Thursday Roundup: The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Even though Ron Paul's campaign isn't convinced, some people think the fix was on in Fort Worth.

The basic idea being passed around is that supporters of Ron Paul were oppressed by the Texas GOP at last weekend's Republican straw poll:

Some say GOP officials orchestrated it because of Paul's contrarian views. The Texas congressman opposes the war in Iraq, wants to abolish the IRS and is a champion of small government and minimal foreign intervention.

"I do think they were trying to suppress the Ron Paul supporters," said Robert Werden, whose video of some Paul devotees being shunned at the door has been posted on YouTube. "Knowing that Ron Paul is from Texas and the support he had on the ground, I don't think they wanted us in there."

Since I wasn't there and I am also not all-knowing and all-seeing, it is impossible for me to tell you The Truth. I do know for certain that the low turnout was embarrassing for the Texas GOP. I also know that, according to Fort Worth Weekly, the Texans for Peace anti-war protest held at the same time as the straw poll had some trouble from the local law.

Texans for Peace had asked the city to close off Main Street near the convention center, and planned to put its stage in the street, along with canopied booths lining the curbs. Organizers had also received permits from the city to set up some tables and booths within the adjacent park.

But on the morning of the rally, police came by at 8 a.m. and made the Texans for Peace change their event’s configuration, even mandating that the organizers could not have an “anti-government or anti-Bush” message from their speakers. Geiger said police told the organizers they could use the street, but only if there was no anti-government message. The explanation police gave, said rally organizers, was that the police controlled the street, while the parks department controlled the General Worth Square.

The rest of the story is just as interesting.

Clean air is a big issue all over Texas these days. We all know what happened with the Bill White / Mike Jackson cage match over air pollution down in Houston this last session. Now some prominent North Texas elected officials, both Democratic and Republican, are urging Rick Perry, via TCEQ or other means, to do something about the ever-worsening air quality in the area.

The Dallas Observer has a companion piece on why the job of cleaning up North Texas' air might be more difficult than it initially appears. Essentially, the fight over clean air will be won in Austin, and it won't be won by simply winning the argument, or with science, although both are helpful.

In other power and water news, the much-ballyhooed buyout of TXU by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co is likely to get hammered down and finalized on Friday, which is when the company's shareholders will get their say by way of voting on the sale.

Back in March, Josh Matlock brought you some knowledge on T. Boone Pickens and his new fascination with water-as-business. The Star-Telegram now has a story about his current step in the process of making dollars from water: he has to build a rather large pipeline, he's secured himself an election on a Roberts County fresh water district, and everyone that will vote on whether that happens are Pickens Superfans. Not everyone is crazy about recent developments, as you might imagine.

As the September report on Iraq is just days away, the relevance of some other reports and prognostications on the readiness of the Iraqi government and military to run their own shop are in high demand. According to a new report, the Iraqi army won't be ready for that within a year. Well, the report doesn't just say they won't be able to take over; more specifically, it also says that as of right now the Iraqi army "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven." I'm curious as to what the report from the White House will say.

Oh, hey. Fred Thompson announced that he's in the race. He did it on Leno. While he was doing that, Huckabee was bringing the house down at last night's GOP debate. One might be a sleeper; one might be asleep. Time will tell, my friends.

Lastly, the other day we ran a roundup blip about some parts of nuclear weapons getting misplaced, and had a joke or two about how one would think one would be careful with that kind of stuff. One would think, but one might be wrong: the Pentagon revealed yesterday that somehow a B-52 was mistakenly loaded up with nuclear warheads and flown across the United States. I don't think I could invent a continuation more strange and worrisome than that, but truth is often stranger than fiction.