And starring Greg Abbott as P.T. Barnum

It was fairly good fun watching the attorney general of Texas try to pull a fast one today, and getting slapped before he could draw his hand out of the cookie jar.

Earlier this afternoon, Greg Abbott proclaimed an "agreement" in the Texas redistricting saga and spoon-fed a few media outlets with the news. Except that the "deal" wasn't one because several of the various plaintiffs said 'pass', and the judges who set today as the deadline for agreeing -- or pushing farther out the primary elections -- called bullshit as well.

A federal judge ordered all sides in the Texas redistricting lawsuit to keep talking Monday, just hours after the attorney general announced a compromise plan that prompted immediate pushback from several minority groups involved in the case.

Attorney General Greg Abbott had said several minority groups agreed to a plan that would put two new congressional seats in Hispanic-dominated districts for this year's elections. But some of the groups that sued the state, alleging the GOP-controlled Legislature drafted redistricting maps that were discriminatory, scoffed at the new plan and said it diluted the voice of minority voters in some parts of the state.

Judge Orlando Garcia noted that Monday was the deadline for all sides to agree.

"The parties should continue their negotiations to the extent possible, but all deadlines remain in place until the Court is notified that an agreement has been reached," Garcia said in the court order.

Garcia and two other San Antonio-based federal judges are hearing the lawsuit. The judges said that if all sides couldn't draft compromise maps by Monday, then the April 3 primary would likely be delayed.

In other words, Greg Abbott is his usual sorry ass lying bastard self, everyone in Texas (and quite a few people in Washington DC) know it, and nothing much has really changed with regard to the clusterfuck that is Texas redistricting.

Any questions? Juanita Jean can answer them.

Update: Greg goes deep into the cartography, Charles burrows into the spreadsheets, the Corpus Caller nails it, and the Associated Press gets most everything comically wrong in this piece.

Super Hangover Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance waited into Sunday morning for election returns from Nevada (they can count cards 24-7 in Vegas but they can't count ballots?!), slept late, woke up in time for the Super Bowl party, and thought Madge delivered one of the better halftime shows it has seen in recent years. Here's this week's roundup.

Texas gets a C on its science curriculum standards, despite the worst efforts of the wingnut faction on the State Board of Education. Off the Kuff has the details.

Anonymous blogging is First Amendment-protected speech, as most of us (but not some conservative bloggers) knew three years ago. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs documents the establishment of the legal precedent.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wants you to ask your presidential candidate about America's water safety. The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that everyone who unable to afford expensive purification devices is at risk.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the struggle Texas teachers and schools are having because of the billions the legislature cut from public education last year: Texas teachers and schools need our help.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that Planned Parenthood, unions, and the Girl Scouts aren't the only institutions the republicans are trying to kill.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw nails the Komen Foundation flap and sees its parallels in Texas. Give it a read: The Republican Jihad On Women.

Blogging on protests at home and abroad, Neil at Texas Liberal posted about a website hosting conference calls for Occupy participants across the nation, and also made a post with a number of links to learn more about events in Syria.

Three hours? Seemed like three years.

Or maybe it was three 'seasons'. But those three movies were the worst.

The Harlem Globetrotters?!

The relevance of Nevada

Less than zero, but if you turn on your teevee this morning -- and not to watch any of the eight hours of Super Bowl pre-game -- you'll get a different version.

• Mormons outnumbered evangelical voters: 26 percent of the Nevada caucus-goers were Mormon compared to just 23 percent who said they were evangelical Christians. Only New Hampshire had a lower-percentage of evangelical voters, at 22 percent. Even so, Romney carried evangelicals here with 48 percent; the best he's done in any state thus far.
• Very low turn-out: With Romney all but assured a win here, Nevada GOPers weren't exactly inspired to get out to vote. In 2008, just 45,000 Republicans caucused. This year, it looks like even fewer will vote. Given the dismal showing, it's going to be very hard for Nevada to justify its early state status in 2016. As the New York Time's @natesilver tweeted: "new rule: if you don't turn enough people out to fill state's largest football stadium, you lose early voting status."

Look at the Google link to the election returns. At the time of this posting Clark County, with 50+% of the state's vote, still has not fully reported.

Ron Paul won Esmeralda County by a vote of 20 to 19 over Mitt Romney. Less than 60 people caucused in the entire county. Meanwhile, Ron Paul is apparently now running for Treasury secretary in a Romney administration (but will probaby have to settle for a speech in prime time at the convention ... right after his wacko son). Gary Johnson is a better fit for the Libertarians anyway.

This may be a fine way for the freak right wing of the Republican party to pick a nominee, but not for anybody else.

Sunday Super Bowl Funnies

“Newt may be toast already. The Republican establishment have the knives out for him. Tom DeLay said Newt Gingrich was the most despicable human being he has seen since shaving this morning.” -- Bill Maher

Anonymous blogging is First Amendment protected speech -- as we knew all along

You may recall the case of the blogger/PI who sued two bloggers in Beaumont because they made fun of him, sucking Google (as blogger.com) and others into his vindictive legal wrath.

He lost at the Texas Supreme Court, and now he has lost again. First, from the Southeast Texas Record:

On Monday a local judge denied Philip Klein's petition to take the depositions of Google and Beaumont attorney Brent Coon, effectively ending the political commentator's three-year crusade to unmask two area bloggers.

Through his companies, Klein filed the petition against the Operation Kleinwatch and Sam the Eagle blogs, as well as Google and its subsidiary, blogger.com, on Aug. 26, 2009, in Jefferson County District Court.

