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April 2009
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January 2008 ArchivesI got an email from a friend in New York last week, asking me for suggestions on good political podcasts to download onto his iPod. I had turned him onto Slate's Political Gabfest during his trip to Austin a few months ago, and he wanted more. If YOU want or need more politics to tune into during your drive to work, or on your jog around Lady Bird Lake, here are some of my faves. I hope you will share your favorites, too. Governor Rick Perry spoke for the first time about his office's questionable policy of deleting emails from its server after seven days. This policy was the reason for The Purge series, and The Purge: Part One inspired open government activist, John Washburn, to request several weeks worth of the governor's emails as a challenge to the policy. Because of the cost of the emails -- which are considered public records -- Washbur... Congressional candidate Larry Joe Doherty is getting out his 4th quarter fundraising totals ahead of the FEC website. His campaign says he reported $151,115 in the 4th quarter. The average donation size was $490.63. His cash-on-hand is $267,475. US senate candidate Rick Noriega joked about borrowing money from sitting Senator John Cornyn. Perhaps LJD has a few thousand to spare? ...Photog Todd and I visited a political science class today to hear what freshmen students had to say about the race for president. That's when our go-to political science professor, Brian Smith, brought up an interesting comparison. (You might recall he previously compared Hillary Clinton to "The Russian" in Rocky IV.) If you're a Cowboys fan, who do you back in the Superbowl - the Giants or the Patriots? Cowboys fans generally don't like either team. If you're an Edwards supporter, are Clinton and Obama akin to the Giants and the Patriots? State Representative Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, doesn't thin... Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn't been shy about his support for presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. But after placing third place in Florida tonight, Giuliani is expected to drop out of the race and back his longtime friend, US Senator John McCain, R-Arizona. So... if Rick likes Rudy, and Rudy likes John, does that mean Rick likes John? (That sounded like an LSAT question. Sorry.) The answer is unclear right now. "The governor will support the GOP nominee whoever that may be," said Perry spokesman Robert Black. "I haven't dis... As Austin City Councilwoman Jennifer Kim revs up her campaigning in the face of a re-election challenge, I have been confused for her at least half a dozen times. We don't actually look much alike. Then again, we are both Asian-American, and you know what they say about all Asians...
State Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, formally announced his resignation this afternoon, after serving in the Senate since 2003, and in the Texas House since 1995. He brought his father, his brother, his wife and his three young sons along for the announcement, because he says he is stepping down so he can spend more time with them. "There's a time for everything, and this is the time. A friend of mine called me and said, "What, are you in trouble?" And I said yeah, they caught me stealing. I stole some time from Shannon and the boys and I'm gonna pay it back to them," he said. He didn't shut the door o... Colin Strother is a campaign consultant for State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, who's in a primary race against newcomer Brian Thompson in her East Austin district. After I saw that Dukes advertised for canvassers, it was clear that there would be an on-the-ground campaign for the district. So I emailed Strother, asking how many volunteers signed up as a result of the ad. Strother responded and then some, and he never indicated at any point that he wanted to go off the record. Below is what he had to say in its entirety. Previously, I have summed up his comments or used a direct quote that he designated as ... State Rep Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, isn't the only candidate using CraigsList to find campaign workers. Congressional candidate Larry Joe Doherty is also advertising on trusty CraigsList. LJD is in a Democratic primary battle against Dan Grant for a chance to take on US Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, for his seat. We know Dukes is offering $8/hr, but LJD's ad says to call for compensation details. Hope it's a competitive rate, canvassers seem to be in demand. ...Here's a sure sign of a contested primary. An ad on CraigsList for campaign canvassers. Blogger Will found this craigslist ad from an "East Austin state representative"looking for campaign workers. Since there is only one East Austin state representative running a contested primary, it's clear