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I finally unsubscribed from the Democratic Party’s mailing list today. Their automated system was kind enough to ask me why, so I composed the letter below. I doubt anyone will read it, so I figured I’d post it here.

First, let me be clear that my intention is NOT to take the wind out of anyone’s sail. If you’re enthusiastlically involved in the upcoming election, maybe it’s best that you don’t read this. But if you feel let down, allow me to commiserate:

It’s bad enough that our nation still uses the undemocratic Electoral College to elect a president. The delegate system knocks underdog candidates out of the race early by arbitrarily assigning a threshold that must be met before delegates are assigned.

Then there’s the staggered primaries, which deplete all but the wealthiest campaigns long before a nominee is announced. And there’s the fact that the public owns the airwaves, but the media hasn’t been required to give candidates equal time or even focus on issues since the Fairness Doctrine was overturned in 1987.

There’s black box voting equipment, which makes every vote tally suspect. There’s endless debates in which the “frontrunners” are chosen by powerful interests well in advance of a single vote being cast, and where substantive, detailed questions on issues of importance are the exception rather than the rule.

In all these things, our Democratic majority in Congress and the DNC itself have failed utterly to affect change. But still, I tried to have hope.

Then I found out that the Texas Democratic Party, my state party, no longer makes resolutions passed at the state convention a part of their platform. Having wasted my time and money being a delegate to two state conventions, I knew that resolutions were the only hope the grassroots had of impacting party policy. Yet, when I asked party chair Boyd Richie a direct question regarding this at a “Town Hall” meeting, he declined to answer and called for the next question.

I resigned my position as precinct chair, and spoke at length to two party operatives about my reasons, but no-one really cared. Still, I tried to have hope.

Then state parties, including Texas, started knocking candidates off their ballots for reasons completely unrelated to fair elections. In doing this, they deprived voters of the right to cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice. The DNC said nothing.

The DNC itself stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates to punish them like little children. Clearly, the delegates can’t be restored without new elections, because not all campaigns bothered to spend time and money in these states. My hope was waning, but I tried to hang on.

And then I found out about Superdelegates. How could I not have known about this this direct violation of democracy before? As it stands now, it looks like Hillary will be elected by fiat. And the DNC does nothing about this affront to voters.

I’m forced, once again, to vote AGAINST a candidate rather than FOR one. And even that pitifully miniscule little bit of voting power will be diluted by a system that prefers oligarchy to democracy. It hurts all the more knowing that Howard Dean, whose campaign was destroyed by these very same forces, (Well, ok… by the DLC. Same thing.) has apparently been absorbed into the Party groupmind.

Why should I support the Democratic Party when the party doesn’t support democracy? Sure, I’ll still support individual candidates. (That is, until the system finally manages to extinguish that last tiny ember of my belief that it even matters.) I still haven’t made a final decision as to whether or not I’ll vote for Hillary if she’s crowned. I’m thinking “no”. Maybe, if McCain wins, the Party will get a clue.

But I absolutely, positively can no longer stomach the propaganda that keeps landing in my inbox.

Evidence is now coming out that a former State Department official appointed by President Bush may have been involved in a scheme to sell nuclear weapons secrets to Turkey. While this has been largely ignored in the US press, it’s received quite a bit of attention overseas. In part, this is because Valerie Plame was part of the team investigating the case before it was abruptly shut down. As it turns out, Marc Grossman, the State Department official, is the man who originally circulated the classified document identifying Plame as a covert agent.

The White House has clearly been paying attention. On January 23rd, President Bush issued a press release announcing the proposed Agreement for Cooperation between the United States of America and the Republic of Turkey Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Despite the new evidence to the contrary, Bush says,

“U.S. agencies received … information implicating Turkish private entities in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation. … My Administration (is) confident that the pertinent issues have been sufficiently resolved and that there is a sufficient basis (as set forth in the classified annexes, which will be transmitted separately by the Secretary of State) to proceed with congressional review of the Agreement and, if legislation is not enacted to disapprove it, to bring the Agreement into force.”

