Thursday, April 23, 2015

Why is everybody always picking on Dan Patrick, and get your guns up

-- I'd like to say "because he is retarded," but that's no longer socially acceptable.

Once in the breakfast, Patrick and Straus began arguing over the House not moving on Patrick’s agenda bills, while Straus was critical of the Senate action on the border security bill. At that point, Abbott interjected his displeasure with the letter attacking the pre-k bill that he supported.

With Abbott and Straus coming at him, Patrick declared that he was tired of them “picking on me.” 

Take out the papers and the trash, dipshit.

-- Did Jonathan Stickland hoodwink everyone and get a no-gun-license-needed open carry bill passed through the Texas House?

Instead of open carry, Texas just went wide open.

Anybody openly packing a handgun is no longer a police concern, at least not under an amendment passed 133-10 Monday by the Texas House.

See somebody with a gun? Don’t bother dialing 911.

That’s right. Under House Bill 910, police are barred from asking anyone “whether a person possesses a handgun license.” Maybe even regardless of age.

Look, passing open carry wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. The idea was just to let nearly 1 million Texans with concealed-handgun licenses choose where they holster a gun.

But this amendment is a very big deal. If nobody ever has to worry about being stopped to show a license, that’s closer to the unlicensed-carry freedom promoted by Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford.

“Where do you think they got the idea?” Stickland asked slyly Tuesday. That was after a leader of the Dallas-based Come and Take It Texas open-carry group wrote on social media: “We unintentionally just got unlicensed open carry.”

"Former fetus" Stickland, uncharacteristically, gave all the glory to others.

Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston, and Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, jointly offered the amendment, saying they meant to deter police harassment.

(On Wednesday, Stickland wrote on Twitter: “To be clear @MattRinaldiTX and Rep. Dutton should receive all the credit.” On Facebook, he wrote that he did not mean the amendment was his.)

Does Greg Abbott actually sign a bill like this?  (No odds yet.)  Does it pass the Texas Senate?  (Easily, I would venture.)  Does it get marked up -- or down -- in bicameral conference?  (That's a possibility.  How strong, I wouldn't guess at this point.)  Nice going again for Harold Dutton.

It's getting really stupid in Austin, and the worst is yet to come.

Update:  From Chris Hooks at the Observer, more on the simmering feud between the Texas triumvirate, and via the governor's own Tweet stream, what Abbott has been up to this month.

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