Scattershooting Eddie Lucio and Houston lobbyists

-- Have I said 'Screw Eddie Lucio" this week yet?  South Texas Chisme has your "'Democratic' senator lauds Patrick" post.  There has GOT to be a real Democrat in that district to replace this guy (and I'm not referring to Eddie Lucio III, necessarily).

-- This from a week ago almost got past me in a very busy week.

Four years after Mayor Annise Parker's administration tightened Houston's lobbying rules and pledged to enforce them, not a single person or firm has been cited despite records showing that many lobbyists have failed to abide by the regulations.

A Houston Chronicle review of city records and interviews show that dozens of lobbyists do not properly record the clients they represent, do not keep their registrations up to date or do not report spending any money to influence city leaders.

In addition to registering their employers, lobbyists must disclose the spending they do to lobby city officials. Of the 142 lobbyists with active files in the City Secretary's office, only 24 reported spending money on lobbying, and only 10 reported making more than three expenditures. Many activity reports also were filed late.

Lobbyists must update their registrations annually, but dozens fail to do so, leading to lapses ranging from a few days to several months. Some fought issues before the City Council, met with city officials or took council members to luncheons or Astros games during those lapses.

Most of these people identified in the article are Democrats.  A couple are former council members of council.  They're identified by name in the article.  Frankly I'm embarrassed that people I know and like seem to be out to lunch (pun not intended) about properly disclosing their business.  The bottom line is: if you play the game, you need to play by the rules.  If you don't know the rules, you need to learn them.

Even the new city attorney prevaricated  on the matter.

City Attorney Donna Edmundson said her office does not have the resources to do proactive enforcement. Edmundson acknowledged some lobbyists complain about competitors, but said she has never received a written complaint that would spur her to investigate.

"The criminal standard is 'intentionally or knowingly violates.' The bottom line is, it's just a Class C misdemeanor," Edmundson said, noting the $500 fine such a violation would carry. "If someone files a written complaint, that's fine. I don't know of anyone in the city that would sit here and look at the City Secretary's list."

Well, that's going to change.  Especially when the city attorney telephones a lobbyist after receiving complaints to encourage that person to get into compliance.  The former city attorney seems to have a different POV about being 'proactive'.

Many lobbyists who report no activity say they deliberately avoid spending money on lobbying or avoid topping $25 per purchase, the threshold above which expenses must be disclosed, in part because they want to avoid the hassle of filling out reports.

"Are these people really saying they don't ever spend in excess of $25? That's just not believable," (David) Feldman said. "If this ordinance is being interpreted and applied in such a way that they're not having to really disclose their activities, then there needs to be another look at this ordinance."

Yet another reason we can't have a nice democracy.  Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature have already set a bad enough example for the sham of talking about ethics reform and doing nothing about it; let's hold our city's leaders and those who exert influence on them to a higher standard of accountability.

This would seem to be an opportunity tailor-made for a mayoral candidate to capitalize on, especially if a mayoral candidate has served previously on council -- like Chris Bell, Adrian Garcia, and/or Stephen Costello.  I hope somebody will be asking them about it at this morning's third mayoral forum (which I will again be forced to miss).

Clinton, in Houston, touts universal voter registration

And an extended early voting period.  Her short talk on expanding voting rights in H-Town yesterday afternoon stomped all over Rick Perry's presidential declaration, and may have even affected turnout at the mayoral forum next door at U of H (in the evening).  And she busted a lot of Republican balls in the process.

"What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other," Clinton said at the historically black Texas Southern University, where she received a leadership award named after the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

The former Secretary of State and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president also suggested a national requirement for at least 20 days of in-person early voting, including options for weekend and evening voting.

"If families coming out of church on Sunday are inspired to go vote, they should be free to do just that," Clinton said after calling on Congress to replace the portions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

You may recall that the Texas Legislature passed, in 2013, what was generally acknowledged as the most restrictive voter photo ID bill in the nation.  A federal judge struck it down about a month before the 2014 general election, but the Fifth Circuit quickly reversed that, and with just a few days before early voting was to begin, the Supreme Court -- having quashed several other states' less restrictive laws -- declined to intervene in the Texas case at the last hour.  So we got the lowest recorded voter participation since the Great Depression in the past statewide election cycle.  Oh yeah, Democrats got hammered.