Unless Congress acts to stop it, this agreement will go into force on April 21st or 22nd. It will provide all the cover needed to sell not only nuclear information and technology to Turkey, but materials as well. Let us not forget that Turkey aided A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani physicist, in selling nuclear hardware and information to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

I urge you to contact your Senators and Representative and ask them to stop the next round of nuclear proliferation before it starts… by killing this agreement. Thanks in advance for your efforts.

Here’s an email being sent around by supporters of the Iraq war:

Here’s a sobering statistic:

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths.

That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq .

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

Let’s assume for a moment that the statistics supplied are correct:

160,000 troops / 100,000 = 1.6

2,112 / 1.6 = 1,320 deaths per 100,000 troops

Versus 80.6 per 100,000 in DC

So, right away, one must wonder how this email continues to be offered by so many as support for their pro-Iraq war position. I mean, really, the conclusions are staggeringly wrong. But let’s see if the statistics themselves are correct:

The email says, “The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period.”

Acccording to the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, there were 35.4 murders per 100,000 DC residents in 2005 and 29.06 per 100,000 residents in 2006.

The email says, “There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths.”

According to GlobalSecurity.org, (and with a boost to account for the recent troop surge), the average number of troops in Iraq over the last 22 months is actually closer to 155,000.

According to the Iraq Coaltion Casualty Count, between 6/14/05 and 8/14/07, there have been 2,490 “field of operation” deaths among coalition troops. This includes troops who died in hospitals in Germany and the US. Of those, 524 were the result of weapons fire. Most died as the result of IED attacks.

So… There are 2 ways we could figure this:

1. 155,000 troops / 100,000 = 1.55524 soldier gunfire deaths / 1.55 = 338 deaths by gunfire per 100,000 coalition troops.
2. 2,490 total coalition troop deaths / 1.55 = 1,606 deaths per 100,000 coalition troops.

Now, my math isn’t great, but if my numbers are correct, no matter how you slice it, our troops would be much, much safer in DC than in Iraq.

(cross-posted to the Daily Kos)

On February 12th, 1999, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison gave a closed-door statement on her reasons for voting to impeach then-President William Jefferson Clinton. As you might expect, she listed perjury as a primary reason, but she listed many others, including a forceful argument for presidential impeachment without an indictable crime.

Early on she says, “I was reminded as well, however, that the laws of our Country are applicable to us all, including the President, and they must be obeyed.” I’ll assume that this includes laws dealing with government surveillance of civilians, as well as those applicable to outing an undercover CIA agent.

While describing Clinton’s deposition, she says, “…the Judge and participating counsel for the parties, either knowingly or unknowingly, formulated a definition of the meaning of the words ‘sexual relations’ to exclude certain forms of human contact that in their commonly accepted meaning would be included.”

And what of changing the words “covert operative” to exclude their commonly accepted meaning?

She goes on, “It was alleged, among other things, that the President coached, manipulated, and influenced false testimony of witnesses…”.

It is alleged that Vice-President Cheney did all this in preparation for the Scooter Libby trial.

“…engineered the hiding of gifts and evidence that was subject to subpoena…”

As opposed to Rove using the RNC email server so that a subpoena wouldn’t turn up evidence against him?

“While under oath before the Federal grand jury, the President gave perjurious testimony before the grand jury…”

Yet, when discussing the Scooter Libby trial, Senator Hutchison said, “…I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime…”

In her 1999 statement, Hutchison says, “…engaging personally and through his subordinates and agents in a course of conduct or scheme designed to delay, impede, cover up, and conceal the existence of evidence and testimony…”

Perhaps the Senator has forgotten that she engaged in that behavior herself, with the help of Karl Rove.

