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Jackson Williams
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Jackson Williams is involved in real estate and politics. He lives in Austin, Texas, a progressive island in a Lone Star sea of conservatism. That sea is roiling anew.

Williams saw his first paid political action in 1984, while managing a real estate portfolio for a large developer. Moonlighting, he created the advertising for Dallas mayoral hopeful Max Goldblatt. His idea was to graft the book/film title "Viva Max" onto the candidate's persona, using radio/TV, billboards, bus placards, whatever the budget could afford.

As luck had it, the book’s author was famed PBS journalist Jim Lehrer, who counted Max as an old friend. Permission granted, the colorful campaign garnered widespread media coverage, including a New York Times profile.

Goldblatt missed an '85 runoff – against the incumbent -- by a mere 472 votes, the closest mayor's race in the city's history. Shenanigans with Diebold vote-counting machines factored into the finish, a controversy that would later reemerge at the presidential level.

Williams also worked with crusading Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox on various statewide efforts (Attorney General, Governor, U.S. Senate) and business interests. There’s a related tale in the 2003 best-selling book "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential."

Throughout the years, Williams has been active in numerous political endeavors, personally and professionally. He's raised millions of dollars, done advance work and opposition research, and passionately argued policy differences.

He looks forward to the day when certain campaign anecdotes and horror stories finally outlast their antagonists.

Blog Entries by Jackson Williams

Turning Texas Blue (or at Least Purple): Bet On It

(13) Comments | Posted February 1, 2013 | 4:00 PM

Last week, Politico reported that national Democrats are creating a "large-scale independent group" aimed at turning Texas into a legitimate electoral battleground.

This is no mere pipe dream. It's eminently doable.

Jeremy Bird, a key builder of the Obama campaign machine, is forming "Battleground Texas." The...

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Texas Mega-Church Pastor: Obama 'Paving the Way for the Future Reign of the Antichrist'

(45) Comments | Posted November 6, 2012 | 6:35 PM

The First Baptist Church in downtown Dallas is a major religious institution within the Baptist faith, long powerful and influential. Its senior pastor, Robert Jeffress, made headlines in 2007 with a Sunday sermon calling Mitt Romney a member of a religious "cult." Specifically, he said this:

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Bill Clinton to Speak Opposite Giants/Cowboys at Democratic Convention? This Cannot Stand

(3) Comments | Posted July 31, 2012 | 6:39 PM

Former President Bill Clinton is set to place President Obama's name into nomination by delivering a prime-time speech on Wednesday, September 5. This is a big problem.

The NFL is starting its regular season on that very night, featuring a marquee matchup between the Super Bowl champion New York...

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Justices Kagan And Thomas Should Recuse Themselves

(18) Comments | Posted November 28, 2011 | 10:45 AM

Federal judges are required by law to disqualify themselves when their "impartiality might be reasonably questioned." This applies to the Supremes, too, but Diana Ross has greater standing to decide the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act than the compromised Clarence Thomas.

His wife Virginia has been a public Obama...

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Conservatives Ignore Their Own Recent Views of Gaddafi

(21) Comments | Posted March 23, 2011 | 12:38 PM

On Tuesday night's O'Reilly Factor, the Fox News host again showed his carnival barker's chutzpah.

Bill O'Reilly, leading off his "talking points" segment with a call for the absolute ouster of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, insisted it's the only viable outcome because, after all, the guy "killed...

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America to its Military-Industrial Complex: Happy Valentine's Day!

(4) Comments | Posted February 12, 2011 | 4:29 PM

An 18-day peaceful revolution has just toppled Egypt's 30-year Mubarak dictatorship. As the free-falling government dispatched American-made F-16s to roar over Cairo as an act of intimidation, a coalition of average citizens (most of them under age 30) led the charge toward democracy. An uncertain but hopeful future awaits.
...

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Arizona and "Second Amendment Remedies"

(50) Comments | Posted January 8, 2011 | 5:13 PM

During the 2010 midterm elections, Republican senate nominee Sharron Angle of Nevada said that "if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies."

Lest her reference be too subtle for dummies, she immediately added, "I'll tell you the...

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Justice "DeLayed" Doesn't Have to Mean Justice Denied

(9) Comments | Posted November 18, 2010 | 2:10 PM

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The Tom DeLay money laundering trial is coming to a close in Austin, Texas. Comeuppance is nigh.

To recap: The Lone Star State bans corporate contributions to candidates. In 2002, DeLay's political action committee, Texans For A Republican...

