Texas primary TODAY! Voter ID law not applied

Registered voter in Texas?   Remember to vote today in the Texas primary.  Twice delayed due to the shenanigans on biased redistricting by the Republican Lege, we finally get going on voting — after the precinct and Senate district political conventions have already occurred (just two weeks from the Texas Democratic State Convention).

Flags fly at the Texas Capitol; fly your flags today for election day (Photo credit: jmtimages)

Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls for identification issues. Texas’s Jim Crow Voter Identification Hurdle Law has been stayed in litigation separate from the redistricting law suit.  It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.

Earlier letter from the Texas Democrats:

Dear Ed,

On Monday, the polls will open [TODAY] for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.

Here’s how you can make your voice heard:

Confirm that you’re registered to vote. You can verify your registration on the Secretary of State’s website.

Find your early voting location by contacting your county elections office. Early voting for the Primary Election runs from Monday, May 14th through Friday, May 25th.

Request to have a ballot mailed to you. Your application for a mail ballot must be received no later than Tuesday, May 22nd.

Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote. No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:

• Your voter registration card;
• A driver’s license or personal identification card issued to you by Texas or another state (even if the license or card has expired);
• A form of identification that contains your photograph and establishes your identity;
• A birth certificate or other document confirming birth that is admissible in a court of law and establishes your identity;
• Your United States citizenship papers;
• Your United States passport;
• Official mail addressed to you by a governmental entity; or
• A copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows your name and address.

Want to know who’s on the ballot? A list of the Democratic candidates is available on our website.

Want to know more about voting in Texas? Visit VoteTexas.gov.

Want to help elect Democrats in your county? Have questions about local races? Contact your Democratic County Chair.

Sincerely,

Boyd L. Richie
Chairman
Texas Democratic Party

Did the Republicans inform their voters of the ID requirements, or do they want to discourage even Republican voters?   They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?

_____________

* The elections were delayed by federal court orders. Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws. AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step. As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations. Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval. Instead, they asked for more information.

In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where historically minority voters hold broad sway.

Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.

Related articles

• 51 years they’ve pursued this woman who marched with Dr. King . . . (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• ACLU, NAACP To Sue PA On Behalf Of Woman, 95, Over Voter ID Laws (crooksandliars.com)
• Candidates count on early vote ahead of delayed primary (mysanantonio.com)
• Obama campaign confronts new voter identification laws (mercurynews.com)
• ‘Show Me State’ Courts See Through GOP Photo ID Deceptions, But MO Republicans Undeterred (bradblog.com)
• ALEC’s Voter ID Laws Work to Overturn Hundreds of Years of Progressive Moves to Broaden Democracy (alternet.org)
• Obama Administration Blocks Texas Voter Id Law (maboulette.wordpress.com)
• Early Voting Starts Monday For Texas Primary (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Federal lawyers want to postpone voter ID case (amarillo.com)
• Abbott responds to federal court’s foot-dragging claims (statesman.com)
• Early voting starts Monday (amarillo.com)
• Voter ID Law Causes Low Voter Turnout In Primary Election (pittsburgh.cbslocal.com)
• Hopefuls question Landtroop’s credentials (amarillo.com)
• Beat Obama Committee Urges Passage of a National Voter ID Law (prweb.com)
• Voter ID law creates confusion (click2houston.com)
• House Dem Charges Voter ID Laws Result From Increased Black Voter Turnout (mediaite.com)
• Voter ID trial still headed for July 9 date (mysanantonio.com)
• Congressional Black Caucus rallies preachers to tackle voter-ID laws (kansascity.com)
• Texas: No voter identification required for May 29 primary (timpanogos.wordpress.com)

ALEC CROW – 21st Century Disenfranchisement (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey) – not in effect for today’s Texas primary elections

Texas: No voter identification required for May 29 primary

Early voting for the twice-delayed* Texas primary elections opens this week.  The election is set for May 29.

Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls.  It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.

Letter from the Texas Democrats:

Dear Ed,

On Monday, the polls will open for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.

Here’s how you can make your voice heard:

Confirm that you’re registered to vote.  You can verify your registration on the Secretary of State’s website.

