Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Leftist blogger in Houston posts racist thoughts on Mayoral race

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Hey, as long as I’m talking about the bloggers o’ the left, I might as well talk about the Big Dog, Charles Kuffner. Kuffner has made a name for himself with the bloggers o’ the left by pretending to be all for diversity and such. Well, whomever writes over at InsideHCC calls him out for his hypocrisy:

Off the Kuff and Racists comments?

Off the Kuff is a blog from the far left with its’ bias certainly apparent to most people that visit it. The problem with too many far left blogs is that they don’t see their own racist attitudes. Here is an article where the writer makes what I consider a racist comment but is not taken to task by its’ readers. This is what the writer wrote “I have no idea why Keryl Douglas thinks she can be elected Mayor, but then the same can be said for everyone not named Annise Parker and Ben Hall. Speaking of whom, you have to figure Hall is not happy about this. Douglas will be competing with him directly for African-American voters. I’m sure he’d prefer to not have that competition…” Why is that the Black person has to worry about another Black running but a Caucasian (White) does not have to worry about another White person? Is Kuff suggesting that Blacks only vote for Blacks and Whites don’t (has the blog writer seen the makeup of the Republican Party? Annise Parker is White, should she worry that at least two of her opponents are White? Would she have to worry if a woman was running? There is a woman running Keryl Douglas is an African-American female? Would Parker have to worry if a homosexual or lesbian was also running?

When Manuel Rodriguez brought up the subject of his opponent being homosexual this is what the Off the Kuff Blog had to say  ” I agree with all these reactions. Rodriguez didn’t admit to doing anything wrong – his “apology” amounts to little more than “I’m sorry if someone was offended by what I said” – and didn’t say what if anything he might do to atone for his words. Talk is cheap. Rodriguez has shown us who he is, now he needs to show us – not tell us – that he intends to be better than that.” Where is the apology for the racist comment Off The Kuff?

Yeah, Big Dog, where’s the apology?

Hint to InsideHCC: don’t hold your breath. Big Dog is so full of white guilt that you would think he would apologize but having seen his work through the years, he won’t even bother to acknowledge you. He’s the Big Dog, ya know? He and his little minions type hate from their keyboards every day but if someone calls them out on it, they go running into hiding. Or whine incessantly like the did to me.

Just remember folks – when the left feigns diversity, they only mean it if those diverse ones stay in their place. Or in Big Dog’s world, vote for their own kind. Why, exactly, do you think that they are so supportive of abortion when the facts are that abortion kills more minority babies than white ones?

offthekuff

Texas Rep. John Smithee on HB-2, Rep. Jessica Farrar on hypocrisy

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Once again, the abortion debate in the Texas House shows us a clear contrast between Democrats and Republicans. On the one hand, you have Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, give a thoughtful, reflective speech on abortion and the bill that the House was considering, HB-2. On the other hand, you have Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, reinforcing the hypocrisy that has come to define both her and Texas Democrats.

The headline from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal caught my attention this morning: Smithee speech on abortion bill may have swayed votes.

Every now and then a state legislator makes a speech that defines his or her session.

For Rep. John Smithee, it was Tuesday night when emotions were running high on the abortion issue in the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives.

Smithee, R-Amarillo, who seldom speaks long on the House floor, gave a heartfelt speech to explain why he thinks abortion is wrong and the Legislature should pass House Bill 2, which would outlaw aborting pregnancies of 20 weeks or longer.

“By 12 or 13 weeks that baby, that little girl or boy, has developed fingernails, can suck its thumb and can be coiled,” Smithee began, explaining how a child in the mother’s womb rapidly develops each week during the nine-month pregnancy.

“By 20 weeks — and that’s what we are talking about in this bill — that baby is 8 to 10 inches long, and that’s what makes this procedure so difficult,” he said.

“It is not unusual to see the legs come out, the arms come out,” Smithee said. “I don’t want to talk about it, I am not enjoying this discussion and I know you don’t either, but what we are talking about in this bill is what we are here for: this piece of little baby, flesh by flesh.

