August 3, 2009 — Congressman Doggett Update

This morning, an online news site reported that Congressman Lloyd Doggett had charged the Republican and the Libertarian parties with disrupting his Saturday morning meeting in Austin.

More recent reports appear to indicate that he has backed off from that stance.

Meantime, Travis County Libertarian Party (TCLP) chair Rock Howard has issued a formal statement that the Libertarian Party was in no way involved in the disturbance. I was at the event, and I can swear that this is the truth. Libertarians did not cause it -- and as far as I could tell, I may have been the only card-carrying Libertarian in attendance.

Anyway, Libertarians would much rather discuss an issue than raise a ruckus. Don't believe me? Come to any of our events.

But ... when you watch the YouTube videos, please know that these are a true and faithful depiction of how things happened. I know. I was there.

August 1, 2009 — Congressman Lloyd Doggett Run Out of Austin!!

Folks, I can't make this stuff up.

I guess I get to say that a lot. One of the reasons I'm in politics is that I always get to see the most interesting things.

This morning, the Hon. Lloyd Doggett, TX-25, made a public appearance in a mostly white, mostly upper-crust, mostly Democrat area of his district in Southwest Austin near the Circle C ranch.

He was there to meet with constituents and discuss issues of concern. Or that was the plan.

I arrived a little late, but not before the crowd had turned VERY ugly, started chanting "Just say NO!" and chased him out of the parking lot and out of town.

Although ... one of the people I spoke to said they were actually trying to keep him from leaving. They still had some things to say to him.

Oh well. This is why I should always arrive on time, even if I'm not making an official appearance.

The few people I spoke with expressed their strong opinions that HB 3200, the big new 1000-page health care bill, had more flaws than pages. One citizen even brought his own copy of the bill. He said he was still reading it (it's as big as Tolstoi's War and Peace) and shared my belief that the Congressman probably hadn't finished reading it either.

Perhaps to my shame, I did not try to speak with any of the pro-HB 3200 folks, but the catcalls being shouted from the cars of the few who were still circling the parking lot suggested that discretion might be the better part of valor -- or at least the better part of not getting flattened in a grocery store parking lot before martini hour.

Mr. Doggett is scheduled to appear in Bastrop this afternoon at 4 p.m. at the County Courthouse, and if you are reading this in time to get there, it promises to be interesting. Jim Stutsman, Libertarian Candidate for US Congress, TX-25 (Doggett's district), is on the road today and won't be back to Texas in time to attend. If you're one of his supporters, please give him my best wishes.

As for Mr. Doggett? Well, for most of his career in Congress, he's done about as good a job for his constituents as any Congressman from Texas ever has. I respect the man and I laud his accomplishments, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with him in Washington someday, if he can manage to defeat Stutsman in 2010.

But if he's gonna keep voting for things like HB 3200, he probably needs to trade his little black Honda car in for a big ol' SUV.

Not because it looks more Texan or official, but because it's a whole lot safer.

I'm James Arthur Strohm and I approve this message!

June 6 — Lamar Smith says “The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias"

Folks, I can't make this stuff up.

A San Antonio Express News story quotes your long-term representative in the hallowed halls of Congress as saying that "the greatest threat to the country is not a recession or terrorist attack but liberal media bias."

Read all about it here (link to story).

So if I am reading this correctly, it means that Katie Couric is a greater threat to national security than Osama Bin Laden. Oprah Winfrey is more dangerous than Kim Jong Il. And any 19-year-old first-year journalism student at The University of Texas (my alma mater) is a greater menace than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with his finger on the nuclear button.

Really, Lamar?

REALLY?!?!?

Lamar, you should have your people contact my people. Call me.

Everybody else, you might enjoy reading some of the things that readers of the San Antonio Express News had to say about that story, so when you click through to it, scroll down and cick on "View all comments" before they get purged.

Here's a thought. WHATEVER may be said in the so-called liberal media (short of malicious libel), true or false, balanced or imbalanced, fair or foul, is protected free speech under the First Amendment. And anything that the Hon. Lamar Smith does to limit the lawful and protected speech of ANY individual or any group constitutes an abrogation of both the letter and the original intent of the First Amendment.

Lamar, there's a law about that. You might want to brush up on your first-year law school notes.

And for everybody else out there in District 21 -- if you think that the Hon. Lamar Smith is using his place in the House to step on the free speech rights of anybody, speak up!! I'm listening, and so are the media on all parts of the political spectrum.

And for the record, I oppose any reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. It's an antiquated relic of a bygone era, and if it were re-instituted today, all the media outlets would be required to give EVERY political party equal access. And nowadays, we have lots more parties than just Reps and Dems, all of whom would receive equal TV time on Fox News under the Fairness Doctrine.

I don't think anybody wants that.

May 18 — How's that bailout working so far?

Well, I really don't need to answer that question.

Between my last update and today, we've seen TARP flapping in the wind, and it's been blowing like Hurricane Katrina.

