Ernest Borgnine 1917 - 2012

Ernest Borgnine, the larger-than-life actor with the affable gap-toothed grin and known for often villainous roles, has died. He was 95.

He had so many memorable castings, both dramatic and comedic, that it's hard to know where to start. He was Fatso Judson, the sergeant who beat up Frank Sinatra's Maggio in From Here to Eternity. He was Marty the bachelor, still living at home; the role for which he won the Academy.

Borgnine played a 34-year-old butcher who fears he is so unattractive he will never find romance. Then, at a dance, he meets a girl with the same fear.

"Sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts," Marty movingly tells his mother at one point in the film. "And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased after enough girls in my life. I-I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough. I don't wanna get hurt no more."

It doesn't get much more self-effacing than that.

There was The Dirty Dozen, Mister Roberts, Bad Day at Black Rock, Willard, Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Wild Bunch. There was also McHale's Navy, and -- later -- Spongebob Squarepants and The Single Guy. There were dozens of cameos in television shows over the decades, from The Love Boat to Walker,Texas Ranger to Touched by an Angel.

For me his most memorable role was that of the sadistic Depression-era freight train conductor in Emperor of the North.



At the time I saw it -- 1973 -- I was 14 years old and had no concept that a person could be so cruel. My mom took pains to explain that train conductors did not act like that then; that they in fact were kind toward the disadvantaged.

Borgnine, to my own delight, identified the film as one of his favorites in this tribute.

Borgnine's biggest kick, however, was going out and meeting people - even making a documentary about himself driving around the country in a big bus: "See, this is what it's all about - living!"

Ernest Borgnine knew what it was all about.

Indeed.

Sunday Funnies

The past ten days have been a target-rich environment for the cartoonists. And the comedians...

"In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled President Obama's healthcare mandate is constitutional. This is a major victory for President Obama, who spent three years promoting it, and a major setback for Mitt Romney, who spent three years creating it."

-- Jay Leno

"For several minutes after the ruling, CNN was mistakenly reporting that the Supreme Court struck down President Obama’s healthcare law. In response CNN was like, 'Thank God no one watches us.'"

-- Jimmy Fallon

"This activist ruling opens the floodgates, folks! If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, then there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom in a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy! And you know his buddy Roberts will make it all good by calling it a 'homomexual marijuana love-glove sun tax!'"

-- Stephen Colbert

"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said he's just gonna refuse to implement Obamacare. So if you need an operation in Louisiana you'll have to pay for it the old-fashioned way: stand on a balcony, flash your tits and hope someone throws you money."

-- Bill Maher

Keep in mind that you will have at least two other choices on your November ballot.

NAACP national convention in Houston this weekend

Vice President Joe Biden and Mitt Romney are both scheduled to speak.

As more than 8,000 members of the nation's most venerable civil rights organization gather in Houston this weekend for a convention featuring appearances by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the unofficial topic outside the hall may be whether time has passed the NAACP by.

During the long years when black children were forced to attend separate, vastly inferior schools and Southern states were relying on poll taxes, voters' tests and raw intimidation to keep black citizens from the ballot box, the focus for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was both urgent and crystal clear. The association was at the forefront in the arduous battle to end racial segregation in schools and other public places as well as secure the right to vote for black Americans.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were the tangible results of a monumental decades-long struggle.

Today, 103 years after the association's founding, the issues are more nuanced, even though racial inequity and its consequences remain a stubborn fact of American life.

All you have to do is read the comments at that story to understand what the NAACP still has to combat. The biggest internal struggle is the Obama administration's declaration of support for gay marriage, and the corresponding endorsement by the NAACP of gay rights as as civil rights under the 14th Amendment. NPR has the best reporting of that.

The biggest external issue uniting the delegates is the renewed fight for voting rights.

"In the past legislative session, more states have passed more laws pushing more voters out of the ballot box than in any legislative session since the rise of Jim Crow," (NAACP president Ben Jealous) said. "A wave like that is intentional. It's created by hundreds of state legislators across the country acting in unison to suppress the vote."

Yeah, there's that, and then there's the Texas Republican party platform.

The NAACP national convention follows by less than a month the Texas Democratic Party's state convention here in H-Town. If I was a Republican I might think it was a grand conspiracy to motivate Harris County Democrats to turn out the vote in November.

You have to wonder if these quivering, scared conservatives around town have stocked up on ammunition and will be sitting in their barricaded homes clinging to their guns and Bibles.

Meh. They'll all be as mad as a wet hen for the next three months -- and the four years after that -- no matter what.

Helena Wheels Brown

She might prefer "Heavena", but it's Hell for certain.

Houston City Councilwoman Helena Brown subtracted hours from employees' timecards in apparent violation of federal law, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The first-term councilwoman shorted an employee by more than three hours in a day in several cases. At least six times, Brown deleted enough hours from employees' reported workweeks that it cost them overtime by bringing their weekly total under 40 hours.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay and accurate record keeping. City policy prohibits supervisors from changing employees' timecards except to correct errors. A spokeswoman for the Harris County district attorney said the office does not confirm the existence of investigations but said the Public Integrity Unit would handle a complaint if one were filed. Charges that could result from the circumstances described by the Chronicle could include tampering with a government document, a felony, she said.

Brown's staff at one time included five 39-hour-per-week employees classified as part-timers. Many of Brown's changes to the times reported by her employees appear to shorten or lengthen their workweeks to exactly 39 hours.

Hell for her, and hell for the rest of us.

...Brown has commingled maxims found in the Tea Party, the libertarian movement and Catholic zealotry and introduced them to Houston City Council, preaching parsimony and the elimination of almost all taxation. Brown's iconoclasm has galvanized the rest of the council against her and made even its most conservative participants seem moderate by comparison.

Oh, and starring William Park as Dale Gribble -- thanks for that, Stace -- in the supporting role of Satan's angel Hell's unpaid counsel.