Coincidence?

The Fifth is yet to rule on the case, having heard arguments at the end of April.  It will likely go on  to the Supremes after that, perhaps for a final ruling this time next year.  But the SCOTUS declined to stop a similarly harsh law in Wisconsin just this past March.  If the Texas law ultimately stands, Democrats are going to have to keep grinding on their potential voter base to get registered, get ID, and then get their asses to the voting booth.  But photo ID or no, a blue wave is coming, and only the US House -- gerrymandered to hell and back -- may remain red after November of 2016.  The US Senate is primed and ready to revert to Democratic control.  In other words, there may be no stopping the removal of these ridiculous obstacles to citizen participation in Texas elections (save the electorate's own apathy, of course).

Read Clinton's full speech here, and her reference to Oregon as the model.  Or watch it below.

More presidential logo hilarity

So Rick Perry stole his campaign logo from Popeyes? pic.twitter.com/tLA0UyopEi

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) June 4, 2015

This is the result of too many corporate PR firms "expanding their markets" into politics.  Bernie Sanders, notably, doesn't suffer that problem.

Second mayoral forum draws sparse crowd, few fireworks

Houston mayoral hopefuls swapped plans to shore up the city's finances at a forum Thursday, pledging everything from pension reform to scrapping the city's crime lab.

The event drew little in the way of political fireworks, with the rival candidates largely sticking to their own talking points at the University of Houston student center. More than 200 people were in attendance.

I wasn't one of them, and neither was Ben Hall.  Twitter coverage was also skimpy, and non-existent after the first 30 minutes or so.  Reading the story at the Chron made me sleepy.  I'll have to assume that the affair put everybody's feet to sleep, save the wonkiest of those present.  Here's a sampling of statements by the six in attendance without ellipses.

City Councilman Steve Costello, who chairs the city's budget and fiscal affairs committee, focused almost exclusively on taming the city's pension costs, calling it a "looming crisis" and promising to achieve reform. "So here's what happens if we don't get pension reform," Costello said. "We won't be able to do things like after school programs we won't be able to do summer jobs, we won't be able to district service accounts. These are this issues that we have."

Former congressman and City Councilman Chris Bell acknowledged the city's current pension costs are not "sustainable" but he pushed for a broader approach.

Bell called the city's revenue cap, which limits the property taxes the city can collect, a "bad policy." He said he would support considering an exception to the cap for public safety spending, a change that would need voter approval.

"I happen to feel that it's disingenuous though to try to lead voters to believe that as the next mayor you can simply cram a solution down the throats of the Houston firefighters," Bell said.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, too, said he would support a possible carve-out for public safety spending under the city's revenue cap.

"For a growing city the revenue cap works against our interests," Turner said.

Turner authored a bill during this year's legislative session aimed at lowering Houston's pension payments by $77 million over three years, but it never made it to the House floor. The effort drew praise from some corners but critics called it a short-term solution.

Turner said the budget conversation needs to be broader than just pension reform.

"You have to bring everything to the table," Turner said. "Be very careful when you're talking about pensions.

Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia touted his management and budget experience, saying he thinks the city needs to "match up our core services to our available revenue stream." On the pension front, Garcia also said he would work to restore "desperately needed local control."

Former mayor of Kemah Bill King said the city's budget woes are "not a revenue problem."

He said he would push for more cost-saving partnerships with the county, particularly merging the city's independent crime lab with the county's lab.

"I cannot for the life of me figure out why the city is still in the crime lab business," King said. "I think we've pretty thoroughly demonstrated this is not one of the city's core competencies."

Businessman Marty McVey largely skirted the pension and revenue cap issues, instead focusing on expanding the city's property tax base.

"I think the reality is this: we cannot cut our way to prosperity," McVey said. "We have to look for ways to increase our tax base, we have to go out and recruit new businesses."

So (IMHO) Costello, Bell, and Turner remain at the head of the class in terms of understanding the issues and communicating their solutions effectively.  King's got the grouchy Republican vote cornered, Garcia brags about something he shouldn't be, and McVey still thinks Rick Perry's business initiatives are a good idea.

This is all going according to my plan.