Find your early voting location by contacting your county elections office.  Early voting for the Primary Election runs from Monday, May 14th through Friday, May 25th.

Request to have a ballot mailed to you.  Your application for a mail ballot must be received no later than Tuesday, May 22nd.

Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote. No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:

• Your voter registration card;
• A driver’s license or personal identification card issued to you by Texas or another state (even if the license or card has expired);
• A form of identification that contains your photograph and establishes your identity;
• A birth certificate or other document confirming birth that is admissible in a court of law and establishes your identity;
• Your United States citizenship papers;
• Your United States passport;
• Official mail addressed to you by a governmental entity; or
• A copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows your name and address.

Want to know who’s on the ballot? A list of the Democratic candidates is available on our website.

Want to know more about voting in Texas? Visit VoteTexas.gov.

Want to help elect Democrats in your county? Have questions about local races? Contact your Democratic County Chair.

Sincerely,

Boyd L. Richie
Chairman
Texas Democratic Party

I’d be interested to see that the Republican Party in Texas is doing something similar. They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?

_____________

*  The elections were delayed by federal court orders.  Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws.  AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step.  As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations.  Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval.  Instead, they asked for more information.  In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where Hispanics hold broad sway.

Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.

Related articles

• 51 years they’ve pursued this woman who marched with Dr. King . . . (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• ACLU, NAACP To Sue PA On Behalf Of Woman, 95, Over Voter ID Laws (crooksandliars.com)
• Candidates count on early vote ahead of delayed primary (mysanantonio.com)
• Obama campaign confronts new voter identification laws (mercurynews.com)
• ‘Show Me State’ Courts See Through GOP Photo ID Deceptions, But MO Republicans Undeterred (bradblog.com)
• ALEC’s Voter ID Laws Work to Overturn Hundreds of Years of Progressive Moves to Broaden Democracy (alternet.org)
• Obama Administration Blocks Texas Voter Id Law (maboulette.wordpress.com)
• Early Voting Starts Monday For Texas Primary (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Federal lawyers want to postpone voter ID case (amarillo.com)
• Abbott responds to federal court’s foot-dragging claims (statesman.com)
• Early voting starts Monday (amarillo.com)
• Voter ID Law Causes Low Voter Turnout In Primary Election (pittsburgh.cbslocal.com)
• Hopefuls question Landtroop’s credentials (amarillo.com)

Right or wrong reasons, North Texas governments back into water conservation

It’s a win-win situation for North Texas politicians, like Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings — they can take action that helps mitigate problems of global warming, but they don’t have to say they’re doing it for global warming.

Water supplies will limit future growth for cities like Dallas, if good water policies cannot be made to assure water to critical functions - Downtown Dallas in the background with the Trinity River in the foreground. Taken from the N Hampton Rd bridge. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mayors of several cities announced they will push to keep watering restrictions on, to conserve water, even though their cities’ water supplies got big boosts from massive rainstorms over the past few weeks.

Bruce Tomaso, editor of The Scoop, a blog at The Dallas Morning News, wrote down all the details (comments at that site are worth visiting).

Thanks to last year’s brutal drought, most North Texans have gotten accustomed to watering lawns sparingly.

As lake levels dropped through the dry, hot summer and fall of 2011, emergency conservation measures were enacted throughout the region.

In some cities — Plano, for example — watering was restricted to twice a month. (That restriction was just eased to once a week.)

In others, including Dallas, a less stringent limit of twice a week has been in force.

On Wednesday, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings , joined by the mayors of Fort Worth, Arlington , and Irving , will recommend that a twice-a-week limit on watering be made permanent. The mayors plan a 9:30 a.m. news conference at the offices of the North Texas Council of Governments, 616 Six Flags Drive.

“Although recent rains have improved current water supply availability, a twice weekly watering schedule provides predictable expectations to customers for landscape planning and a way for the region to continue to use water resources wisely,” says a joint statement from the four cities.

Bill Hanna of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes that says the idea of making the emergency conservation measures permanent was raised a while ago by Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, who discussed “a coordinated regional approach” with Rawlings, Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck, and Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne.

“I think water conservation is probably the most important issue we have in the next three decades,” he quotes Rawlings as saying. “We cannot continue to grow without water, and I want to continue to grow.”