Following a month-long investigation into Helena Brown involving dozens of interviews and a review of public records and Brown's e-mails, it's become apparent that the councilwoman isn't quite the harmless radical she at first appears to be. She isn't acting alone.

Rather, an outside volunteer "senior adviser" named William Park — a man who popped into her life a few years back — appears to dictate her office, and some say her life. Brown's speeches, laced with demagoguery, aren't extemporaneous. By nearly all accounts, Park plans, if not writes, them.

Former and current staffers say Park has planted a friend on staff to spy on other staffers, sometimes floats racially charged ideas and — most distressing — directs a significant percentage of Brown's votes on City Council, according to interviews with numerous sources familiar with the situation.

What's more, Park has a past. Once the CEO of a local brokerage firm called United Equity Securities, which had offices all over the country, Park was banned from the investments industry on April 25, 2011, by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority which said he failed to comply with the arbitration award — namely that he didn't pay a woman who successfully sued him.

[...]

In an e-mail to the Houston Press, Park denied any financial malfeasance: "United Equity Securities never bilked any investors, never had any fines, nor owes anyone any money. I was not banned from the securities industry, much less for any fraudulent activity as there NEVER was any fraudulent activity." He then wrote: "You might want to consider giving your life to Jesus Christ as life is short and find the peace and forgiveness that only He can give you."

That last part is important. It provides a clue as to how Park could become such a dominant force in Brown's life and politics. Helena Brown, 34, was home-schooled and inculcated with Roman Catholic dogmas, which play an omnipresent role in her life, according to several interviews. Her social positions derive from strict, literal interpretations of the Bible, said Bernadette McLeroy, who's known Brown for more than a decade and looks on her like a daughter.

But even McLeroy had never seen Park before Brown got into office.

There's a good hour's worth of reading there if you follow all the links, and it's both wildly entertaining and frightening as all hell. John Birch's acolytes have nothing on these people.

See what happens when you don't vote, people?

Charles and John have more.

Independence Day Funnies

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance -- those of us along the Gulf Coast, anyway -- are not praying for rain as we bring you this week's round-up of the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff disputed the notion that Rick Perry would be doing better than Mitt Romney if he were the GOP Presidential nominee.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders where all the constitutional scholars are, and why they are so silent, in Preamble to the US Constitution Violated.

While the Supreme Court delivered landmark case decisions earlier and later in the week, the two Texas Democrats battling for the nomination to the US Senate held a debate. They were overshadowed, as it turned out, for good reason. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs paid attention but really wishes he hadn't.

The Democrats have to, in the minds of voters, turn themselves back into the party of the people and the GOP back into the party of the rich and powerful. The winning won't start again until that's done, and that new governing coalition is built in Texas. WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that "Beer and Democracy" is as good a place to start.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme isn't surprised that the republican Supreme Court wants American Hispanics to carry citizenship papers. Yeah. Right.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker shines a light on the continuing assault of public education in Texas. Coupled with the nationwide exposure of the anti-criticial thinking plank in the state Republican platform, it's scary stuff indeed. Take a look: Killing Public Education in Texas with STARR.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted a list of Fourth of July events in Houston, Galveston, Fort Bend County and College Station. This list of information comes with a nifty Fourth of July reading list included for no extra charge.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog cheers the incredible rise of Asian Americans in the Texas Democratic Party while lamenting the failures of the Texas Democratic Party Convention's Nominations Committee.

Sunday Super Supreme Funnies

On the Affordable Health Care Act

John Robert Behrman is an economist, retired, and was formerly State Democratic Executive Committeeman for SD-13, including the Texas Medical Center.

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

The Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, has stepped back from the brink by not gutting the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). I guess I should be happy.

But the still conservative majority on this court may have simply recognized that they risked more public support for the President and a move closer to a single-payer system with another radical, split decision. The court majority still have the complexity and unpopularity of the new law working for them. They know that Washington concession-tenders cannot make a relatively simple disability insurance program work for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Democrats at every echelon of government (other than the Supreme Court) have to make this aw work despite (a) its constitutional near-death experience, (b) the very nature of health insurance policy sales racketeers they partnered with, and (c) the actual complexity, from state to state, of our motley institutions of public health and medical care. That is what we have: public health and medical care. “Healthcare” is oxymoronic lobby-jargon. The fact that our party’s national policy elite -- bundlers and consultants -- believe in “healthcare”, the “Latino vote”, the Easter Bunny, and so on portends how hard this will be and how perilous the present situation still is.

Here’s a suggestion:

Oregon and Washington State should opt out of Obamacare, as the president has invited them to do. They can create a system of public health and medical care that is fiscally and actuarially sound. Moreover, this would support them in worldwide competition for jobs and capital for the region: Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma. These two states would even have four senators in Washington, D.C., one of whom, Ron Wyden, actually knows what he is talking about in these matters.

So Oregon and Washington should be proud and can lead the nation.

As a legacy of WWII shipbuilding, aircraft factories, and nuclear ordnance, these two states have comparatively strong institutions of public health and medical care, including Kaiser-Permanente and Group Health of Puget Sound health maintenance organizations, as well as very reputable medical schools. These are embedded in other healthy industrial and commercial institutions. Moreover, public health authorities in these states have to deal with two of the most hazardous occupations in America: fishing and logging. In sum, Oregon and Washington are comparatively proficient in public health and medical care. Their patriotic, liberal, and scientific institutions are not unduly burdened by legacies of “scientific racism”, although they may have been somewhat tainted before and during WWII by anti-immigration bias and eugenics.

In short, these two states have the economic and technical scope and scale –- also every political and economic incentive –- to do a fine job of national health insurance built on other wholesome civic and professional institutions they have. This is something our federal, not our national, system of politics and government can accomplish in a highly regionalized global economy.