Congress has actually brought unconstitutional ex post facto laws to the floor to punish the very people that the TARP authors intended to reward, and a surprisingly large number of Americans have actually lent their support to these bills.

At a videotaped forum before the Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce in mid-October, I warned of the potential for a billion-dollar deficit. I WAS KIDDING!!! Well, no, actually I acknowledged that it was remotely possible if TARP passed. Next time I'll predict record surpluses and a 70% tax cut. Might as well be wrong in the right direction.

Most noteworthy? The Hon. Lamar Smith (R-TX 21) voted FOR the TARP bill, not once, but TWICE, in the waning days of the last administration. Your incumbent 11-term Congressman (mine too — I live in District 21) helped deliver this trillion-dollar deficit to us. Incidentally, that deficit means an extra $3,300 for every man, woman, and child in America, above and beyond the nearly $10,000 a year we already owe and have to pay.

Now that Dubya has retired to an affluent suburb of Dallas, Hon. Smith has changed his tune about massive Federal bail-outs. He's consistently voted against the Democrat-sponsored, irresponsible bailout bills presented in the 111th Congress. But they were A-OK in the 110th.

He's always been such a good go-along-to-get-along kind of guy.

In November 2010 when you go to the polls, remember — Lamar was FOR the bailout before he was AGAINST it!

October 24 — Is the bailout bill a colossal pig in a poke?

I am still working the numbers on this, and will post an update as soon as I can.

The first action taken to spend the $850 billion stolen from American taxpayers was to give $250 billion to the banks, split equally between the 9 largest banks in the country, and an undisclosed number of unspecified smaller banks.

Worthy of note — EVERY recipient of funds will be on the hook for 5% interest per year for the first two years, and 9% a year after that. (Please correct my figures if these are inaccurate)

The CEO of Wells Fargo, one of the 9 major banks and perhaps the only one not crippled by sub-prime obligations, said he didn't need the money and didn't even want the money.

Too bad. In the Brave New World of Bush/Bernanke socialized economics, he had no choice. And now Wells Fargo owes 5% of 1/9 of $125 billion, by fiat of the White House. That's $694 million dollars, robbed out of a profitable private bank by Ben Bernanke's pen.

And the point man for Treasury is Neel Kashkari. Pronounced "Cash carry." Even when I was a journalist I could not make up stuff like this.

What comes next??

Researchers at Strohm for Congress are working on this, and will have better figures when they are available.

Friday we discovered these statistics:

RealtyTrac, a national company that follows things like foreclosures, reported that in 2007, approximately 2.2 million homes in the United States were posted for foreclosure, repossessed by the bank that owned the note, or were posted for auction subsequent to foreclosure.

The media has already (and frequently) reported that this number is artificially high.

Meanwhile, the Census Department reports that in April 2007, the average home price was $299K and the median home price was $229K. If we use $250K for the price of a foreclosed home, and if we assume that the value of the home fell to zero and the entire note became worthless — that's $550 billion.

Only half the amount of money allocated to "fix" the economy.

And our research indicates that both the number of foreclosures and the losses MUST be lower than this.

Now, these are numbers only for 2007, when the problem first surfaced. But you don't need to be a banker to know that a foreclosed home does NOT lose 100% of either its actual value or its loan value.

And most foreclosed and repossessed homes are re-sold by the banks to cut future losses, not carried on the books to create current losses.

So we are seeing a huge — a half a trillion dollar — disconnect between what we have already paid, and what the problem actually cost.

More accurate figures will be posted here as soon as they are available.

Until then, it looks like this is the biggest pork-barrel rip-off in history. Keep in mind that Lamar Smith (R, TX-21) voted for this boondoggle every time it came to the floor, and John Conaway (R, TX-11) waffled and changed his original "nay" to a "yea buddy, let's Paaah-taay!!"

October 6 — the bailout bill passed the House at about 12:25 p.m., Texas time. We're not doomed, but all the incumbents who voted for this abomination of a bill should be!

On Monday, Congress narrowly defeated a disastrous $700 billion bailout of the troubled mortgage banking industry. On Thursday, the Senate added on nearly $150 billion in additional spending.

Today the House is set to vote on this new, improved, bigger disaster.

If approved, Pres. Bush has promised to sign the bill. What this means to YOU is you will be on the hook for an additional $2,500 in taxes next year. Our annual deficit will triple to just over one TRILLION dollars. And the Wall Street money men who were responsible for the problem will get rewarded for failure.

What Can We Do?

Right now? Send Lamar Smith a fax demanding that he do the right thing, and vote AGAINST this bill. You know, he voted FOR it on Monday. He wants to take your money and give it to his rich friends. After today? Well, this bill is very likely to pass. If it does pass, then if you do nothing else, on November 4, vote AGAINST the office-holders who voted for this bill. In District 21, they include:

• Rep. Lamar Smith
• Senator John Cornyn

Senator Hutchison also voted for this bill, but she's not up for re-election.

We can't vote against this bill, but we sure can vote against the people who support it!