In each of the four municipalities, the City Council would have to approve a measure to implement permanent limitations on lawn watering.

On a related note, the Texas agriculture commissioner unveiled a new water conservation coalition plan Monday in Mesquite.

It’s a good move, even if they do it for the wrong reasons.  Texas lives in a world of trouble with regard to water.  Too many people live in big cities with water supply systems planned and built a half-century ago, for fewer people.  Massive aquifers that offered backup to surface water supplies have been mined out.  In a short phrase, Texas doesn’t have enough water even in a good rain year, and needs to conserve and develop a state-wide policy on how to allocate water, and how to protect water supplies needed for farming, for industry, and for residential use. Global warming threatens each of those resources in disparate ways, all of them bad.

Conservation is a lot cheaper than building more dams and more pipelines, and more environmentally friendly.  Nice to see these guys endorse conservation.

Texas should not rely on freak floods to mitigate long-term drought; growth of cities like Dallas require better water policy. Photo shows Dallas at night over the Trinity River flooding, September 2010. Photo by Ed Darrell, Creative Commons Copyright

Tip of the old scrub brush to Sara Ann Maxwell.

More information, and Zemanta-selected related articles:

• The Heat Goes On (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Tornadoes tear through Dallas-Forth Worth area (fox13now.com)
• Participate in the National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation, Mar 30-Apr 30 (chicagolandh2o.wordpress.com)
• National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation (waterlessco.wordpress.com)
• Colorado: Water providers eye drought measures (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Monarch butterfly migration through Dallas shows critical drop in butterfly population
• Water conservation critical to future of Texas 
• WaterSmart.org (water conservation in Texas — a site built by the Lower Colorado River Authority (Texas’s Colorado River, not Colorado’s))
• Texas Parks and Wildlife gateway to water issues, special magazines and documentaries on water and water policy

Dogwood Canyon amble for the blossoms

It was billed as a “hike” that might take 2.5 hours, but David Hurt, the grand benefactor of Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center, was the guide — at the two hour mark we had just ambled to the blossoming trees in their still-semi-secret location.  Amble, not a hike.

Great day to be outside.

David Hurt spent 14 years working to establish the reserve and education center at Dogwood Canyon, in Cedar Hill, Texas -- now he just can't resist leading tours of the better sites and sights.

The voyage is at least half the fun.

After more than a year of serious drought, some of North Texas experienced high rainfall in the past three months. Spring-fed streams and seeps on Cedar Hill and across the Escarpment flow well for the moment, lending hope to wild bird breeding. On some entangled bank . . .

Mr. Hurt often stopped to explain bird songs and habits, and despite his claim not to like "plant people," he stopped most often to identify plants, or to compare plants that can be confused. This Audubon facility sits in a transitional zone, between two kinds of prairies. It's forest nature is an oddity in the zone. Dogwood Canyon features plants more commonly identified with the Texas Hill Country and with East Texas, as well as Blackland Prairie plants considered icons of the area. In this case, Hurt showed the differences between Texas redbud and eastern redbud, both of which occur in this area. Hurt carefully demonstrated how to identify poison ivy, now in abundance off the trails. This was a sharp contrast to two weeks ago when I couldn't find a single sprig of poison ivy to show Scout leaders.

Poison ivy along the trail. Keep away.

Is it eastern red oak, or something else? How to tell?

Hurt showed how to make a nest from loose bark strips from Ashe juniper trees. Golden-cheeked warblers, a threatened species, require this bark for nesting, and it can come only from mature Ashe junipers. The birds need this nesting material close to a good stand of deciduous trees, where they catch their food.

The dogwoods in bloom! An early spring, and lots of water, pushed the trees to leaf out before blossoming started -- usually the blossoms come first. The drought last year probably hurts blossoming this year. Blossoms are not yet at their peak.

Exquisite aroma and beauty from the dogwood blossoms - not the carpet of white we saw in a previous year. Still just the shock of finding these little beauties in Dallas County adds to their splendor. Dogwoods do well in East Texas, where it is wetter and the soil is acid. Here on the escarpment it is generally dry, hotter, and the soil is thin and alkaline. That the blossoms show up at all is a stunning oddity, a stroke of fortune emblematic of the unique place that is Dogwood Canyon.