But then, my friends, Senator Hutchison makes one of the most interesting arguments for Presidential impeachment that I’ve read:

“I do not hold to the view of our Constitution that there must be an actual, indictable crime in order for an act of a public officer to be impeachable. It is clear to this Senator that there are, indeed, circumstances, short of a felony criminal offense that would justify the removal of a public officer from office, including the President of the United States. Manifest injury to the Office of the President, to our Nation, and to the American people, and gross abuses of trust and of public office clearly can reach the level of intensity that would justify the impeachment and removal of a leader.”

Well said, Kay.

I just got off the phone with someone from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. They were looking for donations, volunteers, or at very least, a signup for their mailing list. I refused to give them any of these things.

A few days ago, my brother tried mightily to get me to admit that Obama would win the presidency in 2008. I refused.

Why am I so obstinate?

First of all, the filing deadlines for running for President of the United States, which vary by state, are generally between September 2007 and January 2008. In other words, we still have at least another 7 months to see who comes forward to run. I’m not picking a candidate until I know who the candidates are. Reasonable?

Second of all, most of the candidates who have already declared are serving in elected positions right now. Rather than criss-crossing the country trying to appeal to black voters or the religious right, they should be doing their jobs. We’re in a critical political period, and we need all hands on deck. I am NOT impressed by people who ignore the public office they currently hold in favor of doing early campaigning for a higher one.

Third of all, pointless news about the presidential candidates is already obliterating coverage of far more important stories, and that’s wrong. We get precious little reporting on real news as it is.

However, since it seems that the candidates are bent on this whole “early lead” concept, (how quickly they forget Howard Dean), I ask just one thing. If you’re going to stump, at least pledge to do something instead of speechifying.

You can’t prove that you care about civil rights by waxing poetic on historical moments of the past. You prove it by telling people how you intend to reduce the unemployment rate among African Americans, or what you plan to do about the still-worrisome Patriot Act.

You don’t convince people that you give a damn about blue-collar workers by endlessly pointing out your parent’s blue-collar roots. You do it by listing the steps you’ll take to keep jobs right here in the US and to create new ones. You do it by pledging to re-negotiate our free trade agreements as fair trade agreements, thus stemming the flow of jobs overseas (and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants over our borders).

Lastly, you can’t ride Al Gore’s coattails on the environment by using phrases like, “Someday, our cars will run on hydrogen.” You convince people that you’re serious by promising to help fund the California hydrogen corridor initiative, making California’s fuel standards apply nationwide and promoting cool roofs.

I have no patience for speechifying. I don’t care how pretty your words are or how many emotional buttons you can push. Until you’re willing to tell me something concrete that you intend to do, leave me alone.

I’m a pragmatic sort. In the course of brainstorming what could be done with a President who won’t heed Congress or the people, I was reminded of the crowd that gathers in front of the Houses of Parliament at the end of the film ‘V For Vendetta’. Unfortunately, masks cost money and take some effort to order, meaning that most Americans will never get around to owning one. So I made a free printable version. More here.

‘US Hails Chile For Surviving Pinochet’

From the AP article:

The White House on Sunday marked the death of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet by calling his rule a “difficult period” and commending the country for establishing a free society.

Oh yeah, Chile, good job surviving that CIA orchestrated military coup. Sorry about the assasination of your ex-foreign minister by our CIA operative (who was also in charge of Pinochet’s notorious detention centers).

And of course, we feel real bad that our current president, George W. Bush (otherwise known as “Junior”) undercut your recent case against Pinochet because he wanted to protect his dad from being implicated.

When was that? Oh yeah, in September. But ya’ know, things move fast nowadays. That was a long time ago. So when Junior congratulates you on your ability to survive our government’s contribution to your history, give us a smile!

I’m crossposting this from my dairy at the Daily Kos.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Texas Republican Representative Henry Bonilla became the Chairman of the American Dream PAC in 1999. The PAC has had an amazing and checkered history.