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Must See TV: My Trip to Al-Qaeda on HBO

(5) Comments | Posted September 2, 2010 | 5:22 PM

On Tuesday, September 7, HBO airs the documentary My Trip to Al-Qaeda by Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright. It should not be missed.

Wright's most recent book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, won the '07 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction....

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Glenn Beck, Unhinged in Texas

(76) Comments | Posted April 26, 2010 | 6:03 AM

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Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch and network honcho Roger Ailes have a decision to make about an employee.

Glenn Beck's the name; tearful televangelism's the game, and his latest on-the-road routine is straight out of Pat Robertson's The 700...

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John Stossel of Fox News: Is He Dumb or Dishonest?

(103) Comments | Posted April 14, 2010 | 5:43 AM

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UPDATE added below: Stossel responds.

All journalists make mistakes. After all, it's a human enterprise. Then there's John Stossel, now of Fox News.

He doesn't merely commit the occasional error, he combines tall tales and worthless stats...

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Singer Erykah Badu Strips Naked at JFK Assassination Site

(442) Comments | Posted March 29, 2010 | 8:29 PM

Erykah Badu has posted a provocative new video to accompany the song "Window Seat." Currently #28 on Billboard's R&B/hip-hop chart, it appears on her latest album New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh.

In the video, Badu walks around Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas,...

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Supreme Court Justice Roberts Fibbed in Alabama, and YouTube Proves It

(20) Comments | Posted March 10, 2010 | 5:13 PM

Anyone who has ever questioned whether or not the Supreme Court is a politically-charged body can wonder no more. It is.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, spoke Tuesday at the University of Alabama. Commenting on President Obama's recent State of the Union remarks...

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The Return of Gil Scott-Heron

(1) Comments | Posted February 2, 2010 | 2:52 PM

Anyone familiar with the 1974 line "The revolution will not be televised," or the many subsequent uses of that ubiquitous cultural marker, is familiar with Gil Scott-Heron, whether they know it or not.

His politically inspired spoken word soul music had its heyday in the '70s and '80s ("What's the...

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Tea Partier Takes Texas Governor's Race By Storm

(124) Comments | Posted January 30, 2010 | 2:42 AM

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the top Republican candidates for governor of Texas actually lost their nationally televised C-SPAN2 primary debate to a tea party upstart named Debra Medina. She was cool, calm, collected (and, of course, nuts).

Guess what? It happened again Friday...

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U.S. Senator Hutchison and Governor Perry Lose Televised Debate to Texas Tea Partier

(38) Comments | Posted January 15, 2010 | 4:59 AM

One of the nation's more closely watched races in 2010, the March Republican primary for Governor of Texas, pits a sitting U.S. senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, against a sitting governor, Rick Perry.

Judging by their first encounter Thursday night, broadcast statewide on PBS and nationally on...

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Garrison Keillor, Uncensored for Christmas

(33) Comments | Posted December 21, 2009 | 10:10 AM

Some in the rightwing blogosphere, who can't stand Garrison Keillor for his liberal politics, are taking shots at him for his recent pro-Christmas piece at Salon.com, syndicated in various newspapers around the country.

What seems to offend is a brief and benign swipe at Jewish songwriters who...

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Newspapers Turning Into A Glorified "Greensheet"

(7) Comments | Posted December 3, 2009 | 4:08 PM

UPDATE (Dec 4): A Dallas Morning News employee, depressed at the prospect of news editors now answering to the paper's ad sales people, files the following anonymous newsroom dispatch with the blog of the monthly D Magazine (not affiliated with the paper):

Everybody is disgruntled, to put it mildly,...
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Obama Bows, Conservatives Bitch, Reality Bites

(23) Comments | Posted November 17, 2009 | 3:10 PM

In the 1980's, billionaire conservative gadfly Ross Perot received the prestigious Winston Churchill Award at a lavish Dallas dinner. Prince Charles himself came across the pond for the event, and local high society, Republican to a fault, rushed around town in the two weeks beforehand booking lessons on how to...

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Bush Oil Buddies Divvy Up Iraqi Oil, Now Joined By "Liberal Scion" Peter Galbraith

(67) Comments | Posted November 13, 2009 | 10:48 AM

The ongoing saga of the Iraqi oil patch pie adds a new chapter, courtesy of the Thursday New York Times, and its above-the-fold front pager, "American Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits."

In today's installment, we learn that Peter Galbraith, former ambassador, foreign policy...

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