Guided hikes — the only way to get to see the blossoms — are planned for Wednesday and Saturday this week.  Hikes are limited to 20 people, with two planned for Wednesday, and one for Saturday, March 31.  For reservations call Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center at (469) 526-1980.

Previously in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

• The $7 million dogwood blossom [now $8 million]

Playing with the ‘possum in the backyard

No, not “playing possum.”  Playing WITH the ‘possum.

The mostly-dachsund harasses any animal that may wish to take up residence under our shed — or, in some cases, under the heat pump.  The animals usually stick around for a while, though, because there is so much good stuff to dig up there.  For our part, we don’t mind when they dig up and dispose of the grubs, most of the time.

But these creatures — a possum, a raccoon a couple of years ago, armadilloes from time to time, or even rats (before Smokey the cat took them out, one by one) — eventually wander off, mostly unseen by us because they’re nocturnal.

Yesterday morning both dogs went nuts, and when I looked out, I realized they had something treed.  Between the mostly-dachsund and the border setter, they average out to a couple of beagles, and they can tree something if they want to.  Can’t get it, but they can tree it.

It's an election year, so why shouldn't one of Pogo's cousins be on the fence?

It’s probably the same one I saw a few weeks ago when taking coffee grounds to the compost pile (maybe the caffeine is keeping this guy up days, eh?).  Kenny caught him crossing the alley late one night, in the headlights, of course.

I brought the dogs in, and turned them out an hour later, thinking the guy had plenty of time to get to his daytime hiding place.

They treed him again. (Actually, that’s the second treeing, pictured above.)

Later they got him on the fence in a different part of the yard.

Possum caught in the early morning, peeking through the Chinese photinia (not red tip). Flash photography confuses the little guys, I think.

By this time I worried that the critter might be suffering from an illness — like rabies, which tends to make nocturnal animals come out in daylight, and be mean.

But there are no other symptoms.  I was relieved this morning to find new digs from the critter.  If he, or she, is digging for food, it’s probably not rabid.

In his jaunts around the world last year Kenny mentioned how ugly possums are, to one of his friends from Britain, who immediately took issue.  Cute?

Turns out Kenny’s friend was referring to the Australian possum, which is quite cute.

Australian ring-tailed possum, photo by kookr. Australia has 27 different species of possum, all of them cuter and more cuddly than their American cousins.

Ours is not an Australian import.

I hope the bob whites come back, too.  Maybe it was just the drought that discouraged them last year.

It’s been a good year for wildlife, at least those with wings.  One day last week we had a tree full of cedar waxwings, passing through.  Blue jays and white-winged doves flew around them, and into the same tree.  There were a bunch of robins out — making eight weeks of sightings of the things, which leads me to understand some sizable population is staying in the Dallas area now, instead of just migrating through as they would, formerly.  On the live oak, the yellow-belly sapsucker probed for new grubs.  And on the trunk of the red oak the waxwings gathered in, another woodpecker, wholly oblivious to the cacophony, looked for emerging insects itself.   On local roads I’ve seen a bobcat — first for Texas, for me — and a few coyotes (while cousin-in-law Amanda has video of what looks to be wolves, in California!).  We haven’t gone out to look at the snowy owl in Rockwall, but there’s a chance of adding a rarity to the life-list.

With luck, we’ll get the toads, soon.  We should do well — Kathryn’s worked hard to make the yard a refuge for wildlife.  We’re mostly organic, so there should be no poisons to accumulate in any insect-eating critters.  We feed birds, several different species, and we have water for animals in front and back yard.  The National Wildlife Federation will certify your yard as a backyard wildlife habitat.  Working to get there is most of the fun; watching the wildlife is the gravy.

Backyard wildlife study is great fun.

More:

• Possum (writing26letters.wordpress.com)
• Woman Busted For Trying To Sell Flying Possums On Facebook (laist.com)
• Aupossum Bon Pain (cuteoverload.com)
• Golden Brushtail Possum Is The New Cuteness (buzzfeed.com)

Campaign 2012: Texas State Board of Education, those who do not know history . . .

