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My mea culpa runneth over: Could I have changed DeLay-Babin history?

Ignorance seemed to sweep the state of Texas last night as all of the top right-right-wing candidates won the GOP primary for state offices. This include Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick who swept the top two offices. Fortunately, not all Tea Party candidates won the right to run in the November General Election. I speak specifically in the race to replace Rep. Steve Stockman, who gave up his office to seek the U.S. Senate seat held by John Cornyn.

Woodville dentist and former mayor Brian Babin defeated Tea Party mortgage banker Ben Streusand by a 58-42 percent margin. Streusand lives in Spring, a Houston suburb that is out of the district.

Babin lost two previous congressional races in 1996 and 1998 to original “Blue Dog Democrat” Jim Turner of Crockett. The GOP candidate for the 36th Congressional District of Texas, Babin, will face Democrat Michael Cole, a teacher at Little Cypress-Mauriceville in Orange County. A Libertarian candidate, Rodney Veatch, also will oppose the GOP and Democratic candidates.

The area in which CD 36 lies includes rural East Texas pineywoods, the area where I grew up. Longtime congressmen who served much of the area included colorful Democrats Charlie Wilson and Jack Brooks. Gerrymandering left out most of Jefferson County and adds GOP-prone areas of northern Harris County, home of Houston.

I lived in the area during the 1996-1998 Turner-Babin races and covered parts of both races for area daily newspapers. I found both men friendly and intelligent. I had been on the verge of a hot political story had I put more effort into it. “You gotta have heart,” as goes the song from “Damn Yankees.” At the particular time I didn’t have it.

I went to write about a rally for Babin at Cloeren Inc. in Orange. Pete Cloeren and his Dad had built a very successful plastics business. Unfortunately, he threw his politically-untested hands into helping finance the Babin campaign at the behest of Tom DeLay. A scheme was hatched that every Cloeren employee would donate to Babin the maximum $1,000 contribution allowed in congressional races.

DeLay was there at the rally I attended. I heard pols say that the Cloeren employees, each, all donated $1,000 of their own money in Babin’s name. I said: “Right! What bullshit.” I knew that was illegal and I knew it was about as likely as pigs flying that all the employees each gave $1,000 toward Dr. Babin’s campaign. Yet I was lazy, burned out, didn’t give a shit. Had I the time and the energy to go full force at this story as I had in later years chasing every cow pie that potentially entered the North Bosque River and the Waco city water supply, perhaps I might have changed the course of history with respect to Mr. DeLay. But I doubt it. I seriously, seriously doubt it.

In the end, well, we don’t know the end yet to the former bug killer, DeLay’s, saga. I do know from my time covering court cases that Houston appellate attorney Brian Wice — a sometimes legal talking head on TV — is still a guy I enjoyed hanging out with while awaiting a jury verdict. I say all that and add Wice is hell on wheels on appeals and he is representing Tom DeLay in “The Hammer’s” overturned conviction.

Babin and his campaign committee were fined $20,000 by the Federal Election Committee and paid $5,000 in excessive contributions. And now look at him. He’s the “Comeback Kid!”

That’s about as mea culpa as I’m going to get. I started off writing this thinking, “Well, at least we didn’t get Streusand if the GOP candidate wins in November.” But remembering my little lapse in doggedness, I feel even more that the 36th CD needs to elect Michael Cole.

 

 

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Tea Party slithers to a new low in its Mississippi ageism jihad

An answer to a bizarre mystery plaguing me is becoming clearer thanks to the Tea Party.

An old Navy friend in Mississippi, now an attorney, linked a story on Sunday about actions I found as worthy of head-scratching as well as despicable. It seems as if a Tea Party blogger and later, others, was arrested in connection with photographing the wife of senior U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R, Miss., inside her convalescent care room. Rose Cochran is bedridden, suffering from dementia.