Moreover, the success of Oregon and Washington should be a signal to Texas Democrats. We could be the national leader in combining energy, industrial, and environmental policy as soon as 2014. We were once before, “back in the day”. We could swap some tips: Oregon and Washington are not leaders in combining energy, industrial, and environmental policy, quite the contrary.

In the midst or aftermath of huge wars, progressive policy has been dumped by a prestigious, victorious government in Washington on small or backwards states. Lyndon B. Johnson could even play Otto von Bismarck, and did so, by creating Medicare, barely and just before losing the war in Vietnam. However, even though “Obama got Osama”, the old flood-down paradigms of “Military Keynesianism” and post-war progressivism will not work for our beleaguered President or utterly marginalized state party today.

We have to try something new, even if it is actually old.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my childhood friend, the late Cicele Bostrom. Raised in Houston and Gonzales, Texas, she became President of Group Health of Puget Sound and a distinguished member of the Washington State Board of Medical Licensure. The flow of labor, capital, and culture between US states and our overseas trade partners that she epitomized is more progressive than the trickle-down of pork and patronage from state or national capitals.

Our so-called conservatives don’t know that and the so-called liberals have forgotten it.

It stands.

I'm still not quite ready to believe that Justice Roberts joined the liberal wing in the majority. I would not have ascribed a 1% chance of that happening.

Excerpts follow from the SCOTUS(live-)blog.

SCOTUS holds that mandate violates the Commerce Clause, but is constitutional under legislative branch's power to levy and collect taxes.

In his opening statement in dissent, Kennedy says: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."  

Amy Howe: 

In Plain English... The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

I'll assemble various reactions later today.

Update: A fairly hilarious Twitter aggre-reaction. The first Tweet there is in response to CNN's initial webpage update, quickly pulled down, that said the ACA was rejected. And Republicans in Congress Tweeted that the law had been struck down, and then deleted them once they figured it out had it explained to them by a fifth-grader.

Update II: Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog:

Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial — feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form. 

Update III: Fox News' losing efforts to declare ACA unconstitutional. Their only recourse now is to impeach... Chief Justice Roberts.

Update IV: "(T)he ‘Scalia Freakout’ ended up being the big tell about this morning’s ruling."

Update V: Mitt Romney just had his reaction televised, and you would have thought his dog had died. Well, maybe his dressage horse. Then again, maybe his wife. OK, his political fortune. Seriously, I've seen more joy expressed in eulogies.

Harold Cook has a sly take:

So to review: the Supreme Court concluded that health care reform is constitutional, including the individual mandate (although SCOTUS apparently characterized it as a tax). The Republicans will try to spin the hell out of the "tax" part, even though it's only a tax for those Americans who fail to do what is required under Mitt Romney's health care plan.

The individual mandate only exists because it was the mechanism Republicans said they liked, and the mechanism their own Presidential nominee said is essential. Then the Republicans immediately decided that their own plan was terrible, evil, and unconstitutional, because it happens to be signature legislation of a President they hate, and Republicans sued to have it overturned.

So remind me again - what aspect of affordable health care to Americans can Republicans take credit for? Zero. Less than zero. They even fought like hell against their own funding mechanism to ensure its failure. Fortunately, they have apparently failed.

Those 14 original Republican Attorneys General who sued to overturn the plan? They'll spend the rest of the day complaining, and rename "Obamacare" to "the Obamacare Tax," all without presenting a new idea of how they would have made health care affordable.

Vast and Spurious

Before the Republicans' big bad day kicks off, let's all take note of the fact that the Bureau of ATF agents allegedly involved in a Mexican gunwalking conspiracy told Fortune magazine that it didn't happen.

Never happened.

This "Fast and Furious" bullshit that conservatives have been screaming about for a couple of years turns out to be a fairy tale. A myth. An urban legend.

But they never let the facts get in the way of a lynching before. Why start now?

Has Fox News mentioned anything about it yet? As the Most Interesting Man in the World has said: "I don't always watch comedy masquerading as a news broadcast, but when I do... it's on Fox."

Just thought I'd help get this development out there before the political world explodes in a few hours over health care.

As we wait for tomorrow's decision on health care...

Here's a little light reading.

HOUSTON – Last year, Luis Duran drove almost 200 miles to San Antonio to have a colonoscopy because he didn't want to wait six months for an opening at a county clinic.

A few days later, the doctor in San Antonio – a friend of a friend who had performed the screening for free – called to break the news that Duran, 51, had advanced colon cancer and needed immediate surgery.

"I kind of broke down," recalled Duran, a machine operator whose employer had terminated his health policy.  "I said, 'Doctor, I don't have insurance, and I don't have much money, but I won't refuse to pay. Please help me.'"

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the problem of the uninsured is no exception. The Houston metropolitan area has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in America, and a health safety net imploding under the demands of too many people and too few resources.  Almost one in three residents – more than a million people -- lack health insurance, and about 400 are turned away every day from the county hospital district's call center because they can't be accommodated at any of its 23 community or school-based centers.

Those seeking care at the public hospital's ER, meanwhile, arrive with blankets and coolers full of sandwiches and drinks in anticipation of waits that may go 24 hours or longer.

"If the Affordable Care Act is overturned, the rest of the country should take a good look at the situation in Texas, because this is what happens when you keep Medicaid enrollment as low as possible and don't undertake insurance reforms," said Elena M. Marks, a health policy scholar at Rice University's James Baker Institute for Public Policy and a former city health official.

No, they are NOT all Ill Eagles.

With its fiscally conservative philosophy and cash-strapped state budget, Texas does not offer Medicaid coverage to childless adults unless they are pregnant, disabled or elderly. Parents of children covered by welfare are eligible for the state-federal health program only if they make no more than $188 a month for a family of three.