Some 2016 light bites

-- Rick Perry's up and running, as of 2 a.m. this morning and, formally later today, live from Addison.  Jeb Bush will be also -- after some pointed legal criticism -- in a couple of weeks.

-- Lincoln Chafee, in his announcement yesterday, wants Edward Snowden to come home, the US to convert its weights and measures to the metric system, and negotiations with the IS to be on the table.  There's bound to be a few people outside Rhode Island, where he was both senator and governor as a Republican, for which that platform represents hope and change.

-- Ted Cruz has been telling a weak joke about Joe Biden for some months now.  This time he told it just after Beau Biden passed, so it came off a little worse than previously.  The audience still laughed heartily.

Afterwards when he was asked about the appropriateness of the timing of the joke, he stalked off from the reporter who questioned him about it.  Crooks and Liars characterized his behavior as 'sociopathic'.  I wouldn't go that far -- his actions haven't resulted in people dying, like those of Rick Perry and Greg Abbott (denying Medicaid expansion) -- but Cruz is a turd and a massive jerk, and just because somebody died doesn't mean he's not going to make a joke about it.  He'll just make sure he does so when there aren't any cameras or microphones present.

-- The Duggars continue to make excuses for their son's child molestations.  Cringe-worthy.  Mike Huckabee wasn't available for comment after the Fox News interview with the family patriarch last night, by all indications.  If he still wants to be president, he should keep doing that.  Making himself unavailable for comment on this matter.

Update: State Rep. Bill Zedler of Arlington chimed in today, saying "The Left hates the Duggars because they have standards".  We were running on stupid fumes until this moment.  Now we have a full tank again.

-- A billionaire Wall Street hedge fund manager named Leon Cooperman didn't like Hillary Clinton's pandering to the Warren crowd and promptly jerked her chain.

"I don't need anybody crapping all over what I do for a living," the founder of $9.2 billion hedge fund firm Omega Advisors said.

[...]

"[She] hangs out with all these people in Martha's Vineyard and in the Hamptons and then the very first thing she has to say is to criticize hedge funds," he said.

It's all crap, Leon.  You should know this.  This crap coming out of her mouth is the full extent of what is being passed off as Hillary's progressivism.  Everybody in the whole wide world knows it except for you, Leon.  (And maybe Ted.)  So stop taking it personally.

Culturemap covers first H-Town mayoral debate

It was a Q&A forum on the arts, affording little opportunity for scrapping among the seven, but Clifford Pugh provides the details anyway for those of us who track these items.

Twenty minutes into the first gathering of all seven candidates for Houston mayor on the same stage, former congressman Chris Bell noted an audience member stifling a yawn.

"It could be a lot worse. This could be a Republican presidential debate," he said, where as many as 20 candidates are expected on stage in a few months.

Bell always demonstrates the best sense of humor.  And why is Bill King so sour all the time?

While much of the evening was taken up with policy wonk questions about a cap on the Houston Hotel Occupancy Tax (aka the HOT tax), which funds arts projects around the city, the best — and most humanizing question — came from an audience member, who asked, "Who is your favorite artist and why?" You could almost see the wheels turning in each candidate's head as he scrambled to come up with an unscripted answer.

First up was former Kemah mayor Bill King, who lamely listed Van Gogh, whom he first learned about from his history teacher many years ago. Businessman Marty McVey picked the 13th century poet Rumi for the "great solace" his work provides, which drew the applause of one audience member.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner was the first to turn the discussion to Houston artists — John Biggers and Michelle Barnes are among his favorites, and the other candidates quickly followed his lead, with Bell listing Lamar Briggs, Houston City Council member Stephen Costello mentioning Mark Foyle, muralist Ashley Wren and Justin Garcia, and former sheriff Adrian Garcia picking his daughter along with Project Row Houses founder Rick Lowe.

Attorney Ben Hall had the most unconventional answer  — he's mad about Surrealists M.C. Esher and Salvatore (sic) Dali. "Read into that what you may," he said cryptically.

