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insights Archive for: May 2007
We Need A People's Candidate
posted by snarko2 on May 21 2007
Have you heard any of the rumors going around about potential Democratic candidates to challenge John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate in 2008?
Well I have, and I don't like what I'm hearing. The Washington Beltway Insiders are trying to pick a candidate to run against Cornyn on the basis of their ideas about what the people of Texas need and want, and -- surprise, surprise -- on the basis of who has or can raise the most big money.
John Cornyn is a supporter of Bushite tyranny who needs to be taken out for the good of the people of this state, for the good of the whole country, and for the good of the Constitution that he has so repeatedly dishonored by being a lapdog for the Bushites' attempts to stuff our rights and our heritage into the trash. But I'll be damned if I want a private club of wealthy Beltway-centered elite deciding who the Texas Democratic nominee will be to carry the people's banner against Cornyn. And I'll be double damned if I want the choices for the people of Texas to be decided by the power of money rather than the power of the people.
It appears nothing has changed with the Insiders. But we are supposed to live in a system of democracy, not aristocracy! The people are supposed to govern themselves, not be governed by money and those who have large amounts of it.
We cannot allow the blooming populist movement of the last few years go die on the vine in relation to the Cornyn seat. We need a people's candidate.
Van Os to media: question Abbott's use of public funds
posted by snarko2 on May 20 2007
OPEN LETTER TO THE NEWS MEDIA
David Van Os urges the news media to pursue common sense questions about Greg Abbott's use of state property in his political campaign.
Statement of David Van Os:
The attorney general of Texas, the state's top lawyer, has publicly admitted through a spokesman that he is using, in his political campaign, videos that he produced with state property and state employees in his capacity as attorney general. All state employees know they cannot convert state property to private purposes and that they cannot use state time or resources for personal business, and most state employees would question Greg Abbott's political use of state videos that were produced with state equipment under his own direction as a state employee. Is Abbott privileged to give himself special rules with special exceptions?
I urge the news media to pursue these questions they have not pursued thus far:
1. At the time the videos were being produced, did Greg Abbott know that he was going to be running for office in 2006? A simple review of his political fundraising reports discloses that he has been raising money for a 2006 race since at least 2003.
2. At the time Candidate Abbott's campaign submitted the open records request to Attorney General Abbott for the videos, how did the campaign know about the videos?
3. Does Greg Abbott exercise authority over his campaign's actions? Does Candidate Abbott approve of the contents of his television commercials and campaign website? Was Candidate Abbott unaware of the use of the state produced videos in his campaign ads and website before the ads and website were published?
4. When did Candidate Abbott first know that his campaign was submitting open records requests for the videos? Did Candidate Abbott approve of his campaign making the requests? When did Attorney General Abbott first know that Candidate Abbott's campaign was submitting the requests?
5. Is Greg Abbott familiar with Texas Penal Code Section 39.02? Does the fact that Candidate Abbott submitted an open records request to Attorney General Abbott mean we should act as if Candidate Abbott did not know he had produced the videos as Attorney General? Does it mean we should act as if Attorney General Abbott did not know he was asking himself for the videos?
6. Does Greg Abbott hold himself as Attorney General to ethical standards that include avoidance of conflicts of interest?
7. Does Greg Abbott perceive no conflict of interest in using an open records request from himself to himself to obtain the personal use of state-produced videos?
8. Did Greg Abbott consider the possibility that the transaction reflected a conflict of interest?
9. If Greg Abbott the person was ignorant of the transaction, does that absolve him of responsibility for either or both sides of the transaction that was conducted in his name from himself to himself?
10. If Greg Abbott the person was ignorant of the transaction, what kinds of ethical standards does he require in the Attorney General's office, and in the Abbott campaign?
11. Do the ethical standards in either organization include recognition of conflicts of interest?
12. Why didn't Greg Abbott ask a lawyer not connected with his public office or his campaign to render an independent opinion about his use of the videos in his political campaign?
13. When Greg Abbott's spokesman publicly claims that the transaction is legal, is he speaking on behalf of Candidate Abbott or Attorney General Abbott, or both?
14. Is there a conflict of interest in Greg Abbott publicly pronouncing the transaction to be legal when Candidate Greg Abbott is receiving a benefit from the transaction?
15. Since Candidate Abbott is the same person as Attorney General Abbott, who can the public count on to independently monitor the legality of the transaction?