At the same time, the proportion of Texas workers with employer-sponsored insurance is almost 10 percentage points lower than the national average of 61 percent, in part because of the state’s high concentration of jobs in the agricultural and service sectors, which often lack benefits.

"They're hourly wage earners, nannies, [people] working in lawn care services or dry cleaning or real estate, or people working two part-time jobs and neither will pay for health care," he said. "Many are small business owners who are well-educated and well-dressed."

Any Republicans you know think this is a problem? And if they do, can any of them acknowledge that something needs to be done about the problem without blaming undocumented people for the problem?

Update: "We need to accept the principle that sometimes the poor will die just because they are poor."

Grady wants a border wall; Sadler parts company with platform

Oh, the joy of conservatism in the Texas Democratic Party.

Two underfunded US Senate candidates battling for the Democratic Party's nomination squared off Tuesday in hopes of escaping the shadows of their GOP opponents and capturing a statewide victory for the first time since 1994.

A brief pause before continuing: in this post-Citizens United environment, with all of the public support for reversing the flow of money into our politics, does it disillusion anyone else that "underfunded" is still written about in the corporate media as a bad thing?

Former state Rep. Paul Sad­ler and retired educator Grady Yarbrough, who said they have spent a combined $165,000 campaigning, agreed on many of the issues including same-sex marriage, Social Security benefits and foreign policy. They split on border security and decriminalizing marijuana.

Yes. They. Did. And not just with each other, but with the majority of Texas Democrats (and possibly the entire nation).

Both applauded the court's decision to repeal parts of Arizona's immigration law. Each also said the court should have struck down the entire bill, including the provision that requires residents to provide citizenship papers to police when questioned.

The candidates differed on border security, though they agreed it is a top priority for Texans. Yarbrough said the state and federal administration should assist the Mexican government in mitigating the violence on the border. He said the United States should use "whatever method is at our disposal" to secure the border including, "I hate to refer to this, but the Berlin Wall was pretty effective."

Yes it was, Grady. At keeping people in, for a few decades at least, as long as the East German guards were crack shots with a rifle. With this remark, Yarbrough places himself to the RIGHT of Rick Perry when it comes to immigration.

Let's see how many Republican votes that gets him. Please turn on your sarcasmeter, adjust the setting to 'high', and re-read yesterday's endorsement of Yarbrough. I still mean it as much today as I did yesterday.

The candidates were divided on an issue that appears on the state Democratic Party's platform, decriminalizing and regulating marijuana.

Yarbrough supports the notion, citing medicinal use and discrimination to low-income citizens.

"There are things in everybody's platform they wish weren't there, and this is one of them," said Sadler. "The people of this country are not ready for that."

That statement is laughably and abjectly false, Mr. Sadler. And we don't have time to stand around and wait while you catch up on your reading, either. You also apparently missed my post last month on the Libertarians, who have nominated a pro-pot judge from California as vice-president.

Say whatever else you like about these two men, the truth is that neither Sadler nor Yarbrough can be mistaken for 'liberal'.

If either managed to find himself in the Capitol's upper chamber next January being sworn in, the one thing you could count on is that the spirits of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson would be alive and well despite their physical absence. Joe Manchin ain't got nothin' on them.

I will remind Texas progressives -- those that haven't already given up on voting altogether -- that they will have an excellent option on November's ballot. Sending a message to the TDP by voting Green in this race tells the party that they can no longer take your vote for granted.

It's the only way things will ever begin to change in Texas for the better.

Update: TexTrib has more and video of the debate.

Texas Democratic Senate candidates debate today

You can't watch it live, however.

If the debate between two Democrats battling for a U.S. Senate nomination debate is not broadcast live, does it make a sound?

You can follow the live-blog here.

KERA will host a second U.S. Senate debate between the Democrats who finished first and second in the May primary. Former state representative Paul Sadler and retired educator Grady Yarbrough will tape a one-hour television debate that will be broadcast on KERA Channel 13 on Wednesday, June 27 at 7 p.m. and in other Texas markets at various times.

Here are some of those other markets and times. Houston gets it on Friday evening on PBS.

Folks, I think I have to vote for Grady in the runoff.

He's from humble origins and has a great story about hitchhiking to college each day from his parents' East Texas farm. He taught in public schools for about 50 years.

He lives the simple life of a man happy with a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a nondescript, no-elevators San Antonio complex. Every two weeks or so, he fires up his 1985 pickup and drives back to East Texas to tend to his small herd of cattle.

He's friendly, the great-grandson of slaves, beholden to nobody, optimistic and informed on the issues of the day.

For Texas Democrats long aching for a statewide win, Grady Yarbrough sounds like just what the doctor ordered. And he might be, if he wasn't the headache they fear they could wake up with the morning after their July 31 U.S. Senate runoff.

Beyond the sheer hilarity of the utter futility of it, Yarbrough has populist history on his side (and I'm not talking about his non-existent familial association with Ralph, either).

He's always run shoestring campaigns, depending, perhaps, on a name that could remind some folks of U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, who served from 1957 to 1970. Yarbrough rejects the Yarborough theory.

"If my name resembles someone who may have served in the United States Senate some 35-40 years ago, living or dead, it's purely coincidental," he said, insisting any name recognition he enjoys stems from his three previous statewide races.

And if Yarbrough has benefited from the name game, there's evidence he's also suffered from it. He lost the 1986 GOP land commissioner runoff to M.D. Anderson Jr., who had nothing to do with the renowned cancer hospital. (For the record, Paul Sadler has nothing to do with Jerry Sadler, who held a variety of offices from 1938 through 1970. And I'm not former Glendora, Calif., Mayor Ken Herman.) FYI, Yarbrough ran in 1994 as Grady Yarborough. His mistake, he says.

But seriously... didn't some fellow do this once before?