The man's name is Salvador, Clifford (or Pastor Hall, as the case may be).  Escher's name is also misspelled, despite the link to it, so we'll put both of those mistakes on Pugh and his editor, unless Hall actually pronounced it "Sal-vah-tore-ay".  Pugh still should have known better; Hall probably not.  (My guess is his disgust for Dali's nudes stopped him from learning the artist's name, if in fact he doesn't know it).  It's so easy to cull the field of prospective mayors by asking them a question that they didn't anticipate, isn't it?

Update: Those in attendance -- see comments -- report that Hall is a fan of Dali, with the phrase "mad about" in the article meaning good and not bad.  I got the wrong impression (pun intended).

The other two debates -- err, forums -- this week will be more policy-substantive, I predict.  I plan on being present for both of them.  No telling what unscripted moment may occur and reveal.

Waiting for the decision on marriage equality

One of the most immediate and impactful decisions affecting the lives of Americans -- besides the ruling on Obamacare subsidies, of course --  will be the SCOTUS's call on gay marriage, due before the end of this month.  (The Fifth Circuit is also deliberating the question and may announce its decision prior to the Supreme Court's.  It won't have the final say, of course.)  Gatherings are planned around Texas to celebrate anticipated good news; Katie Couric recently interviewed one of the lead plaintiffs, Jeff Obergefell.

His case, Obergefell v. Hodges, rests on two questions. One is whether  the Constitution requires a state where same-sex marriage is not legal to recognize a marriage licensed in a state where it is legal. The other question is whether the Constitution requires states to license marriages between two people of the same sex — in other words, whether same-sex marriage should be legal nationwide.

The case will likely stand in the history of legal annals alongside iconic civil rights cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade.

SCOTUSblog’s Kevin Russell says if the court rules in favor of the legality of same-sex marriages on both of the questions that Obergefell v. Hodges asks, the implications could extend far beyond marriage. 

 “This could be a decision that says that it is generally unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in every sphere,” says Russell. “And if the Supreme Court holds that, then this will be a huge case. It'll be the ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ for sexual orientation. It will mean that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, at least by states and by the federal government, is unconstitutional across the board.”

Obergefell’s case, however, also poses an unlikely danger to proponents of same-sex marriage. Currently, 37 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized same-sex marriage. However, in 21 of those states, it is only legal because courts ruled state bans unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court rules against him, and additionally goes so far as to say that the Constitution does not protect marriage at all, those rulings could be in jeopardy.

Experts say that outcome is largely unexpected, but they concede that this scenario could be a major setback for gay couples. Same-sex couples who are now legally married in 21 states could suddenly lose their legal status. As Russell says, “It would be a huge mess.”  

That fear is not lost on Obergefell, who says he “absolutely” shares that concern. “I think there would be a certain level of pandemonium in the country. I mean, how could there not be, because suddenly, again, you're creating this second class of citizens.”

And so we wait (hopefully to celebrate).  Update: Charles has more on the preparations being made at various Texas county courthouses.

Green Party of Texas holds state meeting this weekend

From the press release:

http://gptx.nationbuilder.com

Texas Greens hold state meeting in Tarrant County June 6-7, 2015

By-laws, amendments, election of state officers, and and 2016 ballot access
retention on agenda for delegates' consensus approval

The Green Party of Texas will hold its annual state meeting this Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, at the United Bethlehem Center, 970 E. Humbolt St., Fort Worth.  Regular party business including the consensus on various by-laws and amendments and the election of state party officers will be conducted, along with party-building workshops and seminars.

Given that 2016 will be a better-than-average year for Democratic candidates for a number of reasons, as well as the state legislature’s continued assault on non-primary parties, discussion on ballot retention will be a primary focus. 

According to outgoing GPTX CoChair kat swift, “Getting and maintaining ballot access is always a problem in Texas.  Once ballot access is attained, state law requires active political parties in Texas to achieve a minimum 5% of the total of votes for any one statewide office in order to maintain ballot status, but with straight-ticket voting this is only possible when one primary party fails to run a candidate.”

In recent years the GPTX has been able to keep its future ballot line by running in at least one statewide race where there was no Democrat entered.  In this last legislative session, a bill to end straight-ticket voting was opposed by both primary party lobbyists, as well as a bill to make non-primary parties pay to get on the general election ballot.

