Daily News Roundup, 1/18/08: More Money, More Itemized Disclosures

If you had any doubt that the 2008 elections were going to be serious business in Texas, this report should convince you of the urgency and earnestness with which candidates have already been campaigning: from January to June of last year, politicos dropped just under $10 million on campaign activities.

This isn't the most money ever spent, but it is significant. Rick Perry does his usual level best to strike a blow at transparency:

Gov. Rick Perry: Next, at $585,524, most of it on staff and consultants, travel and campaign expenditures. The $112,926 the governor spent on travel and lodging included $13,586 to fly with an aide to Turkey to the "Bilderberg Conference," an international group of business people and politicians who meet in private, and whose activities are not shared with the media or ethics officials.

So, in short, even his disclosure doesn't really disclose anything.

In a different kind of disclosure, our friend Matt Glazer from Burnt Orange Report, er, reports that while elected officials were spending money, some Democratic candidates were raising it at a frenzied pace. Joe Jaworski is now closing in on half a million dollars and Judge Susan Criss raised over a quarter million dollars in the last six months of 2007. Behold: gas in the tank.

From gaining money to losing it: the Dow Jones had a rough day yesterday, even as Bernanke hit the Hill and tried to reassure everyone that with some sort of stimulus package, everything will be okay. I'm not sure about one part of the method that's being kicked around - the six hundo that Bush plans to send to America's families sounds familiar. I remember getting the $300 check after 9/11, and I'm not sure that plan worked. So I don't know how doubling something that didn't work the first time will work the second time, but I say that while admitting that I am not incredibly well-versed in all parts of the plan. Here at the forefront, it smells like an excuse to cut taxes rather than fixing the real problems.

Do you ever wonder what H. Ross Perot is up to? These days he's endorsing Mitt Romney and delivering criticisms to McCain. The media would have you believe that it has been a tough few weeks for McCain, and McCain is totally fine with letting the media tell you that, for obvious reasons. I think I may have even seen a story somewhere about Tom DeLay getting a bunch of people together to rail against McCain, but most everything Tom DeLay does these days seems seems like a pitiable, desperate attempt to maintain relevancy, so to spite him I refuse to find it and link to it.

If you've been keeping up at all with the Case Of The Disappearing White House Emails, you know Henrry Waxman is representing hard for everyone that likes the idea of government accountability. Now that he has pushed enough to get the White House to admit that more than a years' worth of emails have beeen destroyed, you can bet that more hearings and more hassling will produce ever more fruitful results and reveals. Waxman is not the kind of guy to let something go, and the e-mail scandal, much like the attorney firing scandal, doesn't look like it is going away anytime soon.

Finally, after bringing you the news yesterday that Texas Supreme Court Justice Medina and his wife were indicted in connection with an arson at their home, some interesting details came out about the grand jury. Apparently, the grand jury foreman feels as if there's a little bit of obstruction going on. For those of you that like to watch ships sink, you are going to be hard pressed to find a schooner diving sooner than Chuck Rosenthal's.