TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalKerry Bentivolio Kicked Out Of The GOP Cult-- And Forced To Sell All His Reindeer
"This is what happens," groused Kerry Bentivolio, "when a regular guy gets an opportunity to come to Congress." He's feeling pretty aggrieved all around. Not many Republicans lost their seats this year. But Bentivolio did-- and he lost ugly to Michigan's foreclosure king, who unleashed a torrent of cash-- over $4,000,000, including $3,623,402 from his own bank account-- to smear him mercilessly from Canton, Livonia and Novi to Auburn Hills and Washington, DC. In the end Trott and his Establishment allies beat him 138,229 (56.1%) to 100,665 (40.8%). Bentivolio calls himself a "a regular guy," but that's a bit of a stretch. He's an unconventional guy with a typical Tea Party sense of victimhood and way to independent-minded to fit in with garden variety, button-downed Republicans. He never really fit in anywhere in DC and, as disgusting as everyone acknowledges Trott is, not many are going to cry in their beers over the premature end of Bentivolio's accidental ascension to Congress.
Some Republican thugs are going in the opposite direction-- trying to wipe out the memory that he ever existed! Trott sent out word that he wouldn't be interested in any Bentivolio staffers and that he wouldn't look favorably on anyone else who hired any of them.
Bentivolio had hired a martial arts trainer from Ann Arbor, Robert Dindoffer, as his senior advisor and then gave him the job of campaign manager, firing him 7 months later. Dindoffer is widely considered a real scumbag and he's one of the leading forces behind Michigan Republicans' efforts to steal electoral votes by changing the way the state apportions them between candidates. When Bentivolio fired him-- basically for submitting false expenses and stealing from the campaign-- Dindoffier sued over some weird contract with a typically Republican type scam to extract more money from the campaign than is normal. Republicans always do this to each other.
Although he isn't willing to talk about it, Bentivolio has made it clear that Dindoffer wasn't just scamming the cash-strapped campaign for money but was also disloyal and looking out for himself, not his boss. This week a local judge ruled that Bentivolio has to pay Dindoffer $120,000.
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/12/kerry-bentivolio-kicked-out-of-gop-cult.html
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 2
Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.1. And Republicans claim to wonder why normal people call them racists (featuring Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 2: the Rockin' Racist, Ted Nugent)
I always tell them that the best way to stop being thought a racist is to stop saying and doing racist things.
As promised in Part 1, here's the Rockin' Racist, Ted Nugent, vying for his Republican Crazyspeak of the Year Award. Ted is a very commercially successful recording artist, and, like most successful recording artists, he has a way of expressing the thoughts of his constituency; in this case, his fellow republicans. There's a reason why he's a star on FOX. Even Anderson Cooper, on FOX-Lite CNN, enjoys having him on as a guest from time to time.
Nugent was just warming up.
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/12/crackpot-utopia-year-in-republican_20.html
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 1
Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.1. Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award
Since we're talkin' about crazy crackpot folks, why not start back in early January with the Cheney Princess, Liz, and her surprising -- and then surprisingly brief -- candidacy for the office of U.S. senator from Wyoming, the old home state of her Dr. Strangelovean Daddy Dick. Liz coulda been a contenda, or at least she thought so . . . at least for a while.
First, for purposes of frame of reference, here's a sample of Princess Liz speaking the crazy via Twitter:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* "Best VP ever" = Daddy Dick -- Ed.
-snip-
2. "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck
Also back in January, eternal misanthrope and conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck put on a faux hairshirt and went on Faux News to confess to Mistress Megyn Kelly about his role in polarizing the United States Of America better than Tokyo Rose ever dreamed.
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/12/crackpot-utopia-year-in-republican_19.html
Court cancels beleaguered Beaumont ISD's May 2015 election
The next scheduled election for Beaumont school trustees would have been May 2015, but state District Judge Donald Floyd signed an order canceling it today (Friday).
The action could leave the appointed Board of Managers in place until May 2017, the next in-cycle election for the school board, according to the Texas Education Code.
The most recent election for trustees occurred in 2011. The election scheduled for 2013 was upended in an almost yearlong legal joust that took plaintiffs from a state appeals court to a federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., back to a the 172nd District Court, which has had jurisdiction since the Texas Ninth Court of Appeals sent it there.
Earlier this year, Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams appointed seven members of a Board of Managers to lead the school district, wracked as it was by theft, fraud and mismanagement.
Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Court-cancels-BISD-s-May-2015-election-5969267.php
Former Houston mayor Bob Lanier dies at 89
Former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, who rose from poverty to prominence as a lawyer, developer and popular urban leader, died Saturday afternoon. He was 89.
Dave Walden, Lanier's former chief of staff, confirmed the death.
Lanier served as Houston's 50th mayor from 1992 through 1998, leaving office because of term limits. Public officials and business leaders turned to him for advice for the rest of his life, and Lanier appeared regularly at public policy conferences.
"He was a renaissance man and that rare occurrence when you have someone who is able to change the actual trajectory of a city," said attorney and mayoral candidate Ben Hall, who Lanier selected to be the city's first black city attorney. "He refocused on what I think was the true function of local government: to provide basic services that would make it convenient for individuals to live in the city and to encourage development inside the city."
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Former-Houston-mayor-Bob-Lanier-has-died-5971148.php
Fired state health worker sues embattled Texas health agency
Another top state health official has resigned as Texas legislators, responding to an American-Statesman investigation, call for state and federal investigations into a multi-million-dollar, no-bid deal the agency awarded to an Austin technology company.
Doug Wilson, inspector general of the Health and Human Services Commission, resigned Friday at the request of Gov. Rick Perry, a spokeswoman said. The resignation, effective Dec. 31, came about an hour after the announcement of a criminal investigation into dealings between the Office of Inspector General and 21CT, a data analytics company hired to help with Medicaid fraud investigations.
The State Auditor’s Office on Friday announced it would launch an investigation in conjunction with an anti-public corruption unit at the Travis County District Attorney’s office.
“Ongoing questions regarding the awarding of contracts at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have caused the governor to lose confidence in Wilson’s ability to carry out the important oversight responsibilities of this office,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said in a statement.
Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/stick-no-longer-on-state-payroll/njXJK/
(subscription required)
[font color=green]I imagine that the Public Integrity Unit is chomping at the bit waiting to interview Ms. Wilson.[/font]
Related threads:
HHSC Inspector General resigns amid questions over no-bid contract
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107822630
Texas Medicaid fraud contract unfairly awarded to 21CT, rivals say
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107822593
Top Lawyer at State Health Agency Resigns Over Contract
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107822490
Hey, Job-Seeker Liz Lauten –Fellow GOP Mean Girl Carly Fiorina Is Staffing up for a Presidential Run
Lauten
Here is more hope for the tens of people who’ve been worried tea-party operative and infamous cyber-bully Liz Lauten’s employment prospects. National Journal reports that former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorini is running for president in 2016. The good news for Lauten, potentially, is that Fiorini, an infamous GOP mean girl herself, is hiring.
Lauten, who is about 30 years old, made national news after she took to Facebook to criticize the deportment of Pres. Obama’s daughters, Sasha, age 16, and Malia, 13, during the annual turkey-pardoning event at the White House. Lauten accused the girls of having no class and dressing like women who deserved only a “spot at the bar.” She also criticized the Obamas for being poor role models.
Lauten was summarily booted from her job as communications director for Tennessee tea party congressman Stephen Fincher. She vanished from the spotlight, and her prospects for a career in politics looked grim — until now.
Fiorini’s signature moment in politics occurred in June 2010, the day after she won the Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race. Waiting for an interview to begin on a Sacramento television station, Fiorini sat in front of a live camera and an open mike fiddling with her Blackberry and chatting cattily with an assistant. First she dished on fellow Republican and fellow former Silicon Valley CEO, Meg Whitman, who’d just won the California GOP gubernatorial primary (and would also lose to Jerry Brown by double digits in November).
Read more: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2014/12/19/hey-liz-lauten-if-youre-looking-for-a-job-fellow-gop-mean-girl-carly-fiorina-is-staffing-up-for-presidential-run/
Anti-Gay Pastor Arrested For Grabbing Man’s Genitals, Soliciting Oral Sex
A southern Indiana minister whose church teaches that gay sex is a sin was accused of soliciting gay sex at a park. Gaylard Williams (I’m not making his name up. I think it’s Fabulous), pastor of Praise Cathedral Church of God in Seymour, was arrested for allegedly approaching a man parked at a lake, squeezing his genitals and asking to perform oral sex.
The man told the 59-year-old pastor that he was “barking up the wrong tree.”
According to WLKY, the man took down the pastor’s license plate and called the police.
Towleroad reports:
According to ‘Church of God’ beliefs, homosexuality is a sin, also, “We will engage in those activities which glorify God in our body and which avoid the fulfillment of the lust of the flesh.” And of course, marriage is between a man and a woman.
Read more: http://www.alan.com/2014/12/19/anti-gay-pastor-arrested-for-grabbing-mans-genitals-soliciting-oral-sex/
HHSC Inspector General resigns amid questions over no-bid contract
Another top state health official has resigned as Texas legislators, responding to an American-Statesman investigation, call for state and federal investigations into a multi-million-dollar, no-bid deal the agency awarded to an Austin technology company.
Doug Wilson, inspector general of the Health and Human Services Commission, resigned Friday at the request of Gov. Rick Perry, a spokeswoman said. The resignation, effective Dec. 31, came about an hour after the announcement of a criminal investigation into dealings between the Office of Inspector General and 21CT, a data analytics company hired to help with Medicaid fraud investigations.
The State Auditor’s Office on Friday announced it would launch an investigation in conjunction with an anti-public corruption unit at the Travis County District Attorney’s office.
“Ongoing questions regarding the awarding of contracts at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have caused the governor to lose confidence in Wilson’s ability to carry out the important oversight responsibilities of this office,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said in a statement.
Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/stick-no-longer-on-state-payroll/njXJK/
Related threads:
Texas Medicaid fraud contract unfairly awarded to 21CT, rivals say
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107822593
Top Lawyer at State Health Agency Resigns Over Contract
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107822490
[font color=green]More corruption in the Perry administration--who would have guessed?[/font]
Employees At San Antonio Gay Bar Brutally Attacked In Apparent Hate Crime
Two employees at a popular San Antonio gay bar were brutally attacked in an apparent hate crime as they left work early Wednesday.
SaintDaniel Ramos, an employee at the Saint Nightclub, said two men pulled up in a black Silverado and asked for jumper cables. When Ramos' co-worker turned his back to look for the jumper cables, the men attacked him. From Fox 29:
He said the guys started punching his friend.
"I heard the commotion and went around to try to help, got hit in the face by the second guy,” Ramos explained. “Fortunately, I only got hit once. Nothing as extreme as my friend."
The friend did not want to be identified, but he told us the attackers yelled gay slurs while they pounded on them. Ramos believes his sexual orientation is the reason behind the beating.
Ramos suffered a gash below his left eye, and his co-worker reportedly was admitted to a trauma unit.
The attack was caught on surveillance video, but the suspects are still at large and San Antonio police haven't indicated whether they're treating the incident as an anti-gay hate crime:
"I've never, never been assaulted this way,” he said. “Stuff like this really needs to stop. It really does."
http://www.towleroad.com/2014/12/san-antonio-gay-bar-employees-brutally-attacked-in-apparent-hate-crime-video.html#.VJMNI4rMnPI.twitter
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
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