Only one quarter of Wendy Davis' online support came from Texas

So says Wired Magazine:

From the Article:

The map above, created by the academic research group Floating Sheep, shows that while the volume of Twitter activity for #StandWithWendy was—naturally—greatest in Texas itself (nearly 29 percent of all tweets), there was also quite a bit of chatter coming out of places like New York state (8 percent), California (12 percent) and even places like Illinois (4 percent). 

That should tell you everything you need to know about the 'emerging groundswell in Texas' narrative.

(h/t Progress Texas' Facebook)

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Progress Texas: Democrat Push Poll Finds Result Democrats Like

Well huzzah:

Bipartisan Poll: Texas Voters Oppose Abortion Legislation

Screams the headline from Progress Texas; reading further, we learn:

“This overwhelming opposition proves that Gov. Perry and the legislature are out of touch and out of control,” said Katrina Mendiola, Executive Director of Engage Texas, a non-partisan organization aimed at increasing civic engagement.

 And who, pray tell, is Engage Texas?!?

Engage Texas is a 501c4 organization that works behind the scenes to coordinate, organize and help seek funding for nonprofits that share progressive goals, but because of campaign finance laws they can not work directly with the Democratic Party. Their communications for partner organizations comes largely through Progress Texas.

 The poll itself was conducted by Stan Greenberg, a.k.a. Bill Clinton's pollster, and contains such gems of questions as:

• Women's access to health care is being threatened in Texas....agree or disagree?!?
• A special session of the legislature should focus on issues like education, jobs, and the economy, instead of bringing up social issues like abortion that were already addressed in the regular session of the legislature
• I trust Governor Perry and the state legislature to make decisions about women's healthcare.

In other words, when you use dishonest language to discuss abortion, you can get results Democrats like; that's not news.

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Why did Progress Texas Belittle American Deaths?!?

Progress Texas just shared the following cartoon on their Facebook page:

Because Pat Smith is just some crazy right winger, right guys?!?

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Will Progress Texas Apologize for (at best) mischaracterizing the IRS Scandal?!?

The other day, we called out Progress Texas for claiming they received similar treatment from the IRS as Tea Party groups.  We linked to their IRS application and the application of the Waco Tea party along with highlights from other Tea Party-type applications.  In response, Progress Texas retreated into semantics.

We were going to drop the matter, but that was before Friday's bombshell U.S. House hearing.

Details that emerged in that hearing (and other news reports we've seen the past 24 hours) belie Progress Texas' claim that they received similar scrutiny:

• Was Progress Texas ever asked to detail the contents of their prayers?!? No.

• Did any members of Progress Texas have their personal businesses audited?!?  No.

• Was Progress Texas ever asked to provide the names of every person they trained?!?  No.

At best, Progress Texas mischaracterized the scrutiny they received relative to Tea Party groups.

The honorable thing would be for Progress Texas to apologize and admit they were (at best) premature in claiming similar treatment; we'll see what happens.

-----

Facebook: Progress Texas
Twitter: @ProgressTX 

Update: Seriously, Progress Texas, similar treatment?!?


Update II:
In response to reading this post on my Facebook page, Toby Marie Walker wrote: "The answer is "no" however you can pass along to them that I gave all their info to Oversight since they too were asked illegal questions."

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Did Progress Texas fib about the IRS scandal?!?

Yesterday, Progress Texas claimed that they received identical treatment to Tea Party groups when they applied for tax-exempts status; Progress Texas made the following three claims:

• While the IRS was screening Tea Party groups, the agency was headed by Doug Shulman - a George W. Bush appointee
• Many Tea Party groups operate like political PACs or political parties - which is not allowed under law
• It took us at Progress Texas 479 days to have our tax-exempt status approved, and we support the due diligence

Today, Robbie Cooper of Urban Grounds points out that Progress Texas received a standard set of IRS follow-up questions (*), not the detailed inquisitions sent to Tea Party Groups.

You can read the request sent to Progress Texas here.

You can read the request sent to Waco Tea Party here.

Bottom Line: Progress Texas was asked standard follow-up questions by the IRS (*) and had their application approved in a little over a year; Tea Party groups were given a proctology exam and many are still awaiting approval 3+ years later.

* which, in the opinion of Cahnman's Musings, are already waaay too intrusive.

Update: Fox 7 Austin has a great piece on the Waco Tea Party Case here:


Update II: Progress Texas has updated their original post to use the word 'similar' instead of 'the same;' without getting into semantics, a little over a year compared to 3+ years AND the two questionnaires speak for themselves.

Update III: An earlier version of this post contained a link to this account from the American Center for Law and Justice; with Progress Texas playing word games, we recommend you compare those questions with the Progress Texas request linked above and judge for yourself.

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