The PAC’s website was taken down in 2002, shortly after their Executive Director/Treasurer Lydia Meuret was convicted of embezzling roughly $120,000. An LA Times article had this interesting quote:

“Had there been any checks or balances, it probably never would have happened,” she said recently, as she prepared to begin serving a 15-month prison term. “I would just write myself checks.”

Meuret was simultaneously the Treasurer for Republicans for Clean Air, a PAC that seemingly sprang out of thin air and ran ads in key states in 2000 against Senator John McCain. They depicted then-Texas Governor George W. Bush as friendly to the environment and McCain as a polluter, and were widely credited with swinging the Repubican presidential primary in Bush’s favor.

The PAC was funded by Sam and Charles Wyly, brothers, Bush Pioneers and tax evasion suspects. It had no street address or phone number. The only officer listed was Meuret and the PO Box, which was also used for the American Dream PAC, was registered to Meuret.

When McCain’s Deputy Campaign Manager filed an FEC complaint against Republicans for Clean Air alledging excessive contributions, failure to report a contribution, failure to register and report and exceeding the $25,000 annual contribution limit, Meuret sought to distance herself. The Washington Post reported…

“But Meuret said she knows next to nothing about Republicans for Clean Air, except the “consultant” who hired her and told her not to reveal his name. She added that a news release would soon be distributed ending the mystery of who aired the ads. Yet there was no announcement.”

The unnamed consultant was Jeb Hensarling, Meuret’s predecessor as Treasurer for the American Dream PAC. Hensarling has since become the U.S. Representative for Texas District 5 and was elected just yesterday as the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Since its founding, the American Dream PAC’s stated mission has been…

“Hard work. Strong families. Free markets. Individual liberties. The ideals of the American Dream form the foundation of our Republican Party. Today, the American Dream PAC is leading the charge to help minority GOP candidates across our nation implement these precious values.”

However, as the Washington Post reported in 2003, that mission was all but abandoned towards the end of 2000. That was when the last slate of minority candidates, featured on the PAC’s website, received their contributions.

Then, in 2002, Meuret filed a Texas Ethics Commission report claiming that the PAC had contributed to the campaigns of 3 more minority candidates. But did they? Those contributions didn’t show up in the PAC’s FEC filings.

Despite the scandals and the current lack of a street address, phone number, known board members or a website, the American Dream PAC continues to bring in more money every year. This year, their receipts (so far) have totalled $113,405, most of which has been spent. The largest PAC contributor has been the United Parcel Service PAC with $15,000, bringing their all-time contributions total to $35,000. UPS also gave $54,000 to Texans For Henry Bonilla.

Why would UPS drop $89,000, plus great photo ops on a single politician? I’ll leave that to someone else to figure out.

I’m crossposting this from my diary at the Daily Kos. San Antonio Express News columnist Carlos Guerra used some of my research in his column today.

The Texas District 23 House race is one of the few still to be decided this year. On December 12th, voters will choose between Republican Henry Bonilla and Democrat Ciro Rodriguez. Bonilla called a press conference yesterday (Dec. 4th) to accuse Rodriguez of ties to terrorists and to insinuate corruption. The charges were so ludicrous that, at first, only San Antonio’s WOAI was willing to touch the story.

But what of Bonilla’s record? During the 2004 campaign cycle, Bonilla accepted $1000 from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, as part of the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal.

Texans For Henry Bonilla received $8500 from defense contractor ADCS, the main co-conspirator in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal. Bonilla is on the House Defense Appropiations Committee.

In addition, Bonilla’s political fund, the American Dream PAC, received a $3000 contribution from ADCS in 2005.

Strangely enough, one of Bonilla’s largest 2005-2006 campaign contributors ($20,000) was… the American Dream PAC. Bonilla heads the PAC, and has done so since 1999. He awarded himself the highest contribution ever given by the PAC. (Tom Delay comes in second with half that.) He also used the American Dream PAC to give himself $5000 in 2002. I’m baffled as to why Bonilla, using the Texans for Henry Bonilla PAC, would donate $15,000 to the American Dream PAC, only to receive most of it back as campaign contributions.

