StoutDemBlog

Friday, August 20, 2004

 
SIGNS OF DESPERATION:
Our local contest between two incumbent Congressmen, Democrat Martin Frost and Repugnant Pete Sessions has produced national attention to the usual Texas campaign sign wars, including Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and MyDD. Someone took some Frost signs and put them up at Sessions's child's school. Pete fumed, but Martin suggested this was a typical stunt for Pete's own campaign, pointing out that Pete had been stopped by the police two years ago for pulling up signs of his last opponent, Pauline Dixon. Karma does come back to you.
B.J. 11:43 AM

 
TRUE COLORS:
From Betty Bowers comes this dangerously revealing "Guide To Understanding Terror Alert Colors". (Thanks to As I Please.)
B.J. 10:55 AM

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

 
REMEMBER OKLAHOMA:
This week's profile of a Texas Democratic candidate is one of the Killer D's who left the state to oppose the Perrymander last year. Read about State Representative Scott Hochberg from Houston at Texas Tuesdays.
B.J. 9:11 PM

Thursday, August 12, 2004

 
LAUGHING AS TO WAR:
Here are two gems from McSweeney's, both thanks to Awnry Young Texan by way of Kevin Hayden at The American Street. Go smile at the whole things.

Ike Turner's
Guide to Restoring America's Honor.
OK, America, you done fucked up again. Things got a little out of hand, and you went and blew up another country. Now you got everybody all mad at you, and you don't know what to do. Well, don't worry, America. Ike's been down this road before, and I know exactly how to handle it. ...

Step 5
OK, you did it again. Now you done put Iraq in the hospital. Maybe it's time to do some soul-searching and find out if maybe the problem isn't with you. Promise Iraq that you're gonna try and get some help with your oil addiction and that you'll be a better country from now on.

Are You Another Vietnam?

2. Your increasing, unanticipated guerrilla resistance is freaking people out:
a) That is basically bogus.
b) Let's just say it keeps people on their toes.
c) Guilty! It's my worst trait.

B.J. 10:55 AM

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

 
THE WEB'S DELAY:
Due to hosting problems, this week's article about and interview with a Texas Democratic candidate wasn't posted until today. This time it's Hubert Vo, a Vietnamese immigrant running for state representative in Harris County. Read more about him at Texas Tuesdays.
B.J. 11:09 AM

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

 
URGENT ALERT FROM THE MARTIN FROST CAMPAIGN:

A group calling themselves The Coalition for the Future American Worker (CFAW), has bought close to $200,000 in ads on local Dallas television news stations attacking Congressman Martin Frost. The CFAW is a front group for an extremist organization named the Pioneer Fund. The Pioneer Fund is an organization devoted to the study of the differences between the races. They try to work under the guise of being an advocacy group, but they're eugenicists who believe that "whites are inherently more intelligent..."[New York Times 12/10/77].

This is the same group that already ran inaccurate and racially inflammatory ads attacking Congressman Frost in April. At the time local news station KXAS pulled down the ad for its inaccurate and irresponsible nature and the Dallas Morning News strongly editorialized against the attack ads saying, "Never mind that the ad is wrong on some facts. The piece is as racially tinged as those Willie Horton ads…"

This group's real agenda has absolutely nothing to do with real immigration reform and has everything to do with defeating the independent and moderate leader, Martin Frost. It is no coincidence that Pete Sessions has been awarded an A+ score by The Coalition in acknowledgement of their shared points of view.

Even Tucker Carlson, the conservative co-host of CNN's Crossfire denounced CFAW president, Dan Stein, saying, "There are reasonable critics of immigration, but Dan Stein is not one of them."

Please contact the following TV stations right now and tell them to stop taking the white supremacist money to run attacks against Martin Frost. Texans deserve better than to have their airwaves polluted by Washington DC shadow groups.

