, I'm done. When I have to rely on Geraldo friggin' Rivera to make sense, I'm done.

I'm terribly hungover and I can't find my pants. Entertain yourselves in the comments until I stop vomitting enough to read the news.

Unfortunately, legislators are not eligible. Staffers and interns that means you're still at risk! Deets in the permalink. (Statesman)

I know that PinkDome has limited the use of the term "douchebag" to Ben Bentzin, but I really think Sen. Dan Patrick is making a concerted effort to claim the retired moniker.

Yesterday, Imam Yusuf Kavakci of the Dallas Central Mosque became the first Muslim cleric to offer the daily invocation on the floor of the Senate. And this apparently made Sen. Patrick mad enough to stage his own little mini-protest by walking off the Senate floor before the prayer and refusing to return until much later. Sen. Shapiro, in whose district the Imam lives, responded by telling the Imam that his presence was appreciated by "28 of my colleagues on the Senate floor."

Patrick's reasoning?

"I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn't want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that," said Patrick, a freshman Republican from Houston.

Patrick later gave a short speech on the Senate floor in which he called Kavakci's prayer an "extraordinary moment" that underscores that America is a nation "so tolerant of others we bend over backwards to allow others to pray as they wish."

He pointed out that other countries would not do the same for Christians and Jews, who are observing Easter and Passover this week.

And is this really part of his platform for statewide office? I mean, being the candidate that refuses to listen to prayers in another religion about the mercy of God is a great way to paint yourself. Of course, being the candidate with the Gary Busey teeth* doesn't help either.

^thanks, anon.

From a tipster:

Oliveira's amendment (floor amendment #4) to SB 482 is a "sell-out" amendment: Dunnam cut a deal to get a coal plant out of his district if he supported this amendment, which allows (but does not require) PUC to review rates if a major district is charging more than 2 cents over the
average. But the language is permissive, so it doesn't make the PUC do anything. They are
selling it as a rate reduction... which would be about 1 cent savings, if that. The deal is that
it does nothing, it has no teeth, for several reasons, including so that Cohen and Noriega can
vote for it and look like they've done something for utility rates. Because... both of them have
conflicts of interests with this stuff: Noriega works for Centerpoint, Cohen's daughter works for
a utility company and her daughter supports her financially.

Read this email from a woman that testified before the House State Affairs Committee recently.

I was at the legislative hearing until 4 in the morning. They only allowed 4 pro-choice speakers before midnight. It was like a pro-life dog and pony show. No time limits on speaking. No one needed to speak to a specific bill or issue. Hours and hours of testimony by women who truly believe abortion ruined their lives.

Read the rest in the permalink

A member of the Capitol Crowd? If not, why fool? Join up and network away and get invited to happy hour and shit. If you work in the Capitol, lobby or otherwise are responsible for cutting ordinary citizens out of the political process you, too, should be a member!

Troll Chisum is at it again with HB1287 requiring all public high schools to offer an elective course on the Holy Bible. First of all, don't get me wrong here..I love Jesus, y'all. However, I do not believe there are this many qualified individuals to teach a class on the Bible as an elective in the public schools system. The Holy Bible has influenced literature, art, culture, societal mores, laws and even hate and bigotry. It's very important to know its influence. But, from what I see most people can talk about how the Bible has influenced all that but have no idea exactly how, so they get frustrated and say if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior you're going to Hell.

Mmmm, you cannot do that shit in public schools.

A little birdie has told us that last week, some crazy shit was happening in the Office of the Speaker of the House. Rumor is one morning last week the head of the tax division for the Speaker's office came in to find a paper bag of human . . . um, poo, waiting for her on her desk.

The punny title possibilities for for this post seem endless. Any other suggestions?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states do indeed have the right to sue the EPA in the event the state would be harmed by the excess global warming that would occur without EPA regulations. Basically, the Supreme Court said the EPA had to 'reconsider' not regulating CO2 emissions and their effect on global warming. The scientific community, the business community, state governments, religious leaders and the public at large are now in disagreement with the Bush Administration on global warming.

Oh, and by the way...it's global warming. A Republican strategist created the phrasing 'climate change' to make it sound less ominous.

Snoop wins in this clip from Dutch Television. Language NSFW!

HB 1750 and SB 875 require women and minors who get an abortion to give all kinds of personal information like "Who is paying for this abortion?" and "Did your daddy or uncle or brother diddle you?" and my personal favorite, "Who referred you to our clinic?"

If the patient gives incorrect information she can go to jail for up to one year...wait for it...so can the doctor! My answers would be "None of your damn business, perv!" And what if she says,"I'm not filling out this form!" can she still get an abortion? Since when is giving the name of which girlfriend gave you a clinic's name a requirement to getting an abortion! If the same person refers several young women to the same clinic can she qualify for discounts or bonus points of some kind?

Go ahead, put them in jail where they'll have their children at the expense of the state and be wards of the state..cause we all know what a bang up job they do with the kids!