Big Oil Still Running Roughshod
posted by snarko on May 14 2007
In a recent lead newspaper article in one of the big-city Texas daily newspapers, "energy experts" are quoted as predicting the price of gasoline is going to hit $4 a gallon this year. In some places in California it is already over $4.
At nearly $2.90 again in most of Texas, gasoline prices are at a point where last year most people were screaming bloody murder over these prices. But of course, as we all know, gasoline went down during the two months before last year's general election.
So again, we continue through a repeated pattern. Prices go up astronomically; then they go down, but not to where they were before the rise. Then they go up again. But there is not as much outcry the second time prices reach levels that previously provoked public outrage. The temporary price retreat conditioned many consumers to think they got a break, just as the greedy and powerful intended. By manipulating consumer expectations, Big Oil and its political and editorial lackeys thus pull off a constant rise in the price of gasoline and diesel to ever-higher levels.
So now that you are being softened up to expect $4 per gallon gasoline, ask yourself a question. Has this national and global economy, which Big Oil and its apologists claim makes gasoline prices escalate beyond their control, also caused your ability to earn a living to increase by the same proportion?
Let's get more specific. Last year gasoline hit $3. If it hits $4 this year, that will be an increase of 33%. Will your income-earning capacity be up 33% between mid-2006 and mid-2007? If you make your living in agriculture, will the return on your livestock or produce be drawing a 33% increase? If you are a small business owner, are you going to be able to mark your products up by 33%? If you are a wage earner, will you have 33% worth of cost of living increases from your employer? If you are a retiree or pensioner, will your Social Security or pension income be up 33%?
If you do not occupy the upper income brackets, how will you afford the gasoline to get to and from work every day? If you live in a rural area, how will you afford your regular trips to town? If you are a retiree on regular medical care, how will you afford your regular trips to the doctor's office, clinic, or pharmacy? If you farm or ranch for a living, how will you afford the $15,000+ per month your operation may require?
Some of the newspaper editors I interviewed with during my campaign for Texas Attorney General mocked me. Some of the Insiders and Status Quo Apologists in my own political party likewise mocked me. They said there was no evidence of price manipulation. They said the price of gasoline was determined by international market fluctuations and was beyond anybody's control. They quoted economic models and statistics. They quoted politicians, including my opponent Greg Abbott, who said there was nothing that could be done. (When I challenged the editors to ask Abbott to share the specific results of the investigations he claimed to have conducted, I got blank stares in return.)
Well I know this. The Constitution starts with the words "We the People," not, We the Economists or We the Politicians or We the Newspaper Editors.
I also know this. Throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s gasoline prices were relatively stable at below $2 a gallon. In the late 1990s and early 2000s there were gigantic corporate mergers. Exxon and Mobil became Exxon-Mobil; Conoco and Phillips became Conoco-Phillips; Shell and Texaco merged; and so on. Control of production and distribution thus fell into fewer and fewer sets of hands.
You and I both also know that in 2001 a new administration assumed executive power in the USA, consisting of an oilman as president and an oilman as vice president.
We also know that these two oilmen invaded another country, which happens to possess the world's second biggest reservoir of oil, on the basis of a series of purported reasons that were all falsehoods. And that today these two oil men insist on staying with that invasion, continuing to send grief and heartbreak daily to American and Iraqi families, despite all the logic and evidence that screams for withdrawal.
Against this background of corporate mergers and growth of allied corporate-political monopoly power, Big Oil and its stooges and apologists in the arenas of politics, economics, and journalism want us all to think that the drastic rise in gasoline prices over the last 5 years and the coming years does not suggest any manipulation of markets or prices. I say they are full of baloney. I say their arrogance and conceit prevent them from realizing how obvious it is to the rest of us. I say that if the real spirit of Texas as represented by great Texans of the past like Sam Houston, Jim Hogg, Jim Allred, or Lyndon Johnson were representing the people through executive positions in our state government today, they would have been all over Big Oil with the ready tools of the Texas Constitution and Texas law, and the Oil Giants would not be running roughshod over the people of Texas as they are now.
Don't give in and don't give up. Keep fighting for a return of the Texas spirit of old, the fighting Texas spirit of liberty and democracy. Fight the corporate-political monopoly powers. Fight 'em till hell freezes over. Then fight 'em on the ice.
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