The Dems' 1996 nominee was Victor Morales, an East Texas teacher who drove a white pickup truck (a 1992 Nissan that was Bentleyesque compared to Yarbrough's Chevy) to a surprising primary win over two incumbent U.S. House members. Morales lost to GOP Sen. Phil Gramm.

A real Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; an actual citizen populist. Name recognition-surfing and prior Republican branding aside -- or maybe together -- this is the perfect, tried-and-true candidate for Texas Democrats. He's got my full support (but only for the runoff).

And if he wins, just think of all the thousands of dollars Texas Democrats can save by not donating to his campaign. Why, that will leave them more to send to President Obama -- who, in keeping with tradition himself, won't spend any of it in Texas -- or to one of those tightly contested Senate races in places like Massachusetts.

Grady Yarbrough for US Senate. It's proud Texas Democratic tradition, for Jeebus' sake.

The First Weekly One Hundred Degree Wrangle (of 2012)

The Texas Progressive Alliance is in search of a shady spot and a cold beverage as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff analyzes the Democratic DA primary and the race for HCDP Chair in Harris County.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson posts about striking janitors in Houston and tax payer give-aways to corporations: Texas is a cheap labor state, and it shows.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wonders out loud if the new chair of the Texas Democratic Party might have some explaining to do about the goings-on in Cameron County.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to know that tort reform didn't lower health care costs.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw writes about what is obvious to everyone with half a brain. Sadly, it still has to be said: Voters voted for Jobs in 2010. The GOP Delivered Witchhunts.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered thoughts on the death of Rodney King.

Half a loaf, not a day old and still stale

Unlike Richard Dunham, I just don't see this as being a 'big win' for Obama.

The Supreme Court's conservative bloc divided in two this morning, allowing President Obama to score a legal victory in the closely watched Arizona immigration case.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a nominee of President Reagan, wrote the 5-3 majority opinion that struck down several key provisions of the Arizona immigration law, known as SB 1070. Those provisions designated it a state crime to seek work without a work permit, fail to carry immigration registration documents or allow the arrest an individual suspected of committing a crime that could lead to deportation from the United States.

Kennedy was joined by President George W. Bush's choice for Chief Justice, John Roberts, as well as Democratic selections Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Elena Kagan, who worked on the case during her time as President Obama's Solicitor General, did not take part in the decision.

The three most conservative justices -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- dissented. An impassioned Alito read extensive excerpts from his dissenting opinion in the court chamber this morning.

The court did not strike down the state's right to permit police to routinely check the immigration status of people stopped for other reasons.

The Wicked Witch of the West also claimed victory.

Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, said that the decision -- which did not strike down the police enforcement provision -- upholds "the heart of SB1070." She promised that Arizona law enforcement would careful guard the civil rights of suspected illegal immigrants. The governor added that police officers who crossed the line into racially profiling would be punished.

But this next is flawed rationale IMHO.

The victory was a big political win for President Obama, who intervened in the case against the Arizona law. It's a setback for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who called the Arizona enforcement provisions a "model" for state immigration laws.

Kennedy's ruling declared that "the national government has significant power to regulate immigration" and that Arizona or other states "may not pursue policies that undermine federal law."

That was exactly the argument made by the Obama administration during oral arguments on the case.

Dunham provides more perspective for his headline here, but I'm still not buying it. It's a legal win but not a political win. I spent considerable time in the past few months telling Democrats that the expected upholding of this law could be used as political momentum; in effect that the motivation to turn out Latinos -- particularly on the strength of last week's executive order on the DREAM Act -- would catapult the grassroots efforts to get out all of the vote for the president in November.

They don't get that push with this ruling. Meanwhile the conservatives have a fresh Outrage O'Day. Just read the comments at the links above if you want a clue.

So the spin -- "it's good/bad that most of the law was struck down", "it's good/bad that the key component of the law was upheld" -- is in both directions, and on both sides.

I think it's remarkable that the conservative bloc on the Court fractured, and I think it's halfway good for Latinos in the long run, especially with the disembowelment of much of Arizona's -- along with the other states' rights bills lined up behind it -- law dealing with immigration.

But the worst part of it remains; upholding the racial profiling is simply heinous. Joe Arpaio will continue to arrest and detain innocent people who by virtue of their complexion "look" illegal, and his atrocities are well-documented. That's not a win for anybody, I don't care how large a bigot you are.

This is half a loaf, and it's not even a day old and still tastes stale to me.

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

Update: OK, let's go ahead and call it a win.

Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court approved Arizona law enforcement officers’ authority to demand “papers please” from suspected illegal immigrants, the Obama administration moved to mitigate the on-the-street impact by suspending Arizona authorities’ instant access to the immigration database used to determine the legal status of questioned or arrested suspects.

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, a former governor, attorney general and federal prosecutor in Arizona, abruptly suspended the so-called 287 (g) program in Arizona that deputizes local and state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws and provides them access to federal immigration files in order to do that.

[...]

The significance of her action means that illegal immigrants stopped and questioned by law enforcement officers in Arizona under provisions upheld by the Supreme Court will not be prosecuted by federal authorities unless they have committed crimes beyond unlawful residence, have repeatedly violated immigration laws or are recent arrivals who entered the country illegally.

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

Meanwhile, we get to wait until later in the week for a decision on ObamaCares. My opinion of that ruling is the same as it was for this one: if the SCOTUS strikes it down, the Democrats should be able to gain tremendous enthusiasm for November. And its repeal -- together with a Democratic House and Senate -- might just be enough to get a single-payer universal health care law passed in 2013. If the Democrats can manage to do then what they were unable to in 2009.

We shall wait a few more days and see.

Sunday Funnies

Does Gilberto Hinojosa have some explaining to do?

In my post wrapping up the Democratic and Republican state conventions two weekends ago, I referenced some things others -- mostly RGV Tea Partiers -- had written about Gilberto Hinojosa, who prior to his election as state party chair served as a district judge in Cameron County.

