Texas: Republicans

Wow how times have changed. Again.

Yesterday Senator John Cornyn joined Congressman Pete Olson in begging for federal stimulus money for NASA, after they voted against it. Today Cornyn released a commercial embracing Medicare. (Video is not yet on the net) The commercial claims Cornyn has fought for Medicare on behalf of our senior citizens.

It's not whether this is true or not it's the fact the republican party is now embracing Medicare like they embraced Social Security in 2005. Just a few years ago Medicare and Social Security was the target of the right. Now they are their protectors? Somehow that is not reassuring. It's like a child molester protecting a child care center.

The republican party just yesterday gave Michael Steele, the chair of the republican party, the shut the hell up lecture concerning his vocal support for Medicare. Maybe Cornyn will receive the same treatment?

The masters of fear mongering, the ones that brought you the false claims of a mushroom cloud, the need for duct tape and plastic, anthrax and weapons of mass destruction, has now shifted its strategy to health care in a recent fundraising letter.
A questionnaire accompanying the appeal says the government could check voting registration records, "prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system."Michael Steele, the head idiot of the gop, can't stoop any lower than this. This is not only fear mongering, it is just absolutely, incredibly stupid.

And that is why it might work for republicans.

Poor elephants. They have a tough problem on their hands.

How do they reach out to the Hispanic community while calling a Hispanic nominee for the highest Court in the nation a racist? How do they reach out to the Black community while referring to the Presidents wife as a gorilla? How do they reach out to the Asian community while telling them to change their names to something more American? And how do they reach out to the non-Christian community while calling them terrorists?

Time Magazine has a great article (For Republicans, the Ice Age Cometh), as well as a great graphic, on the republican party.

All I've done for the last two hours is examine the numbers and look at the makeup of the Committees in the Texas House. I haven't talked to anyone, for the record, other than Matt Glazer about all of this. Here are the big picture take-aways, along with my thoughts on all of the individual Committees.

1. 26 Republican, 8 Democrat - The True Partisan Balance of the Committees
   Of the 34 House Committees, Republicans are Chairs and/or have a majority on 26 House Committees. That means for 26 House Committees, Republicans either control what legislation is set by virtue of being Chair of the Committe, or they can block any legislation that is "too Democratic" because they hold the majority of votes on the Committee.