Happy Thanksgiving - Late Edition

I had a great weekend! Hope you did, too. Last week I saw lots of family and distant relatives, and then had a chance to see some friends. 

Brian & I hung out on Wednesday night when he came in from his luxury condo near Port Arthur to spend Thanksgiving with the Walles. He is the on-the-ground expert for the Chris Bell for Senate campaign in Jefferson county.  GO TEAM BELL!

Thanksgiving was spent at Grandma's house with all the trimmings and 3 freakin' turkeys. OH YEAH people. Good thing we like turkey, huh? Aunt Bebe is making some pot pies as we speak. As I stated before, Oh. Yeah.

Dinner & a movie with my girl M. T. was Friday night. Yes, I know. We told each other, "I wish you were a hot guy" like 5 times. It's cool, though. The waiter was cute, the food rocked and the movie was great. Anne Hathaway is awesome in her role as younger sister Kym in Rachel Getting Married. I really liked the movie, but when the hell did Connecticut turn into Austin, TX?

Ava's birthday party was yesterday and Karissa & Scarlett went with me on our Journey to the Suburbs. I stuffed myself on pizza at Incredible Pizza Company on Highway 6 in Sugar Land. The prominent Jesus Fish decals on the entrance doors indicate that it's a Christian-owned facility. Holy pizza buffet, Batman. They need to better supervise their teen-aged staff to clean up the spills on the floor. People can fall and hurt themselves. But I guess IPC won't mind if we get some Christian Trial Lawyers on their asses, just like the Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist families in Sugar Land won't mind if their kids bring home "Smile Jesus Loves You" boomerangs from the pizza place. 

Last night I was out pretty late so I missed out on the Sunday activities. I got up to see George but didn't stick around for Community Close Up.

This week: Tailgating for Monday Night Football! Then I'm off to Austin on Thursday for a quick trip. Have a good week, everyone.

You don't say?

Apparently, we needed a study to determine that Latinos loves us some beer. 

Dr. Raul Caetano of UT-Southwestern in Dallas participated in the study. Latinos seem to think that beer is "not as bad" as hard liquor and therefore tend to indulge in the frothy beverages more than other types of alcohol. I think Latinos drink beer because hard liquor leads to fights, divorces and death a little quicker. Beer, on the other hand, sneaks up on you. It makes you fat and you have to drink a few before you even notice that damn it, we're out of beer and who's making the next run?

Read more about the study and its results here.

Kino Flores - Crooked D?

BurkaBlog tells all in the latest round of pre-Legislative session chisme regarding House Licensing & Administrative Procedures Chairman Kino Flores of Palmview, where ever the hell that is. Apparently, Burka's been trolling South Texas blogs for any dirty laundry he can find. And boy, howdy, Stace's primos sure dish out the goods on Kino. Since Burka has a knack for tying everything into the Speaker's race, we'll indulge him on this juicy tidbit of Speaker's race politics and the possibility of Kino resigning his seat:

District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s approach to some cases involving ethics violations — most prominently, that of former speaker Gib Lewis — has been to offer the public official who is under fire the choice of resign your seat or face prosecution. Normally, the troubles of an individual legislator would not have much impact on the course of Texas politics. But Flores’s situation has arisen in the context of a speaker’s race. Today, November 13, is exactly two months prior to the formal vote on Tom Craddick’s future. Flores is one of a dwindling number of Craddick D’s. It is by no means certain that he will be around to take the oath of office on January 13.
If he isn’t, his son might be. The blog noted “the sudden return from Tampa to South Texas of [Flores's] son, Buddy, who had been working for Florida Power & Light, courtesy of a cushy job arranged for him by Texas lawmaker Phil King, chairman of the powerful Regulated Industries Committee and a lawyer for the Florida power company.”

Not a pretty picture.

I'm on my way to the Capitol today to do my own snooping. I'll tell you what I find!

Happy Monday y'all!

Kinda rainy & soggy... but it should be a good day nonetheless. While the President-elect is still putting his cabinet together, the Repubs are forecasting disaster. It's really unfortunate the way McCain-Palin went out... by telling their faithful that Barack Obama and the Democrats were going to take their hard-earned money and give it to welfare queens and people who "don't want to work."

Or, as Chuck Norris puts it, Barack Obama "and his boys" are going to steal his wallet. 

And there it is, in its rancid un-glory: the Republican strategy of going nuclear by being racist and classist. Blame the poor people, because it's their own fault they are poor. They must be lazy. And, of course, a young black man just wants to rob you and steal your wallet. Nice subtlety there Chuck. You stupid fuck.

Sarah Palin really knew how to connect with angry white people who are not happy about all the change that's going on. She took the opportunity to Drudge up old themes and old racist stereotypes against Democrats. Let's hope President Obama will use his vast political prowess to inject his radical Democratic agenda into all the virginal, Republican red areas of the country.

All across the world ... in every nation!

I am still celebrating! We won. We totally freaking won. Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States in a landslide victory that turned much of the United States blue... including Harris County!

President-elect Barack Obama (I love saying that) has begun assembling his White House staff. Chief of Staff to the President is Rahm Emanuel. He's a hard-ass ball buster, if you want to imagine what that might be in an Obama administration. I've seen many names thrown around to fill Administration positions & Cabinet posts and hope some of those names end in vowels & z's. Names like Puente, Lopez, Ortiz, Reyna ... you get the picture.

In any case... sorry for the hiatus. I was up to my eyeballs in the campaign and now I am back! 

Congratulations to Harris County Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia. What a fantastic win! Take that, Tommy Thomas, you racist hick.

And another thing. I got an interesting e-mail today from Carl Whitmarsh, who seemed to be calling me out for unity in the Latino community because it's suddenly our own faults that the Party chose to ignore us yet again. I never, ever expected HCDP to make much of an effort in the Latino community. Hell, they had trouble pretending to give a damn, and left the East End office to flounder while the Breakfast Boutique on Travis was staffed with several people, including some from other offices.

Let's be clear - a solid effort in the Latino community does not translate into paying some washed-up old queen for "consulting and communications" services that are fancy words for the shakedown. Someone is always trying to get PAID. My crappy little salary was enough to sustain me during this campaign. I am happy to say that turnout in HD 148 was up 5% from 2004 despite being ignored completely by the Party's campaign.

There are those who really give a damn about the community and are willing to do the work. Then, there are others who don't even bother. Some people won't get off their asses long enough to make sure the one-eyed sign guy puts up the damn signs in the right damn district. Ridiculous.

In other Election developments, I'm sorry to see our friends Juan Garcia and Nick Lampson lose their seats.  And, despite Nick's attempts to win over Sugar Land knuckle draggers, he was not Republican enough for their tastes. That's a damn shame. Nick Lampson is a good Congressman.

Alas, the 2008 campaign goes on with the Runoff election in SD17. I'll be trudging over to the Bell HQ to get our boy elected. He's a great guy, that Chris Bell, and I am a huge fan. As a Team Bell member from 2004, I can say with confidence that I am not alone in my sentiments.

See you on the trail again!