I discounted most of that as sour grape partisan whining. Now there seems to be more to it than that. People keep getting tried and convicted who were involved in the sordid affair. Details, you say?

-- First, the racketeering trial of attorney Ray Marchan concluded last week with a guilty verdict and included testimony from former state district judge Abel Limas -- who himself pleaded guilty to racketeering last year -- which identified both Hinojosa and state Representative Rene Oliveira as pay-to-players. The excerpt:

Limas himself has offered compelling testimony, describing how he made ends meet on a judge's salary by squeezing attorneys for a piece of the action. What emerged was a convoluted explanation of friends who helped him versus friends who bribed him — and some major Cameron County name-dropping.

The ones he said helped him included state Rep. Rene Oliveira, heard in a phone conversation telling Limas: “I've got my pants on — on my knees,” and former Brownsville Mayor Eddie Treviño, who slipped him $2,000 as a campaign donation that went unreported.

Another big name came up in the testimony of Mark Gripka, the FBI agent who began investigating Limas in 2007. According to a Brownsville Herald report from afternoon testimony Wednesday, Gripka said Limas had named former Cameron County judge and newly elected Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa as another who paid him.

Limas said there was in his mind a clear difference between loans and gifts and “bribes,” a word he had to be prodded to use.

-- In the course of researching that, there was also this: an alleged vote-fixing scheme during Hinojosa's tenure as judge. As that allegation is almost two years old, it has all but fallen down the memory hole. So far I can find no public record of whether or how the complaint might have been resolved.

What I'm confused about is how there was no mention of any of this business in the run-up to Hinojosa's election as Democratic state party chair. The establishment in fact lined up behind him in droves, like state representative Joaquin Castro, one of the keynoters at the convention, as well as several other state reps like Oliviera, whose taped telephone conversation here revealed his complicity in the racketeering scheme.

“Man, I need I need a big, big favor,” Oliveira told Limas.

“We f----d up on a case,” Oliveira told Limas, who served as judge of the 404th district from 2001 through the end of 2008.

“We have to try (the case), but I need to buy some more time,” Oliveira said, noting that the firm stood to lose the client.

Oliveira said that attorney Randall Crane, who represented the opposing party, had him “by the b---s.”

Oliveira indicated in the conversation that an associate would attend the hearing and seek more time, and that Crane was going to go “ballistic.”

Oliveira asked Limas to “pretend” not to know. Before indicating to Oliveira that things would work out, Limas told Oliveira that Crane was trying to have attorney Ray R. Marchan sanctioned and that he does not sanction attorneys.

Did I miss the discussion among Democrats about Hinojosa's involvement in these matters? Did the powers-that-be decide it amounted to nothing? Were they so intent on anointing Hinojosa that no amount of scandal would stop them from doing so? Is this just the way politics is run in the Rio Grande Valley and people just turn their head and look the other way every time it goes down?

And if Hinojosa doesn't want to explain anything now, as he begins to implement his overhaul of the Texas Democratic Party... is there anybody else that would? Help a brother out here, please.

Senatorial hopefuls debate

The two Democrats competing in the July 31 runoff for U.S. Senate are set to participate in a televised debate on Tuesday, June 26.

The one-hour debate between former state Rep. Paul Sadler, of Henderson, and retired educator Grady Yarbrough will be hosted by KERA, the Dallas PBS affiliate that is also hosting a debate this Friday between the Republican candidates in the Senate race, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz.

More details at the TexTrib. You can watch the two ReBloodlicans go at it live but not the pair of DemoCrips (yes, I stole that from Jesse Ventura). Meanwhile the Green and the Libertarian will continue to try to attract some media attention so that corporate-sponsored media will report on something besides the two-party duopoly.

Grady Yarbrough is of course the joke candidate in the Democratic runoff, but not even my preferred candidate's endorsement of the East Texas Blue Dog is enough to sway me in this contest.

Moderate conservatives will have two choices in November... either one of the Democrats and the Libert, but neither jerk that wins the R primary. Liberals and progressives will only have one, and his name is David Collins.

Rubio ends his bid for veep

It was a self-inflicted wound.

While discussing immigration policy in his new memoir, "An American Son," Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called for "common decency" in dealing with undocumented immigrants and said that if put in a similar position as those who are fleeing destitution, he would break the law, too.

"Many people who come here illegally are doing exactly what we would do if we lived in a country where we couldn't feed our families," Rubio writes in his book, which went on sale Tuesday.  "If my kids went to sleep hungry every night and my country didn't give me an opportunity to feed them, there isn't a law, no matter how restrictive, that would prevent me from coming here."

Two conclusions:

1. Rubio isn't going to be the vice-presidential pick now, whether he is actually being vetted for the post or not. The xenophobes, bigots, and Minutemen who comprise the base of the Republican party won't be able to look past this betrayal. They'll quit on Romney in waves if he were to pick Rubio now.

2. The immigration issue is now resolved for all but the dregs of society's conservatives. "Deport 'em all" joins "Obama is a Kenyan Muslim" as a declaration of the certifiably insane. No one except a few criminals are going to continue to be deported ... at least until after the election. Whatever the SCOTUS decides about Arizona's immigration law in the next few days is irrelevant to the national question, because if AZ or AL or other states make it illegal to have brown skin (and the SCOTUS upholds their right to do so) then Mexicans will simply vote with their feet again. Many are already returning to Mexico, where the emotional toll of being partly of two countries -- and all of neither -- is weighing on the children the most (as usual).

Not that Republicans give a damn -- the Romney campaign is still trying to decide whether to shit or wind their wristwatch --  but that is the moral imperative of making comprehensive immigration reform a priority. After November, naturally.

Update: And apparently Chris Christie got some assistance shooting his vice-presidential aspirations in the foot (since he can't see either one without a full-length, double-wide mirror).

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone had a happy Father's Day as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff did an interview with State Sen. Wendy Davis, the Republicans' top target in November.  

WCNews at Eye on Williamson says the Texas GOP is getting set to raise taxes on working and middle classes Texans again. Here comes the next wave in the assault on health care and public education in Texas.

Refinish69 at Doing my Part for the Left wonders WTF? Has the entire country lost its mind?

Neil at Texas Liberal attended a march of Houston janitors lwho are ooking for nothing more than a more fair wage for the work they do. This post has two videos of the arrest of one of these peaceful marchers by aggressive Houston police officers on horseback.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker points out that all of a sudden somebody at the national level gets it: the Dems have NO Brand! Check it out... It's the Branding, Stupid!

Sunday Funnies

The Democrats' Latino mirage *update*

Terrence McCoy at the Houston Press asked some really discomfiting questions this week. His article is blunt and brutally direct.

The quixotically optimistic Texas Democrats -- who haven't won a statewide election since 1994 -- bellowed a lot of things at the Texas Democratic Convention last weekend, but, really, most of it seemed to translate to one refrain.

All together now: The Hispanics are going to save us! The Hispanics are going to save us!

Gawd, this again? They've been rapping this for a decade now while amid the political wilds, pointing to charts, delivering diatribes en español and citing statistics which, admittedly, are staggering: Hispanics account for 38 percent of the Texas population, 44 percent of Houston's -- and nearly 4 million Latinos across the state can vote. By 2040, Hispanics will account for an absolute majority in Texas. This shift of tectonic proportion may remake Texas politics -- but there's just one teensie-weensie problem. For Democrats, for Republicans, for Latino issues in general. Hispanics don't vote.

Democrats may presage the looming Hispanic vote, but the percentage of residents in this demographic who actually do so has, in fact, dropped. In 2004, roughly 42 percent of Latinos went to the polls. Then, in 2008, that number deflated to 38 percent. Two years ago, even lower: around 22 percent. Across the nation, the population of registered Hispanic voters shriveled from 11.6 million in 2008 to 10.9 million in 2010.

So what's going to make this year any different?

Oh, maybe this.

Asked by pollsters, Latino voters overwhelmingly support Barack Obama. So much so, in fact, that if Republicans don't cut into that support, Mitt Romney's chances fall to virtually zero.

Republicans have certainly mismanaged their relationship with Latino voters. There is no love for the GOP. But the Obama Administration appears hell-bent on doing everything possible to put the Latino vote back in contention. How? By maintaining a callous and deeply unpopular deportation policy.  [...]

There is no way to understate the effect of this news. It has dominated Spanish language media, and cynical Republicans have jumped at the opportunity to show fake concern for the results. It has given Sen. Marco Rubio a chance to grandstand with his own inadequate version of the DREAM Act, while Republicans blast (legitimately, for once) the administration for breaking its promises on immigration reform. As a result of this intense media focus, the Latino community is incredibly well informed on the issue—they'll speak to you about "prosecutorial discretion" and know who John Morton is (do you?).

As one attendee at Netroots Nation noted at a panel on immigration reform—a temporary halt to deportations for non-criminal undocumented immigrants would be worth tens of millions of dollars in Spanish-language television ads for the Obama campaign.

Instead, the Spanish-language media is dominated by stories about Obama's broken promises—first, his promises to tackle the issue in the first year of his presidency (which he didn't bother doing), and second, his promise to reduce the number of deportations. Believe it or not, splitting up families is not good politics.

This administration has deported more people than previous Republican administrations. Yet he hasn't gained a single vote from the nativist xenophobic Right. Not only would halting non-criminal deportations be the humane thing to do, it would also be good electoral politics.

If the Obama administration is trying to find the right time to make a (semi-)genuine appeal to Latinos, right about now would be good.

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

Update: And just like that...*snap*

The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

(Other election advisories will remain in effect.)

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

If they would rather keep squandering yet another opportunity to salt away this election, then perhaps they had better just shift their focus to female voters instead. Because every day things like this happen, the more galvanized the opposition to the Misogynist Caucus of the GOP becomes. I picked up this bumper sticker last weekend from the TDW; it's perfect.

Bumper Stickers From MAKESTICKERS.COM

Then again, if the Democrats keep failing to get it re: Latinos, women, etc.,  there's always another option.

Texas Greens build momentum

This ought to piss off both Carl Whitmarsh and Bethany a little more. And that's never a bad thing. (Update: Noting the correction sent out by cewdem last weekend, he did not make the erroneous assertion. Somebody *ahem* put colored words on his e-mail. Or something.)

From the San Antonio Current:

David Collins walked to the front of the Hill Country cabin with a green toga draped over shirt, tie and slacks, a throwback, he said, to mankind's first republic: the Roman Senate. "The toga has great symbolic significance for me," he said, "and I've felt myself to be politically and spiritually green for a long time." Staring down at the getup, Collins laughed. "I would run for office naked if I thought the Green Party would benefit from it."

Collins, a Houston-based longshot candidate for Texas' open U.S. Senate seat, was among a smattering of candidates and activists working to dismantle the country's two-party dominated political system meeting at a small Hill Country retreat in Grey Forest Saturday and Sunday for the Green Party of Texas' convention. Far outside the clubby, insidery scenes of political officialdom on display in Houston and Fort Worth at the weekend's state Democratic and Republican conventions, Texas Greens held a quiet, low-key gathering on the outskirts of San Antonio to tap nominees and chat philosophy, politics, and revolution.

You really need to read the whole piece. Laugh, cry, gnash your teeth, get motivated to help or power up to thwart, whatever floats your boat.

The Texas Greens ultimately, and unsurprisingly, threw support behind Jill Stein for the party's nomination for president. Stein, who once ran against Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts, says her win in the California primary last week guaranteed her place as the Green Party nominee for president at the party's national convention in Baltimore next month. Sitcom comedienne and celebrity Roseanne Barr, who didn't show at the Texas convention, spoke to Texas Green members via phone conference Saturday, saying she'd continue to seek the Green nomination for president.

Stein, an eloquent Harvard-educated physician keen on quoting Frederick Douglass ("Power concedes nothing without a demand") and Alice Walker ("The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any"), seems to embody the type of voter Greens across the country are fighting to win over: liberals, progressives, peace activists, and environmentalists who feel ditched by rightward-drifting Democrats.

Stein wrote off the so-called spoiler effect of third parties, that the major impact is to tip close races between Democrats and Republicans by siphoning off small, crucial pieces of the party base. "We've been told to be quiet, that this silence is an effective strategy," she said. "Well, how's that 'lesser evil' thing working out for you exactly? … We have assured the policies of expansive war, of ignoring a climate meltdown, of economic collapse by silencing ourselves as the only real, non-corporate voice of public interest," she said. "So many progressives have muzzled themselves."

More Jill Stein, from last weekend's convention outside San Antone.



Texas is thisclose to qualifying for federal matching funds. When that happens, the momentum hits a higher gear.

Finally, a terrific Q&A with Kat Swift, Bexar County godmother of the Texas Green Party, which resolves some of the lingering mythological questions people always seem to have about the Greens. Didn't they keep Al Gore from getting elected in 2000? (No.) Didn't they take Republican money to get on the ballot in 2010? (Not exactly, no.)

Go read the whole two things from the SAC and then let's hear what you have to say about it in the comments.

Infuriating news roundup

This bothers me.

A critical document from President Barack Obama's free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.

The leaked document has been posted on the website of Public Citizen, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.

"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.

Wasn't Ron Kirk just speaking to Texas Democrats last week? Doubt he mentioned this.

So if it's the union's rapid response, and not just their long-planned strategy as I have suspected, then this doesn't actually bother me all that much. (Actually it doesn't bother me much either way but I'm sure it bothers some Democrats.)

The AFL-CIO has told Washington Whispers it will redeploy funds away from political candidates smack dab in the middle of election season, the latest sign that the largest federation of unions in the country could be becoming increasingly disillusioned with President Obama.

The federation says the shift has been in the works for months, and had nothing to do with the president's failure to show in Wisconsin last week, where labor unions led a failed recall election of Governor Scott Walker.

"We wanted to start investing our funds in our own infrastructure and advocacy," AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told Whispers. "There will be less contributions to candidates," including President Obama.

While there were "a lot of different opinions" about whether Obama should have gone to Wisconsin, according to Goldstein, "this is not a slight at the president."

The AFL-CIO has been at odds with the president before Wisconsin on issues such as the public health insurance option and renewing the Bush tax cuts.

The union leaders aren't happy about the Democratic national convention being held in a non-union town. Charlotte, and the Tar Heel state in general, have a few other simmering issues. Here in Houston last week, several union leaders were, and probably are still feuding with each other -- and other Democrats -- after a handful of their lackeys on the SDEC got turned out of office.

(I say 'lackeys' because, by my observation over several years, their membership on the SDEC served as nothing but a resume' embellishment for upward mobility in their respective unions. They were mostly furniture when it came to the SDEC's work.)

Labor in the United States and most certainly in Texas is at low tide and going lower. They need an entirely new paradigm, and a new generation of leaders to implement it. Update: Locally again, Houston janitors represented by the SEIU have gotten expressions of support from Mayor Annise Parker and statehouse candidate Gene Wu...

Houston has posted strong growth number in many sectors for several quarters. The mega-corporations that are housed in downtown Houston are again making record profits. So what do the cleaning companies offer the custodians and janitors who take care of downtown get? A ten cents per hour increase per year. That's right, they can buy an extra pack of gum each day, assuming they work 14 or more hours that day. 

ABC news ( http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=8694676 ) reported that these workers make on average $9,000 a year.  I was floored when I read that. That's $3,000 below the US poverty level for an individual; and $10,000 below the poverty level for a family of three. No one ever said it would be easy, but it shouldn't be this hard. I'm not saying that people should be rich as janitors, but people who do an honest day's work should at least be able to take care of their own basic survival.

Mayor Parker has released a statement (http://blog..chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/06/parker-weighs-in-on-janitors-union-contract-dispute/).  But, I don't see much of anyone else taking a stand with the Janitors. 

All Democrats should be rallying around SEIU's efforts. Post about it on Facebook; Tweet it; and post it on your blogs.  Send SEIU Local 1 (Houston) an email showing your support; better yet send them a small contribution so they can help out the families of workers who have already been blocked from returning to work after going on strike.

A good first step would be for labor to identify their allies in local and statehouse races and work to get those people elected in order to try to protect their public pensions, among other things. A challenger who can defeat this piece of shit in 2013 would be a great place to start.

Speaking of pieces of shit...

This infuriates some people, but I'm not one of them.

One of the many decapitated heads that appeared on "Game of Thrones" last season was a prop likeness of former President George W. Bush, its creators revealed in a DVD commentary.

In the tenth episode of the first season, Sansa Stark looks at several heads on spikes. One belongs to her father, Ned, and another to the former United States president.

Show creators pointed out their use of Bush's image, but said they weren't making a political statement. (Someone using the name SidIncoginto on Reddit pointed out Bush's inclusion, and io9, which picked up on the oddity, has video.)

"The last head on the left is George Bush," says David Benioff, one of the show's co-creators, in the DVD commentary.

"George Bush's head appears in a couple beheading scenes," adds co-creator D.B. Weiss.

"It's not a choice, it's not a political statement," explains Benioff. "It's just, we had to use what heads we had around."

Speaking of heads, some conservative ones are definitely exploding.

Update: I smell wussy.