FOX- KDFW
Comment line: 214.720.3103
Comment email: viewersvoice@kdfwfox4.com

CBS- KTVT
Direct/Comment line: (817) 451-1111
Comment email: no direct email - use: http://cbs11tv.com/contactus/

ABC- WFAA
Direct/Comment line: 214-748-9631
Comment email: news8@wfaa.com

Authorized by Martin Frost Campaign Committee, 12817 Preston Rd. #136, Dallas, TX 75230
B.J. 2:50 PM

 
HEY, KETTLE....:

State Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting said Monday that he is disgusted that his national party has written Texas off as Republican and is urging financial donors from here to cut off the Democratic National Committee. ...

Soechting said he decided to start urging Texas donors to keep their money in the state after the DNC offered $5,000 to the Texas party to send staff to battleground states that could be won by the Kerry presidential campaign.

"I'm not sending a single person to another state when we have important races here. They want my best and brightest," Soechting said. "I've got people from the courthouse to the White House to elect." ...

[Kerry Texas director Geronimo] Rodriguez said Kerry is taking Texas seriously enough that there soon will be a campaign headquarters with a political director and a press secretary.

The key word, of course, is "soon". If they were serious they would have already opened one here. If they do, it will just be a center for their fundraising, to drain away our money for other states. But the state party here does the same thing to the local parties. If you want to help your local Democrats, the only safe strategy is to keep that money at home by giving it to the candidates directly. I'd recommend David Van Os at the state level, than Martin Frost for Congress and several other good local people (see the campaign links on the sidebar).
B.J. 10:04 AM

Monday, August 09, 2004

 
A HERO FOR OUR TIME:

This explosive new blockbuster reveals the truth about Bush's service in the Air National Guard, and puts to rest once and for all questions about his attendance. ...

Excerpts: "This one time we got in a whole mail bag full of absentee ballots for the guys on the base. George knew the guys were working hard to defend freedom and had a lot on their minds being away from their families and all. So without even being asked, he took it upon himself to fill out all those ballots for the guys and send them back in. That says a lot about his character. His first thought was for the guys. So don't tell me he won't support our troops and our veterans." --Pfc. Woody Johnson, AANG

Smile at the whole thing at "Alabama Mail Room Veterans for Bush". (Thanks to Ruminate This.)
B.J. 11:11 PM

 
WORD IS GIVEN:

Shaw and her son are two of a surprising number of Americans who speak a form of nonstandard English that linguists have dubbed "Bushonics," in honor of the dialect's most famous speaker, President George W. Bush. The most striking features of Bushonics -- tangled syntax, mispronunciations, run-on sentences, misplaced modifiers and a wanton disregard for subject-verb agreement -- are generally considered to be "bad" or "ungrammatical" by linguists and society at large.

But that attitude may be changing. Bushonics speakers, emboldened by the Bush presidency, are beginning to make their voices heard. Lisa Shaw has formed a support group for local speakers of the dialect and is demanding that her son's school offer "a full-blown up apologism." ...

Increasingly, members of the Bushonics community are fighting back. Lisa Shaw's Crawford-based group is pressing the local school board to institute bilingual classes, and to eliminate the study of English grammar altogether. "It's an orientation of being fairness-based," Shaw says.

Smile at it all at "Bushonics speakers strike back." (Thanks to Alan D. Williams.)

B.J. 11:07 PM

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

 
WHAT'S GOING ON WITH BLOGGER?:
Yesterday I couldn't log in to Blogspot at all, which is why the post below about Texas Tuesdays didn't go up until now. This morning it took many repeated attempts before I could get in, and now they ask for sign-ins and passwords multiple times. Temporary glitch, or an effort to get people to pay money for a premium site?

I know, it's free (though they run ads on my site, so they are getting something back). If they want to drop free blogsites altogether, I'll accept their decision and move to something else. But I really resent what's happening now, whether it's manipulation or just incompetence. If they finally make this site unreachable for me to post anything, so that there are no updates here for two weeks or more, email me at the address on the sidebar and I'll tell you where I've moved. They don't have a monopoly on free space, even if they act like it.

TWO FOR ONE:
This week Texas Tuesdays is featuring two Texas Democratic candidates, both for the legislature, Charlotte Coffelt and Wade Weems. You can find interviews and more info at the usual place.
B.J. 8:34 AM