Notes From a Texas Patriot

the following is from one of the most powerful voices in progressive politics in the state of texas. i not only admire david for his tenacity, i'm also honored to call him a friend. please consider subscribing to his newsletter.

May 23, 2009

Beginning Note: Please forward this edition of Notes from a Texas Patriot to others if you deem it worthy of circulation. If a friend forwarded this edition of Notes From a Texas Patriot to you and you wish to continue receiving them, please send an email to david@texas-patriot.com and say "subscribe" in your subject line. If for any reason you do not wish to receive any more of Notes From a Texas Patriot, please send an email to david@texas-patriot.com and say "unsubscribe" in your subject line. Thank you in advance for your courteous attention. Bury the Trans-Texas Corridor For all of you Texas patriots who have upraised your voices for the last three years against Slick Rick Perry's plans to sell off our public highway system to private interests so they can stuff their bloated pocketbooks with billions of dollars in predatory toll fees while devastating hundreds of thousands of acres of good Texas earth in massive land grabs - IT HAS COME DOWN TO THE NEXT FOUR DAYS. In some of the pending versions of transportation legislation, the public will would finally be honored with the long-sought elimination of the Trans-Texas Corridor and the democratization of the Texas Transportation Commission. I want to take this opportunity to express special commendation for Rep. David Leibowitz, whose labors against the toll-building robber barons and the anti-democratic TXDOT bureaucrats are on the verge of success with the potential final enactment of his bills into law. In other versions of transportation legislation, the use of private contracts to build and operate massive toll roads, particularly TTC-69 through the heart of East Texas, would be re-authorized. In one particularly ugly bit of backroom chicanery, a deal is already made to grant the building and operation of TTC-69 to a private company from Spain. We have been fighting the same spectre for years now, but as we know, the greedy don't give up easy. It appears probable that the competing value systems will face off in House-Senate conference committee action on Tuesday, May 26. Long hours, days, and years of hard work for many thousands of grassroots Texans who have been fighting for democracy in Texas transportation planning may come down to making sure the legislators hear the voice of the people loudly and clearly over the next four days. The TXDOT reauthorization bill is HB 300. The bad bills that the people have to defeat to nail the coffin shut on the Trans-Texas Corridor are SB 17 and SB 404. The latter bills would re-authorize CDAs (comprehensive development agreements); in other words, sell-out deals to put billions of dollars in toll fees into private pockets for operating toll roads that the people of Texas do not want. If you want to do your part to make sure the people are finally rewarded with victory in this fight, CALL your Texas House Representative and your Texas Senator today through the Capitol switchboard at (512) 463-4630 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tell your Representative and your Senator, or their staffs, you are against SB 17 and SB 404 and anything else that allows comprehensive development agreements in highway construction. Tell them you expect them to GET RID of the Trans-Texas Corridor for good and to GET RID of private toll road development for good. Tell them you want a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission. We the People have been speaking for a long time. We want democracy, not corporate-governmental oligarchy. Now let's bear down. Two years ago some of the legislators who had pledged to support the people's will wavered at the finish line. This time we can't let them waver. Let them hear our voices in this moment of truth. NO private contracts for toll roads, NO Trans-Texas Corridor, NO comprehensive development agreements, and YES to a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.

Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, David Van Os

GR8 political videos this week:

first, jesse ventura has been en fuego taking on the bush regime on the view and then on sean (the manatee) hannity's "program":





...in glbt/politics:

barney frank vs. michelle bachmann



rachel maddow with lt. col. fuhrenbach (aka the $25M gay fighter pilot):

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...and ending on a delightful note, ellen degeneres delivering the commencement at tulane (love the line about all the books being portia's and ellen can't read 'em cuz they're in "australian"):

oh, snap!

normally, i'm not one to jump on the "ooh, they really played this one perfect" bandwagon, but in this case it's starting to look as if there might have been a very brilliant strategy in getting to the bottom of this whole tortured torturing torture mess.

exhibit a:

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good work, rachel, keep it up!

veddy interesting, indeed.

...and now for a little press secretary spin.

this stinks to the stratosphere. it was only a matter of months ago when gibbs was able to give a one word answer on O's commitment to REPEALING DADT. that answer was an unequivocal, "YES".

now, because O is being a political coward, gibbs has to give a tortured non-answer about the "legislative process".

in the meantime, loyal service members are having their lives and careers destroyed.

sorry, but this isn't "change" i can "believe in" nor is it the "change" i campaigned for, donated to and supported without reservations.