The Ghost of Santayana agrees with Texas Freedom Network

I get e-mail from people who work for good schools, the Texas Freedom Network:

TFN Launches SBOE 2012 Campaign

Ideologues on the State Board of Education are doing everything they can to keep our children in the dark (ages). They:

• censor American history, including what students learn about separation of church and state
• reject established science and dumb-down instruction on evolution
• ignore the recommendations of teachers and scholars who know what Texas kids need to learn to be successful today

Ignorance is not a Texas value. Texas needs a new SBOE.

So what can you do?

Every 10 years all 15 seats on the SBOE are up for election at once. This is that year.

Throughout this election year, our campaign will help you:

• Get informed about SBOE elections
• Get involved in your community
• VOTE for candidates that restore sanity to the SBOE

Take the first step: sign the pledge and join the SBOE 2012 campaign at tfn.org/educate.

Regards,
The Texas Freedom Network
tfn.org

P.S. Take another step toward fulfilling part of your pledge by clicking here to send this message to a friend.

P.P.S. For even more campaign updates, like TFN on Facebook and follow #SBOE2012 on Twitter.

Good idea.

For years, when people asked me about my opinions “in the really important races” I’d first ask them which school district they lived in, usually pointing out that I don’t know their district.  Local school board races are probably the most important most people will vote in (or fail to vote) in their lifetimes.  Since coming to Texas and fighting the Texas State Board of Education, I wonder sometimes if the state board races aren’t even more important than your local school board.  Santayana’s Ghost agrees with the sentiments on the TFN logo above.

If you don’t already use the site, you ought to at least check out the TFN Insider, TFN’s blog which covers the Texas  SBOE better than most media in Texas.

More:

• Lege should spend funds for textbooks (mysanantonio.com)
• Science in Texas schools given a ‘C’ (mysanantonio.com)

Get your Texas Drought Survival Package from Texas Parks & Wildlife

We’ve had serious rain in Dallas, but most of the state still resides well in the thrall of drought.  Plus, the rains in Dallas have been unseasonal, which suggests the drought is not done with Dallas yet, either.

Texas Parks & Wildlife has words of advice:

More information from TPWD:

The drought has taken a toll on everything from wildlife to water bills. To help Texans cope, Texas Parks and Wildlife is offering a Drought Survival Kit http://www.texasthestateofwater.org/

Duncanville district brags on its teachers

Take a look at this:

Oh, there are complaints, but most of the teachers I know in Duncanville Independent School District (ISD) like the district and are happy to be there. I know a lot of them, since our two boys both attended Duncanville schools kindergarten to graduation, and we live in the district.

Teachers, does your district put you or your colleagues front and center, like Duncanville did with Angela Banks?  Would it improve morale if they did?

Administrators, does your district put teachers front and center like Duncanville ISD did with Angela Banks?  Do you wonder why you have morale issues?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Caressa Harvey Roberts, another great teacher in Duncanville.

Stimulus spending: Texans remember how the CCC helped save the nation

New video history piece from the Texas Parks & Wildlife people:

63

Uploaded by TexasParksWildlife on Jan 17, 2012

The Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs for over 3 million young men during the Great Depression and helped establish the foundation of our nation’s park system. 70 years after the creation of the CCC, Conservation Corps veterans reunite in one of the parks they helped build, sharing stories and rekindling old memories.

A pictorial map showing Texas State Parks with significant work performed by the CCC:

Map of Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy Parks in Texas - TPWD image - Click on map for original, larger version

More, resources:

• CCC in Texas Parks, on-line exhibit from TPWD
• “A New Deal for Texas Parks,” on-line exhibit from TPWD (great DBQ materials)
• CCC at White Rock Lake (Dallas)
• PBS’s American Experience, “The Civilian Conservation Corps”
• Why the Civilian Conservation Corps Should be Restablished (triplepundit.com)
• Would FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps Work Today? (socyberty.com)
• Photographs capture ways in which blacks claimed citizenship in Great Depression (thegrio.com)
• Guide to records of the CCC at the U.S. National Archives
• CCC article at U.S. History.com
• CCC Legacy site (special history section)
• Wikipedia’s excellent article with links to photos and other resources
• Great Depression gateway at Library of Congress’s “American Memory” collection

Texas Statehood, December 29, 1845

166 years ago today: Rub your pet armadillo’s belly, slaughter the fatted longhorn, crank up the barbecue pit with the mesquite wood, put Willie Nelson and Bob Wills on the mp3 player, put the “Giant” DVD on the television, and raise your glass of Big Red, Dr. Pepper, or Lone Star Beer (or Pearl, or Shiner Bock, or Llano Wine).