Klein alleged Operation Kleinwatch and Sam the Eagle engaged in a pattern of libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and use of copyrighted images.

In his petitions, Klein claimed the bloggers defamed him by posting a parody of Dog Fancy magazine in which he was depicted under the caption, "Fat Men Who Love Their Dogs Too Much."

Nonetheless, on Jan. 30 Judge Donald Floyd, 172nd District Court, denied Klein's verified third amended petition, ending his efforts to investigate claims.

"This ruling reaffirms the important principle that disgruntled public figures may not abuse pre-suit discovery to ferret out personal information about the people who criticize them," said Jeffrey L. Dorrell, a Houston attorney who defended the bloggers, in a press release.

And from said press release:

Ending almost three years of litigation, Judge Donald Floyd of the 172nd District Court in Jefferson County on January 30, 2012, entered a final order denying Beaumont private investigator and local media personality Philip R. Klein’s request to take presuit depositions of Internet search giant Google, prominent local attorney Brent Coon, and others to discover the identity of two anonymous bloggers. The bloggers publish satirical parody and other biting criticism directed at Klein on blogs known as “Operation Kleinwatch” and “Sam The Eagle.”

Here's the response from OK:

After repeated attempts by our attorneys and much foot-dragging by Philip R. Klein and his attorney, John S. Morton, Esq., an evidentiary hearing was held on Jan. 17, in which PRK introduced NO evidence to support his claims that we invaded his privacy, stole his copyrighted work, inflicted emotional duress on him and his family, or defamed him.

We did, however, admit that we posted a parody of a dog magazine with Philip on the front cover - the title of the article: "Fat Men Who Love Their Dogs Too Much," as a parody of this piece from MSNBC. Draw your own conclusions, but according to Philip's arguments, he apparently believes we exposed his penchant for dating farm animals.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's the response from Sam The Eagle:

On January 30, 2012, over two and a half years since Sillip instigated his Philly lawsuit, Judge Donald Floyd struck down all of Philip's allegations, denied all of Philip Klein's requests, and confirmed that Philip Klein was the biggest blowhard liar in Southeast Texas.

Klein's blog is the Southeast Texas Political Review, a badly written, poorly sourced ultraconservative freak show covering the Golden Triangle. Klein is also a private investigator, which means he knows lots of crooked attorneys who pay him for various shovelfuls of dirt he is able to unearth.

I would post his response to his losing his case yet again, but it's already been removed.

Philip Klein, quite simply, is a moron. To be both candid and a little cruel, he's just another one of those conservatives of low intelligence you may have read about recently. And there are plenty of lawyers -- even in places like Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange -- willing to take his money to watch him demonstrate it.

The importance of this case (to those of us who blog) as precedent really can't be overstated. I do not blog anonymously, of course; and no one who does should have any fear of legal retribution from someone who wishes to out them just because they don't like what they wrote. Sarcasm -- even excessive sarcasm -- as political insult goes at least as far back as 1800 ... in the battle for the presidency between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Amazingly, FOX News found the archival videotape of the 19th-century political ads and here it is:



I sure do miss hearing the phrase "hideous hermaphroditical character" tossed around at the Republican debates. Don't you?

Things like First Amendment rights to free speech are usually obvious to every honest and decent American, but rarely are to TeaBaggers with brains too thick and skin too thin.

April 3rd unified primary hits the circular file

DBN:

The D.C. District Court three judge panel entered a order in the preclearance case telling parties that they should not expect a ruling for at least 30 days:

The Court directs the parties to comply fully with the page limits and briefing schedule set in this matter so that it can be timely resolved and also notifies the parties that this Court does not anticipate issuing any order within the next 30 days.

A number of participants in the case had been expecting the court to rule by February 15 and some had felt that a ruling might even be possible next week.

This afternoon, in light of today's D.C. Court advisory telling the state and plaintiffs in the preclearance case that they should not expect a ruling for at least 30 days, the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) filed an advisory with the San Antonio District Court, that has jurisdiction over interim district maps and the primary election schedule, saying it no long believed a unified primary was still possible on any date in April, absent a near term settlement between the state and plaintiffs in the interim redistricting case before the San Antonio District Court.

And that settlement is on ice, as we learned this past Monday.

So the Republicans will likely hold their presidential hag beauty contest on the April 3rd date; the rest of the Republicans and Democrats will wait until April, perhaps, for court decisions, with primaries not until the end of May or June. There might still be some short filing deadlines if the San Antonio court releases maps by February 6, but with the DC court's pronouncement they are not likely to feel any deadline heat to do so.

Meh. At least the pressure's off.

Update: Michael Li, as always.

(Thursday) morning, the San Antonio court entered an scheduling order, directing briefing by February 10 at 6 p.m. on a number of issues related to interim maps and setting a hearing/status conference for February 15 at 8 a.m. (so much for Valentine’s Day for lovelorn lawyers).

The court’s order is here.

The issues the court asked to be addressed include:

• the meaning of the Supreme Court’s ‘not insubstantial’ standard, including the proper allocation of the burden of proof,

• how the county line rule should be applied in interim maps,

• the applicable law on coalition and crossover districts and how it should be applied for purposes of interim maps,

• whether the court has the authority to waive preclearance requirements for new precinct boundaries

The court also asked that the parties submit propped findings of fact and conclusions of law by February 10.  The court’s order said that it was not announcing an election schedule at this time.