(It's gonna be mostly toons around here until the lateral epicondylitis subsides.)
Thanks to Lane Milburn, hat tip Vice)
Thanks to Lane Milburn, hat tip Vice)
5. Straight-ticket voting is here to clean up Paxton's mess.
According to the Texas Tribune's latest polling, Paxton faces the toughest race of any Texas Republican, leading challenger Justin Nelson by just one point, 32-31. Paxton's advantage is likely larger than that, however, because Texas still has straight-ticket voting for the 2018 election.
Incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott leads Lupe Valdez by 12 points in the same poll, so about a quarter of those voting for Abbott would have to split their tickets and seek out Nelson's name on the bottom in order for him to defeat Paxton. In 2020, Texas voters will have to vote in each of the state's races individually, leveling the playing field in down-ballot races.
Grits has been saying for months that the opiod epidemic in Texas is overstated compared to the problem of meth addiction and overdoses, and that hysteria over fentanyl is largely unwarranted here because the drug does not mix with the relatively impure black-tar heroin common in Texas and California markets. So I was not suprised to see Snopes rule that the fentanyl-soaked flyers touted by the Harris County Sheriff's Office as causing the hospitalization of a deputy was a bogus story.
Though HCSO said "field tests" indicated fentanyl on the flyers, lab tests confirmed that was false. Laughably, HCSO said in a statement, "The Sheriff’s Office is also working to verify that deputies have access to the most reliable field testing kits available." Faulty field tests used by law enforcement in Harris County have been responsible for hundreds of false convictions, so don't hold your breath.
"It’s every little girl's dream to be forced into being a breeding sow, and if I can be forced to carry my future rapist's baby to term, even better!"
Imagine what the Founding Fathers, most of whom opposed anything that reeked of monopoly, would think if they could see how a few companies profit in the name of their nation’s founding. Certainly it would disappoint Thomas Jefferson, who once opined, "The benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression."