LBJ Comes From Behind To Win Seat In Congress
LBJ Comes From Behind To Win Seat In Congress While voters in 10 Texas counties went to the polls on April 10, 1937, to pick a new congressman, the youngest candidate on the ballot spent the day in a hospital bed. After working his way through college at San Marcos and teaching school at Houston, Lyndon Baines Johnson joined the staff of Rep. Richard Kleberg. Three years later, he returned to the Lone Star State as administrator of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal Program. Although eager to launch his own elective career, Johnson refused to start at the bottom with a local or state office. The ambitious bureaucrat would settle for nothing less than a seat in the United States House of Representatives, which invincible incumbents in one-party Texas usually held for life. The sudden death of Rep. James P. Buchanan in February 1937 opened the door but only a crack. By leaving his name off the list of possible replacements, the Austin Statesman gave Johnson credit for showing good sense. A 28-year-old unknown from the smallest county in the Tenth Congressional District would have to be crazy to challenge the political heavyweights sure to seek the post. As Alvin Wirtz listened to Johnson make the case for entering the race, he realized it would be a waste of time and breath to tell him to wait his turn. The former lawmaker and veteran lobbyist offered his assistance and a piece of advice. For the underdog to have even a ghost of chance, he had to turn the election into a referendum on the New Deal. Money was no problem. Wirtz put the bite on a few corporate contributors, who gave generously to the long-shot cause, and Johnson
Lizards Do Shed Their Skin
Lizards Do Shed Their Skin Despite being run out of Congress back in the 1990s for a laundry list of scandalous behavior, well-known philanderer Newt Gingrich keeps being afforded precious airtime and ever-diminishing print space. We
Out Of The Mouths Of Babes
Out Of The Mouths Of Babes The University of Oklahoma
The Easter Bunny Is Still Getting Help From Fathers In Boxer Shorts
The Easter Bunny Is Still Getting Help From Fathers In Boxer Shorts Soon, in the wee hours of the morning, something magical will happen in back yards all across America as, one by one, each of them is visited by… You guessed it! A half-naked father hiding Easter eggs. That
Texas Lawmakers
Texas Lawmakers
Oath Keepers
Oath Keepers LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Let me introduce you to the Militia! That
The Bear Fighter
The Bear Fighter As Uncle Hugh used to say, “I always admired Big Jim. Competition keeps a man on his toes.” There will never be another Big Jim Ferguson. Thank God. He was a school dropout, but became a lawyer, banker and governor of Texas. He was probably the best public speaker in Texas politics. He was responsible for founding three colleges and the Austin State School. He financed the most ambitious building program in state history. He instituted state aid for rural schools and the first compulsory school attendance law. He fought the Ku Klux Klan and prohibition (The Klan was the most stringent advocate for voting dry in Texas. They vowed to vote anti-whiskey as long as they could stagger to the polls.), tried to cap sharecropper rents and opposed Women
No Margin For Error
No Margin For Error Just how much money should Texas businesses pay under the newly revised franchise tax? That is the question many legislators are trying to answer and one that will soon be up for serious debate. Calls for re-examining the revised franchise tax (a/k/a the margin tax) have been growing in number as the economy retracts and more Texans lose their jobs. But the economic decline is only part of the reason people are taking a second look at the new business tax. According to the Comptroller
Geithner Cripples The Economy
Geithner Cripples The Economy Tomorrow has arrived. President Barack Obama is a kleptocrat conservationist. So says William J. Black, author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry.” Black
Texas Set To Ban Trans Fats
AUSTIN, Texas
Houstonian Allegedly Beats Son To Oust Demon
HOUSTON, Texas
Texas Tech Doctor To Study Suicidal Veterans
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Texas GOP
AUSTIN, Texas
Karl Rove To Speak At WTAMU
CANYON, Texas
Cheney Hordes Files For
WASHINGTON, D.C.
9/11 Family-Hater Sucks Up To Texas Governor
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Cheer Up, Emo-Patriot! — Texas Conservatives To Sulk At ‘Tea Parties’ Wednesday
Texas Conservatives To Sulk At ‘Tea Parties’ Wednesday BURLESON, Texas Thousands and thousands of conservative Texans are fixing to sulk this Tax Day, April 15. And to make matters worse, they aim to sulk in public like teenage emo shoe-gazers at a My Chemical Romance concert. Their hang-ups? Check their diary entries. First, there’s the federal government protecting creditors (Wall Street banks) and debtors (mortgage holders). Then, there’s President Barack Obama’s proposed $3.55 trillion budget for 2010. Next, there’s the $787 billion economic stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-majority in Congress. And finally, there’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for just being a douche. This grassroot anger and frustration was stoked by various right-wing media pundits, most notably Rick Santelli. This past February, the on-air business editor advocated for a Chicago-style “tea party” during a five-minute diatribe on the financial cable news outlet CNBC. “All you capitalists who want to show up at Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing,” Santelli screeched on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. What was he thinking about dumping in the lake? asked a CNBC anchor. “I think we’re going to be dumping some derivitive securities,” he quipped to whistles and cheers. “What do you think about that?” Well, apparently, CNBC thought so much of the idea that the cable news network reportedly refused to sponsor any of the so-called “tea parties” this week; in the same CNBC statement, Santelli said he wouldn’t be attending any rallies either. Instead, various groups affiliated with the Republican Party, including Fox News, hijacked the movement with their very own silver-plated pitchforks, made-in-Taiwan torches, and Luzianne tea bags. To the academic elite in their Ivory Towers on the East Coast, the organizers of the Tea Party USA movement were behaving rather oddly during their first round of parties. In fact, Mary Segers, a political scientist at Rutgers University, told the Christian Science Monitor that today’s emo-patriots are generally wimpier than their French counterparts. “The most interesting thing about the American people is that we are generally compliant in paying taxes, and tax revolts that seem surprising here are fairly common in a country like France where those farmers, if they get upset, they simply don’t pay,” she said. Nevermind that the emo-patriots don’t know their American history. The organizers of the original “tea party” the Boston Tea Party never asked for permission to stage their direct action in 1773. Instead, without warning, they threw 90,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor in protest of the British-backed monopoly on the tea trade. Stranger still is the whining that took place last week when an organizer in Burleson, Texas, heard that her request to hold a “tea party” there was denied by the city’s special events committee over “safety concerns.” “To sit here and tell us they’re not going to have it because of safety concerns or because of due to the public interest, that’s just absurd,” said organizer Angela Cox to the Fort Wor
