Feeling the Heat Friday

-- Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster: our long national masturbation that is the NFL draft is finally over.  Hope it was good for all those involved.

I mean really. Two mock drafts a week for eight weeks by a million different Twitter nerds?  Is it possible that concussions aren't the only brain damage suffered by football fanatics?

When do you people start paying attention to things that matter?  Such as...

-- Hillary Clinton may have an actual scandal brewing.

Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to U.S. Special Operations Command blew their lids at the news, broken by The Daily Beast, that Hillary Clinton's State Department refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. It provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and deeply partisan reactions on both sides of the aisle as the international outcry over the kidnapping of 300 female students by Nigerian based terror group grows.

Already on Thursday Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), the chair of the Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counter Terrorism and Intelligence, sent a new letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, obtained by The Daily Beast, asking why Boko Haram was not classified as a terrorist organization in 2011 as sources within elite US military units told ABC News that they tried to put the Nigerian Islamist terror group higher up on their target list -- only to be "shot down by State."

Somebody's got some 'splaining to do.

Update: That would be 'No, Monica'.  Boy, the air went out of that faux scandal faster than Gasbag Limbaugh breaking wind.

-- David Alameel is a little ahead of her, as he is already doing some 'splaining.

A chain of dental clinics owned by wealthy Dallas businessman David Alameel, the Democrats' top choice in the U.S. Senate race, entered into a federal court agreement in 2008 to settle claims brought by four women who said they lost their jobs after complaining about a sexually hostile work environment.

Alameel strenuously denied any wrongdoing this week, as he did throughout a trial in Dallas County District Court and a subsequent federal suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A Dallas jury found in favor of Alameel's Jefferson Dental Clinics after an emotional seven-day civil trial in November 2004. The EEOC complaint was settled four years later through a consent decree that involved no admission of wrongdoing but required Alameel's clinics to publish a non-harassment policy and conduct training for all his employees and managers.

There's one more relevant excerpt.

The case resurfaced among GOP operatives this week in advance of the May 27 Democratic primary runoff, where Alameel faces Houston political activist Kesha Rogers, a "Lyndon LaRouche Democrat" who wants to impeach President Barack Obama. Alameel, who was endorsed in January by gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, has emerged as the top choice of Democratic leaders hoping to rebuild the party in Texas by mobilizing women and minorities.

Let's leave aside that "GOP operatives" mucking around in Democratic primaries part.  Everybody knows that's what they do, after all.

I'm not voting in the Democratic runoff, and not just because I can't tolerate either of the two candidates running for US Senate or Texas Agriculture Commissioner (Jim Hogan and Kinky Friedman).  And it's not because they're going to be sacrificial lambs, either.  Hell, Friedman might actually have a puncher's chance in November because the Republican candidates are even more lame.  Tommy Merritt and Sid Miller are both opposed by the Texas farming lobby, for fuck's sake.  Why is that?  Because they're Dan Patrick clones on immigration.

“Let’s just cut to the chase on this thing: Eighty-five percent of the agricultural labor that goes on in the state of Texas … is done by either undocumented or illegally documented people,” said Steve Pringle, legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau. “If and when that labor supply is not there, that production simply goes out of business.”

Unlike red and blue partisans, I refuse to vote for the least worst option any longer.  No more "lesser of two shitasses" for me.  And let's get clear that Democrats and Republicans are officially restricted from making fun of the Greens and the Libertarians and independents about the quality of candidates they run for office.

The larger tragic comedy is that whoever emerges from these runoffs is going to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy people across the state who want something from them if they get elected.  We'll keep getting the cheapest of political prostitutes for the highest possible price until we -- that's pretty much all of us, Texas -- wake up and do something different.

-- There's a cop in Hearne who really needs to find another job, and not one as a security guard.

More than 100 protesters gathered in downtown Hearne on Thursday afternoon for a march to call on the town to fire a police officer who fatally shot a 93-year-old woman earlier this week.

Officer Stephen Stem, responding to a 911 report of a woman with a gun, shot Perlie Golden several times Tuesday evening after encountering her brandishing a firearm at her home, according to a news release issued by police.

Golden was the second person Stem has fatally shot while on the job. He was cleared by a grand jury in the shooting death of a man in December 2012. He has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation into Tuesday's incident.

I'll bet those grand jurors didn't even have to go through an LEO shooting simulator in order to no-bill Officer Stem.  You know, since Hearne is such a small town and all.

OK, then!  Unlike the family of Perlie Golden, get out there and enjoy your Mother's Day weekend!

It might even rain!  That would be a good thing even if it rains on the Art Car Parade.