said rep is State Rep Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin. Advertised job perks: ((Via >> Continue reading: HD 46: Eight Dollars an Hour, Not Bad 55 more young people are registered to vote in Travis County, after State Senator Kirk Watson's "Register to Rock" event Saturday afternoon. He hired a bunch of bands to play at Stubb's AND offered a chance to win two free tickets to ACL Fest for anyone who registered that day. If you were there and have pictures, please email me and we'll put em up. ...7:48pm: In ten minutes, President George W Bush will deliver his seventh and final State of the Union address, which we will heretofore call the S of the U. FUN FACT: For the money line ("The state of our union is…"), President Bush has never used an adjective less than "strong" or "confident." 7:53pm: Don't feel like sitting through the speech? Read some excerpts here. 7:56pm: Since the S of the U address is before a joint session of con... State Senator Kyle Janek, R-Houston, is expected to make his resignation announcement at 1pm tomorrow at the State Capitol. The official reason for his resignation? Family. I sure will miss Senator Janek's keen sense of style. I always found him to be an excellent dresser. His ties aren't as awesome as State Senator Steve Ogden's, but they are generally pretty awesome. ...It's State of the Union night! (As if you haven't already been reminded by The Place for Politics, The Best Political Team on Television, The Best Political Team in the World, The Best Political Team on Cable and every other crazy slogan on television.) Tonight I'll get my standard liveblogging meal of KFC to liveblog for you starting at 8pm. The speech will be on KVUE, the spin will be on every "best political place" on television you can find. As an added twist, I signed up for these crazy "lie detector" text messages that will be sending >> Continue reading: Get Your Bucket of Chicken Ready Looks like the Kennedy endorsement speech is getting to a late start. I'm watching the cable folks talk in circles with their guests...pretty painful. So far Teddy's 22 minutes late, and the count continues. ...It's the day before the Florida primaries, and Texas Governor Rick Perry is doing some last minute stumping for his candidate-of-choice, Rudy Giuliani. But the internets and the cable networks are busy with US Senator Ted Kennedy, who's about to make a big speech endorsing his candidate-of-choice, Barack Obama. The speech starts at 11:15am Texas time. Tune into any cable stations to watch it. I'm guessing CNN and MSNBC will be streaming it live, but I don't know for sure. ...US Senator John Cornyn's campaign isn't cash strapped. Numbers dropped by the campaign on Friday show Cornyn raised $1.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, and has $7.5 million cash-on-hand. Not a small amount of money. That's enough millions to run campaign commercials statewide for about six to seven weeks, unless advertising rates have dropped this year. By comparison, Democratic candidate State Rep. Rick Noriega's fourth quarter take of $405,000 looks small, but as we've seen in this presidential election, money can't always buy you love. But many times it c... The issue made for many a dramatic moment on both the House and Senate floors* during the 2007 session, and now, as expected, voter ID is back. The House Elections Committee, under the direction of State Rep Leo Berman, R-Tyler, will hold a hearing Friday morning to explore legislation to secure the vote and prevent voter fraud, perhaps by requiring more forms of ID to cast a ballot. Opponents, most of them Democrats, say requiring photo ID at the polls disproportionately affects the poor, the elderly and minorities - the most likely to lack photo identifica...
The Associated Press' April Castro is now a member of an elite club. The "I-got-slammed-by-Rush-on-the-radio" club. Last Friday, Castro's family in the small Texas town of Sonora (... TPIA requester John Washburn found a place to put the four days of email files he got from the Texas governor's office, which cost $568. Washburn describes it as "most of it drivel and dross, but others can now look for themselves and see if there is any "paydirt" in this chaotic, mash-up of data". ...
The latest issue of Austin's altenaweekly, The Austin Chronicle, hits newsstands today. It includes >> Continue reading: HD 46: Is "Craddick D" The Same as a Racial Slur? Finally, some actual emails released as a result of John Washburn's original request! God bless Star-Telegram reporter Jay Root, who has already combed through the four days worth of Texas Governor Rick Perry's interoffice emails requested by Wisconsinite John Washburn. Washburn did mail the CD of the emails to me, so I'll try to put them on an FTP server before the weekend. Some highlights from the emails released by the Governor's office, which were sent between November 2 to November 5, 2007: Emails about Ron Wilson...
If you've read this blog before, you know John Washburn. He's the software developer in Wisconsin who also thinks it's mighty important for the public to be able to see the process by which its elected officials make decisions. So he challenged the Governor's office policy of deleting emails from its server every seven days, and continues to fight for a change to this policy. (Stiles tells me the City of Houston, as an example, backs up all their city emails for two years, which Washburn has argued is a more appropriate time frame than seven days.) Anyway, I think I've found another John Washburn, ... I should do my part in drumming up anticipation for Governor Perry's soon-to-be-released emails, since a blog journey of mine inadvertently motivated a Wisconsin-based open government crusader to "mess with Texas" last November. One week's worth of Governor Rick Perry's office emails have been received by John Washburn in electronic format, just as requested. Of course, it cost him $611, which generous donors opened up their pockets to pay for, but so... Well, nevermind. That's essentially what Georgetown City Council said about a much-publicized proposal which would have required contractors hired by the city to offer proof that all their workers are US citizens. The council was scheduled to vote on the measure tonight, but after hearing public comment (mostly from opponents), council backed off. It decided instead to insert a clause in all future contracts that would require businesses to "comply with all applicable federal and state laws and local ordinances." He racked up a ton of Texas supporters, including Land Commish Jerry Patterson and AG Greg Abbott, but former US Senator Fred Thompson was never able to find his mojo on the stump. (Maybe because of persistent observations that he didn't care to be running for president in the first place.) Anyway, he's out of the running now. (I would have posted this earlier, but I was too busy trying to figure out what happened to actor Heath Ledger.)<... Larry Joe Doherty*, congressional candidate in the race for US Rep. Michael McCaul's seat, is hoping McCaul will vote to override President Bush's veto of SCHIP legislation tomorrow. (Probably not going to happen, but the Democrats are hammering sitting Republicans on their SCHIP votes every which way.) Here's some of LJD's letter: Dear Mr. McCaul, If you missed the SC Democratic debate tonight, you missed the best one of the series. My sitting through the 15,247 other Democratic and Republican debates this cycle has finally paid off. Watching this wonder of wonders on television makes all the other snoozefests worth it. If you missed it, this is basically what it looked like, only, for two hours long. Of all the debates I opt not to liveblog, it's this one!?!? I probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the madness tonight, anyway. The Democratic candidates are letting the attacks and rebuttals fly feverishly in South Carolina right now, and it ain't pretty. But debate anarchy is fascinating to watch. Edwards decides to join Clinton in piling on Obama, which I believe is a first in a debate. Clinton and Obama are going at it point after point, the audience is participating with loud applause and even once booing Clinton, and while I usually note HRC's yelling during debates, it seems every candidate... I'm off for the MLK holiday on Monday, so expect little to no bloggage. My friend Sudeep is in town to visit, and as we wander around Austin, the business journalist in him is telling me all about how economic indicators point to a serious recession (employment numbers are no good already, and they're on the decline. Yikes.) If you want to read about it, Sudeep and his colleague Greg blog all about what a recession could mean to you, right here. And q... You've likely read by now that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stopped in Austin for a photo op/tour around a hospital's cancer center with Lance Armstrong and former Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona. He insisted he's "not a candidate" for president. Well, technically, he said, "I don't know why you're asking me this question, I just said, I am not a candidate, couldnt be clearer." Then the AP learns he had lunch with the former campaign manager for Ross Perot's 1992 and 1996 third-par... In a post yesterday, I mentioned taking a closer look at the other Central Texas races and how last night's Democratic endorsement bonanza divided up among the candidates, but thanks to the Austin Chronicle's Lee Nichols, I don't have to. Meanwhile, props to my KVUE predecessor Lee McGuire, who is off breaking stories at our Houston sister station, KHOU. Mid-afternoon, L... The latest campaign finance reports are up and it looks like incumbent State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin holds a significant fundraising lead over her opponent, Brian Thompson. She raised $ 73,972.18 between July and December to Thompson's $11,272.98. But Thompson is quick to point out that Dukes' money comes from a who's who of Republican Speaker Tom Craddick's supporters. Hillco PAC - $10,000 Bob Perry - $1000 Brian Thompson, the political newbie challenging longtime State Representative Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, has picked up every endorsement from the gazillion Austin Democratic groups which actually made endorsements in a massive-endorsement-bonanza tonight.
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