The Weekly Early Voting Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates the ten-year anniversary of same sex marriages in America -- which, at last report, was still standing -- and reminds you to vote in your political party of choice's primary runoff elections this week, as it bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff highlights another report on how commercial property owners get to pay a lot less in property taxes than the rest of us do.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos cringed when she read the New York Times front page story about Texas and its fixation on death: Confronted on Execution, Texas Proudly Says It Kills Efficiently. Considering Texas has turned down federally expanded Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act, Libby discloses the Texas GOP's dance with the Grim Reaper: Rick Perry, Greg Abbott Argue for Killing.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is wondering what the outside audit of ES&S voting machine results in Hidalgo County will show.

Houston's social conservatives shrieked and wailed as city council appeared poised to pass a non-discrimination ordinance, and succeeded in getting it delayed for a week. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs believes that justice delayed is justice denied.

Bay Area Houston is wondering why anyone is surprised about Dan Patrick's mental health issues.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson says the people of Texas want roads and new transportation options, what they don't need is another slogan. No More "Texas Solutions", please.

Horwitz at Texpatriate is concerned over Mayor Julian Castro's nomination to a Cabinet position, worrying it may spell doom for a later run for governor.

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

Socratic Gadfly chronicles another recent failure of newspapers in the digital age: ageism.

Juanita Jean celebrates some local race results.

The Texas Green Report cheers another win by the EPA in court.

Lone Star Ma wished us all a Happy Children's Book Week.

The Lunch Tray is sorry to say she saw the efforts to scale back the hard-won school food gains of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act coming.

The Texican welcomes our robot insect overlords.

Texas Election Law documents another way that voter ID is disenfranchising people.

Transgriot calls out a Houston radio station for spreading misinformation about the non-discrimination ordinance and the transgender community.

Texas Watch wants local authorities to be able to hold polluters accountable.

Grits for Breakfast explores the implications of Rick Perry refusing to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Behind Frenemy Lines connects a few dots on Michael Williams, Greg Abbott, and a lavish party thrown by a lobbyist.

Very Very Urban recounts a long list of "new Republicans" and explains why they were all just the same old thing.

Sunday Funnies

Dan Patrick: suicidal tendencies

I suppose the good thing is that this is all coming out now, so that Republicans can cast their ballots (early voting beginning Monday) with a clear conscience.

Insisting he was not there for psychiatric or emotional problems but "for rest," Patrick said in the deposition that he "slept, basically, for two weeks." He also said he had been hospitalized at another facility, Memorial City, in the early 1980s for "fatigue, exhaustion."

Other records show Patrick was admitted to Spring Shadows Glen for "severe depression" after reporting "feelings of worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness and marked decrease of self-esteem."

That admission was directly related to a suicide attempt on Jan. 14, 1986, according to the records, in which he tried to overdose on an antidepressant medication and slash his right wrist before collapsing and being taken to a local emergency clinic. According to the records, Patrick reported "business and marital problems and difficulties in personal relationships."

Patrick "feels the solution of separation would be a failure and prior to his suicide attempts saw his death as a preferable solution," Dr. Stephen Kramer wrote in the document.

Patrick was discharged five days after being admitted, and his depression "decreased considerably and there was no evidence of suicidal preoccupations upon discharge," records said.

The documents also provide details on Patrick's stay at Memorial City, which lasted several weeks and was the product of "acute exhaustion" brought on by "feeling extreme pressure from his work as a tele­vision sports broadcaster."

Then, doctors determined his anxiety had decreased "to the point that it was felt he could return to his full-time work and be followed on an outpatient basis."

Good ol' boy Mark Jones at Rice, sticking up for his man.

"If anything, David Dew­hurst is only ensuring that Dan Patrick will win by a larger margin than he might have otherwise," said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor who has been following the increasingly ugly race. "This information humanizes Dan Patrick. I think the blowback against David Dewhurst over this will be pretty significant."

How do you feel about his chances in the fall, Dr. Jones? Will it be another Republican sweep? Or will you be trepidatious about his prospects among the general electorate?

Let's at least note that Jones is probably going to be right about the runoff outcome: hard-charging Patrick supporters will mobilize.  I don't think there will be all that much switching of votes among Dewhurst and Patrick, so the widest the margin will likely be is in the 60-40 range, Patrick over Dew, in line with the lite gov's defeat at the hands of Ted Cruz in the 2012 US Senate primary runoff (57-43).  Anything greater than that and Patrick can get enthused about the fall.  Even if the result is in the 55-45 range or closer, Patrick will (outwardly, at least) project humility in the righteousness of God and confidence of -- and gratitude to -- the GOP base, yaddayadda.

Oh, one more thing.

On May 30, 1987, Paul Harasim was a columnist for the Houston Post and Dan Patrick, between successful stints as a TV sportscaster and radio station owner/radio talk host, was the co-owner of several Houston sports bars, which didn’t prove to be very successful.