“The state legislature continues to work toward more restrictive access to an already restricted ballot line.  We must be diligent if we wish to continue to provide voters a populist alternative to the corporate-run, two-party duopoly,” swift said.

For more information, including a phone number to call, please contact media committee chair Aaron Renaud at aaron.renaud@gmail.com.

There's a fairly interesting development under way for the 2016 ballot, which I can't blog about until after the vote is taken on Saturday. Stay tuned for that.

Lines form at the Lege exit doors

First were Sylvester Turner and Allen Fletcher, two Houston state reps from opposite sides of the aisle who, as we know, are both pursuing other offices.  Democrat Joe Farias of San Antonio also called it quits along with Belton Republican Jimmie Don Aycock, and yesterday it was Republican Sen. Troy Fraser -- the man who helped make Rick Perry a millionaire as governor -- and the head of the Texas State Bored of Education, Thomas Ratliff.  Kind words were spoken about all of them except Fletcher, from what I can tell.

But nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to miss Fraser, who "had trouble hearing women's voices" among his many shortcomings.  Aycock is a different story.

"I don't think there is anybody in this body who has garnered the respect that you have for your evenhanded way of dealing with things, authentic way of being, and willingness to do what’s right for the state of Texas,"  state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, told Aycock on the floor Monday.

As House education chair this session, he worked hard to try to fix the school financing method -- ruled unconstitutional by one state judge, under review by the Texas Supreme Court at the moment -- which was unraveled by the last-minute clusterfuck of legislation that bottlenecks our legislature at deadline.  In yesterday's post Gadfly and I had a discussion in the comments about whether the Lege's failure to address this issue might mean a special session before 2017 on the topic.  (I think the answer is 'no' mostly on the basis of Aycock's pulling the plug and not Abbott's pronouncement.)

Charles has more on Fraser, the health challenges of Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, who almost certainly won't be running again, and Ratliff, mentioned also in the update below.  With a blue hurricane forming for 2016, it's possible that Texas could do worse with some of these open seats, but the prospects of improvement appear a little brighter.  Only if some lousy TeaBagger clutching his gun and bible replaces Fraser in the Senate could we consider ourselves worse off.

Update:  But if Kevin Eltife decides not to run for re-election -- or is challenged from his right in a 2016 primary and loses --  then the Texas Senate will be much the worse off.

Was Abbott's first legislative session a success or a failure?

It's all in the spin.

Republicans -- after changing state Senate rules -- cut taxes, loosened gun laws and boosted border security. They also put off addressing complicated issues such as fixing the school finance system, avoided more contentious proposals such as banning so-called sanctuary cities and repealing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, and, perhaps not coincidentally, averted the special sessions that have become common in recent years.

"Legislators are going home today," Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters after signing a narrow bill to allow Texans to treat epilepsy with an oil derived from marijuana, "and I do not anticipate them coming back until 2017."

No special session is the best news post-Sine Die.  But the many downsides of the 84th include one of the governor's emergency items -- ethics reform -- that died like a dog in the street.

A new loophole elected officials can use to avoid financial disclosure? Check. Giving Texas politicians and bureaucrats special treatment when they commit white-collar crimes in Austin? Done. Keeping the public in the dark about lobbyist wining and dining? Accomplished. Sweeping ethics reform? Not so much.

[...]

“This session there was a real opportunity to improve that process and enhance trust, and instead I think things went backwards,” said Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Watson, who saw his bills shedding light on lobbyist wining and dining go down in flames. “The governor had an emergency declaration that it was supposed to be about ethics, and we’re watching real ethics legislation die a brutal death.”

Aides to Gov. Greg Abbott, who in February called on legislators to “dedicate this session to ethics reform,” did not respond to messages seeking comment about the failure of one his signature initiatives. Abbott has given no hint that he would call a special session on ethics reform.

This part is especially revealing.

One place to start might be the rubble of Senate Bill 19. That major overhaul effort fell apart two days before the clock ran out on the session and quickly dissolved into finger-pointing between the House and Senate over whether to require disclosure of anonymous donations given to politically active nonprofits.

The House wanted it. The Senate didn’t. And efforts at compromise failed.

More on that.

“I’ve already written about (campaign cash disclosures) as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court,” Abbott said. “I wrote that laws like that are unconstitutional, and I based that decision on United States Supreme Court decisions, and I think it’s important for legislators not to try to pass laws that have already been ruled unconstitutional.”

