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Countdown to L-G-B-T 

 Tue Feb 9, 2:30pm
Apparently, tonight's is the first LGBT Town Hall ever, and our participation in this will determine the efforts expended by the U.S. Census folks on our behalf. Here's the deets from Equality Texas:
Austin Town Hall
Tonight! Tue., Feb. 9, 7pm
Mexican-American Cultural Center Auditorium
600 River Street, Austin, TX 78701
 


Segretti, Rove, O'Keefe 

 Thu Jan 28, 1:58pm
As potential links between conservative think tank the Pelican Group, conservative new media maven Andrew Breitbart and the four operatives that tried to mess with a US Senator's phones become clearer, one thought emerges: A bunch of entitled Republican frat boys doing dirty tricks? How very Nixonian and, let's not forget, Rovian.
 


Where Is My Mind? 

 Wed Jan 20, 3:41pm
Texas Republicans have spent the day treating Senator-elect Scott Brown's victory over Democrat Martha Coakley as some kind of victory in Texas and a red dagger in the heart of the deep blue politics of Massachusetts. That would be the same Massachusetts where the GOP held the governor's and lieutenant governor's offices for most of the last two decades?
 


Execution Exaggeration 

 Fri Jan 8, 4:53pm
The hang 'em high crowd got terribly excited recently over a study in the American Society of Criminology journal Criminology suggesting that murder rates drop after executions. Which sounds great, except it ignores the fact that death penalty states generally have higher murder rates than non-death penalty states.
 


Would Pres. Reagan would have failed the eponymous proposed GOP orthodoxy test?
Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library

Ronnie the RINO 

 Sat Nov 28, 11:08am , 2009
Newsdesk has been commenting for a while on the ongoing Republican civil war (the one that lost them one Congressional seat so far). Even we weren't too serious about an orthodoxy test. That, we left to the GOP.
 


Obama Going to COP15 

 Wed Nov 25, 5:18pm , 2009
President Obama announced today he'll appear at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen Dec. 9; he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo the next day. While the talks will not produce a legally binding deal, they'll set the terms, and Obama will propose a U.S. emissions reduction target. White House news release below.
 


Progressing in the Economy 

 Wed Nov 11, 4:00pm , 2009
Whenever there's a statistic about Texas leading the nation in some category or other, freemarketeers and the anti-regulation crew are quick to take the credit (well, except in child morbidity and other such minor blights on society). So why is it the more liberal towns that are heading up those scores?
 


Early Voting, First Results 

 Tue Nov 3, 8:57pm , 2009
All those sessions of legislative debate, all those days of early voting, all those hours of voting today, and where did it get us? The first results from today's constitutional amendment election.
 


No California Love, No I Heart NY 

 Tue Nov 3, 1:56pm , 2009
Democrats protecting Republicans from smear jobs by small-c conservatives! Republicans endorsing big-C Conservatives! The governator learning what acrostics are! Interior versus the coasts! Yup, the orthodoxy war in the GOP continues.
 


Perry Goes Big-C Conservative 

 Fri Oct 30, 1:42pm , 2009
It's been little secret that the seams of the Republican Party's "big tent" have been getting a little threadbare. Now the endorsement fight between Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is tearing the fabric in New York.
 


Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize 

 Fri Oct 9, 8:44am , 2009
At the Danish Ministry for Climate and Energy this morning, staffers burst excitedly upon our group of American journalists with the news that President Barack Obama had just won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Scandinavia is a fun place to be when your guy wins the Norwegian gold medal – we heard the news about an hour before Obama himself.
 


Dr. Smith's Patented Tort Reform 

 Mon Sep 21, 1:49pm , 2009
Congressman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has tried twice in recent years to pass national tort reform, restricting the right of patients to sue incompetent or negligent medical professionals. Now he's trying to tack it onto the health care reforms grinding their way through Congress.
 


Austin congressman calls new plan
photo by Richard Whittaker

Doggett Down on Baucus Plan 

 Wed Sep 16, 10:32am , 2009
Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett apparently isn't too enamored of Montana Democrat Max Baucus' new Senate health care reform bill. In a statement just released by his office, he said:
 


'When I Was Your Age' 

 Mon Sep 7, 11:55am , 2009
Ah! The conspiracy theorists were right! Argh! Pres. Obama wants kids to disrupt the social order by staying home from school! If they feel ill, that is. You know, so they don't infect everyone else. That's part of his Back to School Event Speech, the text of which is now available at www.whitehouse.gov.
 


Edward Kennedy Dead 

 Wed Aug 26, 5:42am , 2009
Surrounded by family, Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy died Tuesday at home in Massachusetts. He was 77.
 


Latest Scummy Republican Propaganda 

 Mon Aug 24, 9:16pm , 2009
The latest Republican campaign against the current White House occupant: A new bumper sticker reading, "Obama Lied. The Economy Died."
 


Insulting the World 

 Fri Aug 21, 2:35pm , 2009
It's tough to work out who is being most insulted during the debate about health insurance reform: The uninsured, the underinsured, Jews, Canadians, or the British.
 


Healthcare reform opponents show weak grasp of geography when they drag Stephen Hawking into the debate
Image courtesy of NASA

The Other Cambridge 

 Tue Aug 11, 9:59am , 2009
Another day, another groundless claim from the anti-health reform cadre.
 


NY Judge passes senate confirmation 68-31
Photo courtesy of White House

Sotomayor Confirmed 

 Thu Aug 6, 4:57pm , 2009
For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the fringe right attempts to paint Judge Sonia Sotomayor as some kind of hormone-crazed, nay racist, even anti-gun liberal activist have come to naught: The US Senate has just confirmed her nomination to the US Supreme Court, 68-31.
 


Jeffs Back on Solid Foods 

 Tue Aug 4, 4:54pm , 2009
It looks like polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Mormon breakaway sect the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who has put himself through a series of hunger strikes since being jailed three years ago, has returned to eating on his own, Mohave County, Ariz., officials told the Salt Lake Tribune today.
 


Doggett: 'Real Desperation Tactic' 

 Mon Aug 3, 8:01pm , 2009
Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett, two days after getting shouted down at his health care reform town hall meeting, went on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews tonight to debunk the euthanasia claims:


 


Government Healthcare Won't Protect You From the Robots 

 Mon Aug 3, 3:56pm , 2009
A lunatic fax we received today really got us to thinking about the right's most odious tactic in the current fight over Obama's health care reform plan: The lie that it will force the elderly to be euthanized.
 


Milk and King Get Top Bling 

 Thu Jul 30, 3:24pm , 2009
There's no higher award in America for civilians than the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in the latest 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, civil rights leaders – on issues of color, gender, and sexuality – really get their props.
 


KBH Says N-O on Sotomayor 

 Wed Jul 29, 11:30am , 2009
Interesting times for Texas Senators when it comes to the nomination hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First, Republican Junior Sen. John Cornyn got Sen. Jeff Sessions to vote against her for him when he didn't bother turning up to this morning's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting (in fact, three of the six nay votes actually had something better to do and voted by proxy instead). Now Republican Senior Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announces she'll vote no when the nomination reaches the Senate floor.
 


Congressman Doggett savages Texas budget for misusing stimulus dollars meant for schools
Photo by Richard Whittaker

Where's the Other $66 Million? 

 Tue Jul 28, 9:00am , 2009
With the announcement on Friday that the U.S. Department of Education has accepted the proposal by the State of Texas for how it plans to spend $3.2 billion in education stimulus cash, Austin ISD should be receiving an extra $12 million this year.
 


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