Mary Beth Harrell's momentum is building in what has been described in every Congressional forecast as a "strong Republican" district. Mary Beth Harrell has recently received funds from DCCC and attention from foreign media because she is the only candidate for Congress with a son actively serving in Iraq.

Now she is going on the air with this ad. Please watch and comment.

(cross posted at The Agonist, Burnt Orange Report, DailyKos, Just Another Blog)

Hours ago, the Unites States Supreme Court released there ruling in the Texas Redistricting case. It was a strong statement in support of hundreds of thousands of voters in the most diverse parts of the state.

In a time were less Texans are insured, education is failing, and the culture of corruption is sweeping our nation, it is troubling to have the court rule FOR an incumbent protection plan. With no test in place and no restrictions, state legislatures can legally choose to ignore the plight of children and seniors, teachers and doctors, veterans and first responders, and waste time by constantly changing the boundaries of a political district.

The High Court made it clear that political gerrymandering is legal and acceptable as long as voters have their rights protected.  The court was troubled by the simple fact that in Congressional District 23 over 100,000 Latino voters were thrown into a new district to protect the incumbent Republican and weaken the voting power of the minority.

Currently the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is in jeopardy and the House of Representatives has refused to protect the civil rights of every American.

There's more...

I thought that was the only way we'd ever get the local Austin paper  to cover my Congressional race - if we could prove that my opponent, the incumbent Republican Congressman, John Carter was an alien. Nope, turns out he's only been marooned on Mars - and that was exposed by a Houston paper first.

So does that make him an illegal alien? ah, sweet irony... But I digress.

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My opponent, incumbent Congressman John Carter, slipped on a banana peel--or should I say oil slick -- when he invited the TV cameras over to a local gas station to shoot footage of him standing in front of a handful of constituents while he blamed soaring gas prices on protecting the environment. It just so happens Carter owns over a million dollars of stock in Exxon Mobil Corporation, a fact turned up just the day before by my volunteer researcher.

Did Carter think holding his "gripe-n-grin" at a Shell station would throw us off the scent? Not when the stench of corruption smells this rank! Imagine this oil spillionaire pretending to understand the average Joe's pain-at-the-pump when his financial disclosure shows him owning between one and five million dollars worth of stock in a company with quarterly profits of over eight billion -- that's over a thousand dollars a second! He feels your pain -- ka-ching!

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As many of you know, I'm an Army wife and mom running as the Democratic candidate for Congress against Republican incumbent John Carter in central Texas.

Recently, I was privileged to be at our local VA hospital on Valentine's Day for their annual tribute to our veterans. Carter was also invited but didn't show.  

Carter's office did send a rep who told us Carter must be real busy because he wouldn't normally miss the chance to spend the afternoon with Miss Texas who was touring the VA hospital....  It seems he missed the point.

There's more...