The American Dream PAC was founded to provide financial assistance to minority Republican candidates. However, since Bonilla has taken over the organization, most of their contributions have gone to non-minority candidates, Tom Delay’s defense fund, the Texas GOP redistricting fiasco and an embezzlement scheme for which one of their former treasurers was convicted in 2003.

Other interesting American Dream PAC and Texans For Henry Bonilla contributors include Enron, convicted felon Jeffrey Skillings, Arthur Andersen and Reliant Energy, all of whom contributed in 2000-2001 during the time that they were colluding to game the California energy market, leading to its collapse. Enron’s last contribution was made 2 weeks after the SEC investigation into their dealings began, and a mere 3 days before Kenneth Lay announced that Enron had overstated its profits by $586 million.

Given that the FEC says Texans For Henry Bonilla has had 5555 individual contributors, I’m sure I could find much more than this, but my time is limited. Regardless, the facts above show clearly that Bonillas in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Tomorrow morning, voting for the general election begins. I’ve been blockwalking and handing out voter and candidate information for the past week. I’ve spent the last couple of days in very poor Hispanic neighborhoods, all of which are in the biggest Democratic stronghold in my county.

Yesterday, a man saw me approaching and shouted, “Keep on walkin’!”. I explained that I was just handing out voting information for Democratic races. “Ok.”, he said. “I guess I’ll take some of that.” After I handed him a flyer, he said, “I ain’t talkin’ to NO MORE Republicans!!!”. I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I just laughed and said, “I don’t blame you!”.

Today, I walked up to a man sitting on his porch and realized too late that he had a shotgun across his lap with his finger on the trigger. He took the flyer I was holding out and saw the word “Democrat”. Then he let go of the trigger. In a mixture of Spanish and English, he asked me about the info on the flyer. In my terrible Spanish, I explained things as best I could and he thanked me.

Then he said something in Spanish about a dog. Since I clearly didn’t understand, he said in halting English, “Big dog. Careful. Slow.” I turned around to find a massive rottweiler calmly regarding me as it apparently waited for a command. I thanked the man and left the yard in the most non-threatening manner I could manage, wondering to myself why this man felt the need to be so over-protected.

We saw many yard signs for a local Republican candidate, Rudy Galindo. At first, we didn’t go to those houses, but then we discovered that the residents didn’t know Galindo was a Republican. The signs were there because “a man” had asked if he could put a sign in their yard, and some people agreed out of politeness.

At another home, an elderly woman cowered behind her screen door while she asked me what I wanted. Again, I explained that I was handing out voting info for the Democratic party. She let out a sigh of relief, smiled and opened her door. After I went over everything with her, she asked meekly, “Can I ask you about some things?”. “Sure!”, I answered.

She asked if she’d have to use an electronic voting machine. If so, she didn’t want to vote. She’d been told that the machines were confusing and that she’d probably make a mistake. A friend had said that mistakes couldn’t be corrected. I explained that they could, and how.

Then she said that she couldn’t vote anyway. She explained that “Republicans” had told her friend that voters had to have a special plastic card to vote, and that all she had was her voter’s registration. I told her that she had everything she needed, and what other forms of ID to use, if necessary.

I have no problem with Republican volunteers covering the same ground that I have. That’s their right. But there seemed to be a lot of fear and misinformation out there, and if it was spread intentionally, that’s just plain wrong.

UPDATE: Rudy Galindo was running against Democrat Diana Guerrero for the District’s Justice of the Peace (JP) judgeship. On election day, Galindo’s brother (Randy?) went to the polls where the race was on the ballot and verbally harassed the volunteers holding Guerrero signs. Despite this, Guerrero held onto her seat.

In addition, a Democratic Court of Appeals candidate won her race by the percentage of straight ticket voters that we were able to turn out in the neighborhoods I blockwalked. I feel particularly good about this, because it’s concrete evidence that my individual efforts paid off. One person can make a difference!