“It is one of the most barbaric, brutal and painful exercises that one man puts on another,” he added. “We would never do that to another human being. We wouldn’t that to a terrorist.

“What has led us to this point where we have human-on-human violence, the most barbaric? This is what this about: How can we defend this practice?”

It is rare indeed for a floor speech to impact a vote in the Texas Legislature. So rare that I searched the archives, found the speech, and captured it so that we could all watch it. If you wish to watch it from the archives, go to the 10 hour, 6 minute mark.

It is an effective speech but the power to change votes comes not from what is said, but from who is saying it and how he says it. The who being a long time representative that has tremendous respect from his colleagues.  The how being that he doesn’t grandstand and bring out props to garner attention – he simply speaks from the heart about what he learned from testimony given during the hearings about the bill.

On the other hand, you have Rep. Farrar, whose latest foray into pushing late term abortions was arguing with an OB/GYN doctor who didn’t think fetuses with non-lethal conditions should be aborted after 20 weeks.  Rep. Farrar has a long history of supporting late term and partial birth abortions. If you’ll recall, she was also the host of the ghastly Christmas Holiday Party held at one of the largest abortion clinics in the world.  She is quoted in the Smithee article:

However, opponents of the bill said though they don’t doubt Smithee’s sincerity, legislators must consider bills based on facts and merits, not on emotions.

“When he made the description of how the fetus is dismembered, he became quite emotional,” said Rep. Jessica Farrar, a leading opponent of HB2. “We shouldn’t be making laws based on emotional arguments.”

How do you even respond to that? Farrar and the Democrats have used nothing but emotional arguments this entire process! Taking coat hangers onto the floor of the House. Falsely claiming that the bills close clinics. Falsely accusing Republicans of not caring about “born” children.  Inciting a near riot on the floor of the Texas Senate:

Rep. Jessica Farrar inciting a riot in the Texas Senate chamber.
Rep. Jessica Farrar inciting a riot in the Texas Senate chamber.

Complete, utter, and total hypocrisy on the part of Jessica Farrar. If you choose to watch Farrar’s speech after Smithee’s, go to the 10 hour, 25 minute mark. Nothing but emotional falsehoods.

The good news about this argument is that it exposes Texas Democrats for what they really are and what they really believe. They don’t care about children, women, or anything but power. Power so that they can fundamentally undermine Texas and the United States.

For all you professionals decrying this legislation and saying that it will be the death of the Republican Party in Texas, you wait and see.

And for Bill King, the “conservative” columnist in the Houston Chronicle, you need to step out of the country club, stop listening to your peers whining about “those” Republicans, and consider that without “those” Republicans, your country club Republicans wouldn’t have won an election in the last twenty years. Take that and stuff it in your cigar.

On Judicial Review and Political Hypocrisy

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letter-to-the-editorIts that time of year again, Supreme Court decision time. We sit and wait as the mysterious powers that be at the all reclusive judicial branch of government pound away, pumping out decisions. Like most years the most anticipated decisions await the last few days of the session the current term and we sit in anxiety, guessing which way the Court will go. The fate of three major hot button issues are on the front burner this session: Affirmative Action, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and Same Sex Marriage. The political tension around these issues has driven some people to dub this the most contentious session of the decade.

With all these big issues pending I wanted to take a second to pre-emotively warn against a familiar cry that we hear on the right. Judicial Activism! Yes every session we invariably get a cry that denounces this terrible awful practice where judges make sweeping decisions that have big effects on public policy, striking down laws created by our democratically elected representatives. How awful! Unless that is you agree with the decision made by the court.

The all too familiar cry has been made quite frequently in the debate over same sex marriage. Like clockwork a court rules that marriage laws cannot exclude same sex couples, opponents decry judicial activism. So you would think these same people would cheer the Supreme Court’s restraint in upholding the Affordable Care Act and lament the sweeping policy changes instituted in Citizens United right? Well, with a few exceptions, you won’t find many people who called for judicial restraint in all three cases. Most conservatives, like myself, desperately wanted the Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, and celebrated the expansion of free speech in Citizens United. So what’s the difference? Why is it that when the Supreme Court makes a sweeping change to strike down current law in a conservative manner it is upholding the Constitution and when the Court makes a decision in the more liberal direction it is judicial activism?

I point out this hypocrisy not to make the case on the Constitutional merits of theses issues. I will be honest, while I am a proponent of removing the government for the institution of marriage if we are going to have government involved in marriage I do believe it should be open to all qualified couples regardless of gender. This however is not the issue. The issue is the sore loser mentality that the right has developed when it loses a case. It goes and pouts and bad mouths those big mean judges but then turns around and begs them to get involved when it wants them to. So where does that leave us? Honesty in dialogue is all I beg. If you want the Supreme Court to rule that same sex couples don’t have a right to get married, well that is your right. If you think the Court should strike down affirmative action, so be it. Section 5 should be struck from the books, again your call. However don’t turn around when things don’t go your way and say the judges are overstepping their boundaries unless you are willing to apply it across the board, even when the outcome is the one you favor.

Thomas Jefferson argued during his term as president that the Supreme Court should not have the right to judicial review of federal legislation and that such a right belonged exclusively to Congress. I shudder to think of all that Congress would get away with had we adopted Jefferson’s position. The checks and balances judicial review provides to Congress have been invaluable in creating our current public policy. Does the Court always get it right? Hardly. Like most conservatives I think that often the decisions are more based in what liberals would like the Constitution to read and not what it actually says. I would love to see more people on the Court like Justice Thomas, my favorite of the nine, and the solution to that is get more Republicans elected president.

In the mean time when we get a Supreme Court decision where I feel like they applied the correct standard, I will celebrate. When we get a Supreme Court decision where I feel like they got it wrong, I will criticize. But when I criticize I will do so on the merits of the decision and not some fictitious and arbitrary standard of judicial authority set by conservative pundits that only applies when the Court rules in a liberal direction.

Christopher Busby
Houston, Texas

 

Texas Republicans and Democrats: So Hypocritically “Happy Together”

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For a guy who recently howled to the Texas Observer that “Republicans don’t give a rats ass about the environment” I thought Representative Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) only brought attention to himself by obfuscating the issue that he, in partnership with Representative Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) authored legislation to support an electric vehicle that actually produces more CO2 from its battery than from its gasoline engine. Together they do so with support from very special campaign contributors holding very special interests in insuring, financing & selling more electric cars and scrapping old gasoline powered ones.

Texas Representatives Lon Burnam and Warren Chisum have co-authored H.B. 3272 that, according to the Bill Analysis “encourages the purchase of cleaner vehicles” and “be a vehicle the total cost of which does not exceed $35,000, rather than $25,000”. One of those cars my friend, is the Chevy Volt with an MSRP starting at $32,780.

Representatives Chisum’s (R-Pampa) and Burnam’s campaign finance reports reflect contributions from very special contributors with very special interests in insuring, financing & selling more electric cars and scrapping old gasoline powered ones.

Burnam

10/14/2010

Farmers Employee & Agent PAC of Texas

1000

Burnam

12/8/2010

Texas Automobile Dealers Association PAC

1000

Burnam

5/26/2010

Independent Bankers Association of Texas PAC

500

Chisum

10/26/2010

Bank of America Corp. PAC

1500

Chisum

8/26/2010

K & L Auto Crushers

500

Chisum

12/10/2010

Gulf States Toyota Inc State PAC

250

Chisum

9/8/2010

Texas Employee Political Action Committee of Luminant

500

Plug In Texas describes their mission is to raise “public awareness of the benefits and viability of electric vehicles in Texas”. Their coalition includes members such as Gulf States Toyota, Texas Automobile Dealers Association and Luminant Energy who are some of the very entities promoting electric vehicles as a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Unfortunately for Messrs Chisum, Burnam and Plug In Texas, the EPA’s own findings leads Jonathan DuHamel of Tucson Citizen to conclude the Volt emits more CO2 from its battery use than from its gasoline engine.

Crikey, what a bunch of hypocrites…. so Happy Together.