It was a little before midnight when Harasim and his wife, Maria Teresa Espinoza Harasim, arrived at one of these bars  - the Nice-n~E.Z Club. They had been invited guests to the grand opening and they were comped at the door – a courtesy befitting what they thought was their good standing with Patrick. But, when they arrived, they were confronted by Patrick, who, it seems, hadn’t liked some things that Harasim had written about him, and told the Harasims hat they were not welcome and needed to leave.

What happened next ended up the subject of a criminal trial and civil suit, and ultimately the release – courtesy Harasim’s attorney - and the distribution last night to a number of Texas reporters - courtesy Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson – of documents from those proceedings that offer a window into Patrick’s past mental health struggles. 

Go on over to Jon Tilove's piece in the Statesman for the rest.  It's entertaining reading.

Since I'm serving again on the Early Voting Ballot Board, and am now sworn for the remainder of the cycle not to influence any voters in any way about any candidates in either party's primary runoffs, I can't say how I interpret this news.

You be the judge, in other words.

Dan Patrick: pysche ward

Let's be candid; who among us was NOT a little depressed during the Reagan years?

Reports of a state senator’s 1980s treatment for depression and exhaustion became an issue in the lieutenant governor’s race late Thursday, when the Quorum Report, a political newsletter, unearthed court papers detailing Dan Patrick's medical history.

In his deposition in a lawsuit, Patrick, whose legal name at the time was Dannie Scott Goeb, said he was diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance in the early 1980s and said he was hospitalized at Spring Shadows Glen in “late ’84 or early ’85, possibly.” He also said the treatment consisted entirely of rest. “I absolutely did nada,” he said in the deposition. “You know, there may have been something I don’t remember. But, you know, I did nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep.”

He was asked in the deposition, related to a lawsuit over an altercation with a newspaper reporter, whether he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and said, “No.” He also said he had not told any doctors he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Later in the deposition, Patrick said he was admitted into Memorial City Hospital in June 1982 for “a week, two weeks” of rest. Asked if he considered that “a significant event in his life,” he answered, “no.” And he said that the diagnosis of a chemical imbalance was made after tests taken during that stay.

This has been an inappropriate line of attack going back well before Reagan (Thomas Eagleton, anyone?).  Karl Rove just advanced a similar smear against Hillary Clinton earlier this week.  And it's not far removed from our local merchants of slime -- some holding Bibles aloft, mind you -- who would attempt to classify transgendered people as sexual predators.  Classless acts, all.

The only difference I can see is that moderate Texas Republicans (sic) like David Dewhurst and Jerry Patterson -- uncontent with the "liberalism is a mental disorder" gambit -- have turned their fire inward, waging war on the extremists in their own ranks.  Which is something of a role switch.

Lesser of two evils, anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Update: Mental health concerns from the past are off limits... unless you're Wendy Davis, of course.

It’s good to see Patrick supporters—and Republican state senators—speaking out about the stigma of mental illness, and the unfairness of this as an attack line in a campaign. But for those of us with memories that reach back to November, it’s a bit odd, because of what many conservatives in the state were saying about state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Fast food workers across the planet strike today

There is a workers' uprising after all, two weeks after May Day.

From New York City to Nigeria and New Zealand, fast food workers will strike and protest on Thursday to demand higher pay and better working conditions — in a global day of action with unprecedented reach for the industry.

Workers and labor organizers across the globe have united in a campaign that aims to advance workers’ specific demands in each country, while also showing solidarity with the US-based push for a $15 hourly wage and workers’ right to unionize without fearing retaliation.

[...]

Rallies and sit-ins will take place in 33 countries and 150 cities — a list that is growing by the day, organizers said. The action is reaching countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, some for the first time, in addition to Europe and the Americas. In some locations, strikes and rallies in solidarity with US workers will continue on Friday.

In the US, thousands of workers are expected to strike in St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City among others — where they will demand the right to organize and a doubling of their wages from the current $7.25, the federal minimum wage.

If I were advising any Democratic politicians who had a goal of expanding the electorate six months from now, I would say: "Get out to the streets in front of a Papa John's or a Mickey D's today".

The global day of protest comes on the same day McDonald’s employees in California, Michigan, and New York filed class-action lawsuits against the hamburger chain – which serves an estimated 68 million customers daily in 119 countries - alleging the company is making employees work off the clock, refusing to pay overtime and even charging employees to have their uniforms cleaned.

“We’ve uncovered several unlawful schemes, but they all share a common purpose – to drive labor costs down by stealing wages from McDonald’s workers,” Michael Rubin of Altshuler Berzon LLP, the lawyer who filed the California suits, said in a media statement announcing the suits. “These McDonald’s workers have courageously stepped forward to shine a light on these illegal practices, and already we’ve begun to hear from several co-workers with similar wage theft claims.”

Refusing to pay in full the already poverty-level wages of their workers.  Counseling them to apply for public assistance (a cue taken from Walmart).  Record profits, lowest wages in the nation, and the broadest gap between what their employees and their top management earn.

Yeah, I'm not lovin' it.  That's a supersized order of revolution.  Make mine a combo, with some economic and social justice, please.