Thad Cochran took office in the U.S. Senate in 1978, the year I processed out of the Navy in Mississippi. The state had been a large part of my military life. I had spent six weeks in “A” School at Meridian Naval Air Station, and two and a half years at the Navy Seabee base in Gulfport. Had I not decided to see what “Join the Navy and See the World” was all about I could have spent my entire time in Mississippi. But I transferred for a year to a World War II-era destroyer and rode it to various exotic destinations in the Western and Southern Pacific.

Although Mississippi was often derided then and remains slandered, I came to like the Gulf Coast. This was before casino gambling took over and the coast suffered the deadly and devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

I considered coming back to Mississippi after the Navy to live and work. I had friends there, after all. No mind that most were Navy people who would leave in a year or two, or who would be gone for months on end during deployment. While at home on leave — between leaving  the ship in San Diego and processing out with the then 20th Naval Construction Regiment — I met a young girl only a couple of years out of high school. I fell in love, or fell in love with the idea of falling in love. It nonetheless didn’t take but I ultimately moved back to Texas.

That is the origin of my half-lifelong interest in Mississippi. My interest coincidentally took place when the first two Republicans since Reconstruction — Old Miss cheering squad mates Cochran and Trent Lott — were elected to the U.S. House from Mississippi. The old cheerleaders also became Republican U.S. Senators with Lott eventually Senate Majority Leader, only to fall after praising the old Dixiecrat racist, reprobate Strom Thurmond’s failed 1948 bid for president.

Lott is gone and Cochran now is fighting the Tea Party for a return to another six years of the “upper” House. From what I can gather, it seems the photography of poor Rose Cochran in her demented state is part of the newest jihad from the ultra conservative Republicans. Although I doubt his fingerprints are anywhere near this, the hideousness can in part linked to GOP wonder boy Karl Rove.

It is Rove who has raised questions about the age of Hillary Clinton and her health. Clinton would be the second oldest president behind, by mere months, Ronald Reagan. Clinton would be 77 at the end of two terms.

That Rove raises the question is of no matter. It is a question that should be raised. The Dems raised the questions upon the candidacy of Reagan, Bob Dole and John McCain. Although signs and the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in Reagan came after his presidency, many wondered if he was showing signs of the dementia while in office.

As Americans continue to function in all sorts of endeavors while aging beyond what were formerly known as “natural” years, the question as to fitness will continue. It might not be always pleasant such as having the family “talk” about Grandpa giving up his car keys. What is not useful is the exploitation of age. And there is absolutely no place for the stupidity exhibited by those Tea Party geniuses who think it acceptable to sneak into the residence of an elderly, demented woman for a photo to harm the woman’s politician husband. If this is the message that Karl Rove is sending out, no matter how distorted the message, then he needs to shut the f*** up.

But I would suggest that for Rove in any event.

 

 

 

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World goes mad in Georgia. Stay away.

Oh. This can’t be good.

Lawmakers in Georgia have passed what the NRA calls “one of the most permissive gun laws in the nation.” Talk about permissive. The law, that Republican Gov. Nathan Deal intends to sign, would allow guns to be carried in bars and churches. The legislation is a virtual “Guns Everywhere Bill,” according to those who oppose it.

Okay, once more. I am not a gun opponent. I have owned guns for a good portion of my life. I enjoy target shooting, specifically, if it involves blasting the hell out of cans. Take that you damned polluters.

But — and it isn’t just quasi-liberals like myself or just plain liberal anti-gun people — many people believe guns should  just not be welcome in some places. Allowing guns in bars and churches is like inviting folks back into some Old West movie.

It doesn’t take a sociologist to know that the nation is politically divided at the moment. People who are getting hammered in bars may sometimes particularly get prickly when discussion of political issues get out of hand. Bar shootings are certainly not novel. The same goes for churches. Inflamed passions also may erupt when some preachers get on a tear and start calling a sinner a sinner and a who is a what’s it. Shootings in churches are not something that never happens. Even more is that true when someone has a bug up their ass about certain religious faiths.

Stay out of Georgia is on my agenda and should be on the minds of others as well.

Around my area, here in Southeast Texas, the big thing is promoting open carry of guns. We’re talking mostly long guns — rifles and shotguns, assault-type weapons — but maybe pistols too. The whole shebang locally started when a man who had a gun store in our local mall was detained by police for walking inside the mall to his store with a so-called assault rifle in plain view. Some nervous people made several calls on the man to police because he was exhibiting the weapon. That makes perfect sense in light of several mall shootings in recent years, both in the U.S. and in foreign countries. It wouldn’t have hurt anything if the man carried his rifle in a case, bag or box.

People thought nothing of it when, as kids, we would walk through town with our guns going hunting in the nearby woods. But that was then and this is now. I have thought that perhaps open carrying of weapons, as opposed to concealed carry, might make sense if you were in a frame of mind to pseudo-license handguns. I no longer think that is a good idea. Why? It’s partly because of seeing these men, women and children marching up and down the shopping area sidewalks carrying their rifles and shotguns. I don’t think it does anything other than upset folks. And when you have people with inflamed passions … well, see above in churches and bars.

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Welcome to Southeast Texas — Our bananas are armed, by God!

Note from Blogger man: Periodically, I feel I should let people know I have this bad habit of editing this blog once it has been published. And published. And published. Sorry, I am used to editing on paper and it’s just too much damned trouble to hook up the printer!

Hey Mr. Tally Man tally me — uh, an AK-47?

It is always entertaining when something locally that is not a disaster makes international news. Whether that something could have caused a disaster, maybe that is a different matter.

Police here in Beaumont, Texas, said on Feb. 8 “multiple concerned citizens reported that a man standing near the intersection of Highway 105 at the Eastex Freeway Service Road was armed with a rifle.”  Officers arrived just after 10 that morning to find an 18-year-old man “dressed in a banana costume and had an AK-47 rifle slung across his back.  The rifle had a drum magazine attached with at least a 50-round capacity. “

The young man was advertising for the grand opening of a local gun store called Golden Triangle Tactical. One must admit, that the spectacle certainly got the public’s attention from here in Texas to all the way across the pond. “Damned Pommies!” as my old Aussie friends used to say.

Whether the advertising stunt was dramatic irony on behalf of the shop owner, and most probably the Banana Boy, one cannot be certain. You see, the owner of the gun shop had been stopped by officers inside the local Parkdale Mall back in December while carrying what was reported by the media as an “assault rifle” on his back. Derek Poe, the shop owner, told police he was carrying the weapon to his store, which was then located inside the mall. The mall management had stated that guns were prohibited although no signs were posted, that is until after this incident made the news. Poe, decided to find a better location in which to run his shop.

Texas has no laws prohibiting openly packing so-called “long guns,” a fact that many gun advocates have wanted to make known through gatherings and marches with like-minded gun-toting Texans. Some are advocating openly carrying handguns in the state. The list of supporters include Sen. Wendy Davis, who won the Texas Democratic Primary on Tuesday. Davis will face Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott in November.

Beaumont police cited Banana Boy for violating a city ordinance that prohibits soliciting in and alongside roadways.  Poe was cited for disorderly conduct by police for taking a gun to his shop in the mall, so noted by “The Gun Report” on The New York Times website. The initial instance, Poe’s plight, has led to some marches around our area of folks both young and old slinging guns around their shoulders. This resulted in neighboring Port Arthur’s police chief to warn such protesters to stay away. The warning was given during the city’s Mardi Gras celebration last week. Whatever one chooses to make of it, two young women were caught up in a carjacking spree while stopped at a Port Arthur red light on their way to the Mardi Gras festivities Saturday evening.

Some may say that the Port Arthur Police Chief Mark Blanton has flawed reasoning for warning those who openly carry long guns. Blanton is concerned such displays of long guns might hinder people from reporting others toting around rifles or shotguns for reasons instead of exerting their Second Amendment rights. Other law officers worry that the public seeing others carrying long guns may disturb those who carry concealed handguns, and who do not know if the gun-carrying person is a nice fellow or mass murderer. Thus, there might be more shootouts at the O-K Corral, so to speak. All of such may seem reactionary police reasoning. But, now wait a minute.

Any crime reporting in Port Arthur would be anecdotal on my part. It sure seems a lot takes place listening to or reading local media. This especially since the town has hit the rocks economically over the past years, despite a boom in construction at local refineries and petrochemical plants. It seems like crime is rampant in Port Arthur. And most is so-called “Black on Black” crime. That is not unusual in the U.S., nor in Port Arthur. Unfortunately this isn’t rare since the town has an African-American population of 40 percent and 36 percent white, followed by Hispanics, Asians and other ethnicities.

The point is, those folks who drive the main highways through “the PA,” will likely see black people. And I just wonder what these gun advocates, mostly white, would feel seeing wave after wave of assault-rifle toting young black kids? Oh well, “we’ll just even out things,” some of the white gun-carrying folks might say. It doesn’t matter though. The point is, a bunch of gunfire in the streets is hardly a positive Chamber of Commerce-Convention and Visitor’s Bureau welcome.

Those who know me know that I am pro gun — to the point I like shooting them and I believe they have a place in our personal safety and culture. The encouragement of violence, by comparison, not so much. I like the fact we can carry long guns in our vehicles and handguns as well. I’ve often thought that perhaps openly carrying handguns would be safer than concealed carry. I am not so sure now. I do not like the vision of masses carrying long guns in our streets unless they are military folks or cops who are marching during a Veterans Day parade. And what will the (paying) neighbors say? A bunch of heavily armed people openly carrying weapons might be exciting for some silly Eurotrash who think they’ve landed into a Wild West show. But me? I prefer living in the not-so-wild, uh, West.

And, I think fruit wearing assault rifles around their shoulders and marching down the highways are just damned silly!

 

 

 

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And when all else fails, talk turns to Texas

Seems Texas is in the political news today. Nothing new. It shouldn’t be. I mean why should it, given this is the second largest state in population and the second largest in area? It’s two (smack) two (smack) two number two states in one.

Sr. Comadreja, a.k.a Sen. Ted Cruz, the Canadian-Cuban who represents the two-for-two state in the upper house was visiting here in Beaumont yesterday at the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum. The symbolism is not lost because the museum is only a short-short away from the gusher that started the modern petroleum industry. So, Cruz represents the “new” Tea Party face of the Republican party, but doesn’t want to shy away from that good ol’ awl money. Dana Bash of CNN was interviewing Cruz at the Boomtown, asking him about all kinds of insignificant matters. Such as Ted Nugent campaigning for Greg Abbott, Texas attorney general and candidate for the Republican nomination for governor.

Nugent said some things which are really not very meaningful when it comes to anything. Unless, perhaps you interpret ol patriotic, draft-dodging Teddy’s words as racist. But the media, mostly the cable news networks, have to pounce on these things. He called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and some other things which weren’t nice. When Abbott was questioned about the aging rock singer’s remarks, the GOP goober-natorial candidate for governor ran away from the media with both hands over his ears, screaming: “Nonononononon!!” All of that is pretty difficult since Abbott’s weird encounter, some years back, when a tree fell on him as he was jogging. I mean that is what insurance companies mean when they say: ” … act of God … ” That didn’t stop lawyer Abbott for suing the pants and just about everything else off the people “responsible.” Yes indeed, what a good Republican-stop-lawsuit-abuse fellow. As a matter of fact, Abbott continued to sue folks upon taking oath as Texas AG, especially suing the U.S. of A.

Perhaps for good measure, or Good Hair, Wolf Blitzer had old Good Hair himself on his program this afternoon. Gov. Rick Perry was hemmin’ and hawin’ about, whom else? Ted Nugent.

 “He shouldn’t have said that about the president, said Perry. “But we should be focused on what’s really important here.”

Whatever that might be.

 “Ted has said some pretty outrageous things … ” I do have a problem with somebody calling the president a mongrel.”

“That was a ‘subhuman mongrel!’ ” Wolf reiterated.

Yeah, well. A few free minutes of watching the “news” after an exhausting day all shot to hell by the “subhuman” elite of Texas politics.