Texas was admitted to the union of the United States of America on December 29, 1845.

President Polk’s Authorization to Affix the Great Seal to Texas Statehood documents – Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin

The text reads:

I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to an authenticated copy of “an act to extend the laws of the United States over the State of Texas and for other purposes” approved Dec. 29, 1845 dated this day, and signed by me and for so doing this shall be his warrant.

James K. Polk
Washington, Dec. 29, 1845

Great Seal of the United States, as affixed to Texas Statehood proclamation - image from State Archives Division, Texas State Library

Resources:

• “Annexation – Celebrating 150 years of statehood,” at Humanities Interactive, Texas Council for the Humanities Resource Center (this page is difficult to find if you just go to the Humanities Interactive ste — bookmark it!)
• Teachers Guide from Humanities Interactive
• “Celebrating 150 Years of Texas Statehood,” essay by James L. Haley
• Texas Annexation map activity (with map of U.S. – may be used by classes outside of Texas, too)
• Texas Treasures – Statehood, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
• Texas Statehood Flag, Gallery of the Republic
• Daughters of the Republic of Texas site, with this reminder: Texas Statehood Day [February 19, 1846]
  The legal entry of Texas into the Union was 29 December 1845, but the decade-old Republic of Texas did not formally transfer the authority to the new State of Texas until 19 February 1846.The Texans had until the end of the year in 1845 to accept the annexation as one of the states of the United States of America. They waited until 29 December 1845 to accept the terms, independent to the end. The formal transfer of authority from the Republic of Texas took place 19 February 1846 at the log capitol in Austin with President Anson Jones presiding. On this day we celebrate the end of the Republic of Texas.
• Texas Honor Days (days to fly the Texas flag), Daughters of the Republic of Texas
• Stamp honoring 100 years of Texas Statehood (Arago site)

A study in geography: The Red River of Texas – film from Texas Parks & Wildlife

Seven minutes on the Red River of the southern U.S., the fickle border of Texas and Oklahoma, the river of story and legend.  Good for a map study, good for the fun of it — how much do you really know about the Red River?

George Washington did not cross the Red River; George Washington may not have known the river even existed.  His loss.

Can the Houston toad survive Texas wildfires and droughts?

New short from the Texas Parks and Wildlife people:

The smoke may be gone but the Bastrop fires of Labor Day weekend are still a smoldering concern for biologists. They’re keeping tabs on the Houston Toad. And with only an estimated 2,000 left in Texas, this endangered species is facing its next challenge as the drought continues. More on Houston toads at http://www.houstonzoo.org/HoustonToad/

For background, see this earlier reel from TPWS on the fires at Bastrop State Park:

Perry’s lack of business experience noted — by Republicans

If you followed at all the teapot tempest over the false claims that President Obama’s cabinet lacked business experience (also here and here), this headline must have made you guffaw:

Kay Bailey Hutchison won’t endorse Rick Perry for president, says she wants someone with private-sector experience

No love lost between Hutchison and Perry.  Hutchison opposed Perry for the Republican nomination for governor of Texas in 2010.  Perry was brutal in his criticism of her, and he defeated her in the primary.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry should not count on the support of his state’s seniority senator (and his 2010 Republican gubernatorial rival) if he decides to run for president.

(Polaroid photo by Sarah Tung/Hearst Newspapers)

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Dallas, told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell today that she is looking for a Republican candidate with private-sector experience as her choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.

Perry is a career politician who has held elective office since 1985.

“He certainly has got government experience,” Hutchison told Mitchell on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” this morning, adding that “we need people who have been in the private sector, as well.”