[...]

Abbott aides did not respond to inquiries about what ruling he was talking about, but in 1998 Abbott wrote in a decision for the majority that Bay Area Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse did not have to identify its contributors.

And that's why we need a constitutional amendment.  Back to the original.

Buck Wood, a Democratic lawyer who helped push though ethics reform after the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal shook up Texas politics in the early 1970s, predicted as much several weeks ago, as hearings on the broad reforms were just starting.

“The Legislature is just not willing to regulate itself, and that’s always been the case. It takes some sort of massive scandal to get anything done,” he said Sunday. “I don’t think frankly there was really any serious effort to get it done. There was a lot of talk, but I think that’s all it was — talk.”

That’s not to say lawmakers didn’t do anything to change the laws that affect them, but it wasn’t what the reformers had in mind. Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, managed to tack on an amendment — in two different bills — that opens up a “spousal loophole” allowing politicians to shield details about their spouses' financial holdings.

Huffman was also instrumental in passing a bill creating a unique carve-out for lawmakers accused of public corruption. If Abbott doesn't veto it, no longer will he or other state elected officials be required to face an investigation by local prosecutors in the county where the alleged corruption occurred. Instead, they will face an initial probe by the state police — whose budget the politicians oversee — and then prosecution and trial in the county where they maintain a homestead.

So Abbott can say he batted .800 on "emergency items", but his big whiff on ethics reform is a foul stench that hangs over the Capitol like a dark cloud.  His crack as he signed the medicinal cannabis bill was also something we can wish that Republicans who favor legalization might remember to hold against him.

Surrounded by families whose loved ones have suffered from intractable epilepsy, Abbott insisted that the new law was narrowly tailored for a specific purpose.

"I remain convinced that Texas should not legalize marijuana, nor should Texas open the door for conventional marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes," Abbott said before the signing. "As governor, I will not allow it; SB 339 does not open the door to marijuana in Texas."

But not all medical marijuana advocates are celebrating. Many believe the new law does not go far enough, offering limited options to Texans with epilepsy — the proposal requires a CBD-THC ratio of no more than 20:1 — and nothing for those with other diseases that can be treated with medical marijuana, such as cancer.

So nearly no advancement -- even some regression -- on these matters of concern, but a lot more small-government intrusiveness into the lives of pregnant teenagers.  Teabaggers aren't happy about the lack of progress on their issues, while most of the rest of Texas gives thanks that it wasn't worse.

Win-win?

Only if you're into that 'lesser of two evils' BS.

Update: If you prefer an executive summary of the 84th from the AP's perspective, go here.  And read Texans for Public Justice's take on Abbott's leadership missing in action on ethics reform.

Graham: McCain 2.0

If you liked the Republican nominee in 2008, you'll love Miz Lindsey Graham in 2016.

For those who follow congressional politics, Graham and McCain have been inseparable — and practically indistinguishable — from each other for more than a decade, since Graham arrived to the Senate in 2003. Graham is often spotted just feet from the Senate floor, barking into a flip phone to a staffer about coordinating press strategy with McCain, meaning that “Statement by Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on [foreign policy issue X]” is a frequent refrain in reporters’ mailboxes. A search of McCain’s Senate website, for example , found 239 press releases mentioning “Lindsey Graham” since 2005, many of which are from the past two years. 

"Invading Iraq after 9/11and capturing Saddam Hussein was the greatest foreign policy success of the last fifty years".  "The surge worked".  All your favorite hits from the Aughties plus this decade's remix: we need ten thousand troops' boots back on the ground in Iraq to fix the mess Obama made when he pulled them out.

The Iraq War, and McCain’s unwavering support of it, hurt him with a war-weary electorate in 2008. Graham, along with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania , will be the only Republicans in the 2016 primary field who actually voted for the Iraq War. (Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton also voted for the war.) 

But perhaps more relevant to the current moment, Graham is currently calling for thousands more U.S. troops to be deployed to Iraq to fight the Islamic State, and the burden will be on the South Carolina Republican to articulate to GOP primary voters what makes him different from McCain and what distinguishes this political moment from the immediate post-9/11 years, when such interventionist fervor and support for the fight in Iraq were at their peak. 

Essentially Sen. Huckleberry J. Butchmeup -- he's never been married, can't imagine why -- is running for president so that he can take shots at Rand Paul.  And to be clear, he's not calling Paul a non-interventionist or even a pacifist.  He's calling him a pussy.

... Graham called Paul weak on foreign policy, saying that his Senate colleague has “been more wrong than right” and that “even Obama is more aggressive.” Similarly, McCain told Fox and Friends (in April): “He just doesn’t understand. He has displayed this kind of naiveté since he came to the Senate.”

When Lindsey Graham says you're a pantywaist... it might be time to send somebody around to whip somebody else's ass.  That is, before he tries to put wood on yours.  I'm. Just. Sayin'.

Paul and Graham clashed most recently in a debate over whether to extend the domestic surveillance provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which coincidentally were set to expire on the very day Graham launched his presidential campaign. C-SPAN cameras even caught Graham rolling his eyes, as Paul, standing behind him, decried a Big Brother-like federal government on the Senate floor.

But that made-for-“The-Daily-Show” moment obscured a much larger division, as previously reported by Yahoo News, between the two politicians and the libertarian-leaning and establishment sides of the Republican Party over what Americans should fear most: government encroachment on civil liberties or uncontrollable insurgent growth in the Middle East that could lead to an attack on the homeland.

While the GOP figures out where they are on spying on the American people -- thank goodness it stopped last night, but here it comes again this morning -- it's still on Graham to determine a broader vision for his being commander-in-chief than just more war.

South Carolina’s importance as an early primary state — the first in the South —could make Graham’s presence in the field a disruptive force for other conservatives, although recent polling from the state suggests that even though voters there have overwhelmingly elected Graham to Congress, on multiple occasions, they’re not too keen on his presidential run. 

Palmetto bugs, greasy biscuits, mosquitoes as big as drones, and shrimp and grits.  Those Low Country hillbillies will certainly be separating the GOP sugar from the cane next spring.

Which one will be the last rat standing?  Your guess is as good as mine.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone -- even Ted Cruz -- is dry and safe as it brings you this week's roundup of lefty blog posts from our rather soaked Lone Star State.

Off the Kuff reviewed how several bad bills met their end in the waning days of the legislative session.

Letters from Texas worries about the possible effect of the Supreme Court taking up the latest Texas redistricting case.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos shines a bright light on the woeful lack of responsible, adult leadership among some in the Texas Legislature: Texas Legislators Who Put the Child in Childish.

Socratic Gadfly, with a hat tip to a fellow TPA blogger and his favorite name for a certain Southern senator, killed the birds of both Rick Santorum and another possible GOP candidate.

Hillary Clinton visits Houston on Thursday to collect an award and raise funds, notes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is appalled at the level of racism and xenophobia exhibited by Texas Republicans who deny birth certificates to Texans born to not properly documented mothers.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson: There are many Texans that need a government that works for them and not just for business, corporations and wealthy campaign donors.  It's been a windfall for business, and scraps for the rest of us.

Egberto Willies indicates that America needs more from Hillary Clinton at this stage than 'listening and learning', while McBlogger takes a swipe at Bernie Sanders.

The Lewisville Texan Journal posted about the flooding in North Texas, while Neil at All People Have Value said that floods in Houston forced people to yield some habitat to wildlife, if only for a brief time. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

==================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

The Queso documents flood effects in Wimberley and rounds up a bunch of flood-related resources for those who need them.

Eric Berger tries to explain where all that rain came from.

Offcite has ten of the major changes to I-45 wrapping around downtown Houston that you might not have been aware of.

Free Press Houston recapped the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions, which included a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Texas Vox celebrates an expansion of homeowners' solar rights.

Ashton Garcia advocates for gender-neutral bathrooms.

The SA Current introduces us to "Mansplainer: The Statue".

RG Ratcliffe reminds us that the Lege is hoarding $18 billion of our money.

jobsanger sees the Texas Senate's emphasis on bigotry in this past session.

And Chris Hooks took note of one of the stranger bonds formed during the 84th Session: The Texas Observer and Dr. Steven Hotze.