The Republican senator’s comments hint strongly that she’d prefer one of the GOP candidates who has run a business: former Winter Olympics organizer (and venture capitalist) Mitt Romney, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain or former chemical company executive Jon Huntsman.

Hutchison said she has no immediate plans to endorse any candidate.

Texas to U.S.: Sorry about Bush. Perry is worse.

See MeetRickPerry.com.

“It Takes Balls To Execute An Innocent Man”

Occasionally I stumble into a discussion of whether anywhere in the U.S. a government may have executed an innocent person.  Generally I note the horrible Texas case in which Texas fought for years for the point that a convicted murderer whose three allowed appeals had been exhausted should not be allowed to reopen his case simply because new evidence of his innocence had emerged.  In Herrera v. Collins (506 US 390, 1993), Texas won the right to not allow evidence of innocence to get a review of the case, and the man was executed.

Ladies and gentlemen I ask you:  Why would a state fight for the right to execute an innocent man, to the Supreme Court, if it did not intend to use that right?

The question rises more frequently these days as Texas Gov. Rick Perry steams toward announcing he will run for the presidency.

I point out that Herrera came down nearly eight years before Perry stumbled into the governor’s chair, his having been standing outside the door as Lieutenant Governor when George W. Bush persuaded the Supreme Court — most of the same justices — to stop both the popular vote and change the electoral vote to give him the presidency.  So we can’t blame that one on Perry.

But we can blame the execution of Todd Willingham on Rick Perry, even understanding that he was relying on what he assumed to be good evidence in his naturally uncurious waltz of destruction across Texas.   Perry could claim he got bad advice.  Though Texas’s governer really has little more than ceremonial power and some appointments, for someone like Perry it is a big job he can barely handle.  People would cut him slack on letting an innocent man die, convicted of a capital crime that as the evidence showed at the time probably did not occur, if he’d just confess it.

Instead, Perry engaged in a four-year campaign to cover up the affair — a cover up that is so far successful.

Jonathan Chait blogging at New Republic cites Politico and The New Yorker on the way to painting all Texans as morally bankrupt for allowing the coverup to go on — justifiably, I think.  While the newspapers cover the story, outrage does not rise from the drought-stricken populace.  New Republic’s blog explained the cover-up, and Texas’s blase attitude:

Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman have a story for Politico about Rick Perry’s limitations as a general election candidate. It’s a really excellent piece on its own terms, but at the same time, it’s a bit of a parody of a Politico story in that it takes a vital moral question, drains it of all its moral significance, and presents it in purely electoral terms. The thesis of the piece is that Perry appeals to very conservative white southerners, but not to anybody else, making him a questionable choice to head the Republican ticket. The piece bears out that thesis pretty well. In the middle it includes a glancing reference to one episode of Perry’s gubernatorial tenure:

Perry would also have to answer for parts of his record that have either never been fully scrutinized in Texas, or that might be far more problematic before a national audience.

Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man – Cameron Todd Willingham – and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

The Willingham case is just one episode in Perry’s gubernatorial tenure that could be revived against him in the very different context of a national race, potentially compromising him in a general election.

If you’re not familiar with this episode, David Grann wrote about in for the New Yorker in 2009 in what may be the single greatest piece of journalism I have ever read in my life. (I am biased, as David is a friend and former colleague.) The upshot is that Perry is essentially an accessory to murder. He executed an innocent man, displaying zero interest in the man’s innocence. When a commission subsequently investigated the episode, Perry fired its members.

I’m a Texan, and I’m appalled.  Dear Reader, what can a Texan do?  Please advise.

Surely the rest of America would be concerned and shocked, no?  We can excuse goofs in the histories of our presidential candidates.  Especially since Nixon, we should be doubly wary of those who work hard to cover up their errors, rather than learn from them.

By the way, in the latest action, the office of the Texas Attorney General issued a report on the duties of the commission established to investigate Texas justice to make it more fair — the commission whose members Perry fired when they got close to the Willingham case.  The report says that that Willingham case is water under the bridge, that the commission may not investigatet cases that predate the commission’s creation.

It’s a gross miscarriage of justice, and an attack on the democratic form of government which relies very much on continuous improvement of governmental processes, especially the due processes of criminal justice.