No obstruction too great or too small

... for John Cornyn and his merry band of naysayers:

Having just seen what President Barack Obama can do with 58 Democrats in the Senate, Republicans are more determined than ever to keep him from getting a 59th.

Especially if the 59th is Al Franken.

Franken, the former comedian, leads Republican Norm Coleman by 225 votes in a “Groundhog Day” of an election that dawned more than three months ago and shows no signs of ending soon.

Which is exactly how Senate Republicans want it. The National Republican Senatorial Committee held a ritzy fundraiser for Coleman in Washington this week, helping him raise the money he needs to keep his legal challenges alive through a trial and then a lengthy legal process if he loses.

How long should Coleman hold out?

“However long it takes,” says Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC.

“I encourage him to see it through the end,” Cornyn said Thursday. “He feels like he owes it to the voters of Minnesota and his colleagues here. He realizes how important retaining that seat is to us.”

Six more long years of John Cornyn's daily bullshit.

How about a protest in front of his office with bottles of laxative for him to drink? We're all going to need some relief from him soon, that's for sure.

Sunday Funnies

13 facts about Friday the 13th, the first of 3 this year

If you fear Friday the 13th, then batten down the hatches. This week's unlucky day is the first of three this year.

The next Friday the 13th comes in March, followed by Nov. 13. Such a triple whammy comes around only every 11 years, said Thomas Fernsler, a math specialist at the University of Delaware who has studied the number 13 for more than 20 years.

Here are 13 more facts about the infamous day, courtesy of Fernsler and some of our own research:

1. The British Navy built a ship named Friday the 13th. On its maiden voyage, the vessel left dock on a Friday the 13th, and was never heard from again.

2. The ill-fated Apollo 13 launched at 13:13 CST on Apr. 11, 1970. The sum of the date's digits (4-11-70) is 13 (as in 4+1+1+7+0 = 13). And the explosion that crippled the spacecraft occurred on April 13 (not a Friday). The crew did make it back to Earth safely, however.

3. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor.

4. Fear of Friday the 13th - one of the most popular myths in science - is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

5. Quarterback Dan Marino wore No. 13 throughout his career with the Miami Dolphins. Despite being a superb quarterback (some call him one of the best ever), he got to the Super Bowl just once, in 1985, and was trounced 38-16 by the San Francisco 49ers and Joe Montana (who wore No. 16 and won all four Super Bowls he played in).

6. Butch Cassidy, notorious American train and bank robber, was born on Friday, April 13, 1866.

7. Fidel Castro was born on Friday, Aug. 13, 1926.

8. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

9. Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

10. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. "It was bad luck," Twain later told the friend. "They only had food for 12."

11. Woodrow Wilson considered 13 his lucky number, though his experience didn't support such faith. He arrived in Normandy, France on Friday, Dec. 13, 1918, for peace talks, only to return with a treaty he couldn't get Congress to sign. (The ship's crew wanted to dock the next day due to superstitions, Fernsler said.) He toured the United States to rally support for the treaty, and while traveling, suffered a near-fatal stroke.

12. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number - 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.

13. The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle's head, 13 war arrows in the eagle's claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. So far there's been no evidence tying these long-ago design decisions to the present economic situation.

The Texas House committee assignments are out! (rinse, repeat)

Charles aggreposts the best of the reactions to Speaker Straus' selections to guide the business of the Texas House during the 81st Lege. It's an excellent resource and all the links there are click-worthy.

I'll re-post the executive summary provided by the Chron's Scharrer and Radcliffe Robison ...

WINNERS:

Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston: Speaker pro tempore, he’ll have Straus’ ear. Appointed to Appropriations and Insurance committees, important to Hurricane Ike recovery.

Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie: Once again, he is chief budget writer.

Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton: State Affairs chairman, important to deciding the fate of utility legislation.

Rep. Brian McCall, R-Plano: Calendars chairman, one of the most powerful; his panel decides which bills get a shot and which don’t.

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston: Local & Consent Calendars, chief traffic cop for hundreds of local bills; which get a green light and which don’t.

LOSERS:

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa: Vice chairman of Environmental Regulation, a big fall from previous post of chairman of Appropriations.

Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston: Removed as Calendars chairman; didn’t even get a vice chair.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford: Booted from the defunct Regulated Industries Committee; he doesn’t have a chairmanship or a seat on State Affairs.

Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland: Seated on Energy Resources and State Affairs.

OUT OF THE DEEP FREEZE:

Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston: Now seated on coveted Calendars Committee; chair of County Affairs; keeps Public Health seat.

Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston: Back on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee; also Public Education vice chair.

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco: The chief Democratic bomb-thrower against Craddick; now chairs a special committee on how to spend the federal economic stimulus money.

STILL CHUGGING ALONG:

Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo: Insurance chair, a post he had under the two previous speakers.

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS:

• 34 standing House committees

• 18 are chaired by Republicans

• 16 are chaired by Democrats

• 15 chairmen have never chaired before

• 23 are from urban areas

• 11 are from rural areas

My reaction is that this is more along the lines of what Hope, Change, and Bi-partisanship look like. Hope I'm not mistaken.

The battle royal will remain in the Texas Senate over voter ID, and is looking more and more like one that democracy could lose.

Judge Dredd quits as Commerce Secretary-designate

"I Am The Law" no more, in the Senate either (after 2010).

/joke

Fuck him then, I say. This little drama turns out to be some partisan Republican conservative attempt to throw egg on the President's face, which the public -- in both their solid support of both Obama and the stimulus package -- can see right through.

Gregg sought out the position. He knew the policies. He said he could accept and support them. He publicly supported the stimulus package (even though he abstained from the vote).

Last week Gregg stood by Obama's side to accept the nomination as commerce secretary and declared that partisanship should not get in the way of repairing the country's economy:

"This is not a time for partisanship. This is not a time when we should stand in our ideological corners and shout at each other," Gregg said on Feb. 3. "This is a time to govern and govern well. And therefore, when the President asked me to join his administration and participate in trying to address the issues of this time, I believed it was my obligation to say yes, and I look forward to it with enthusiasm."

He even made a deal that his replacement in the Senate would be a Republican.

And now he's saying it had become apparent to him he couldn't do something that he had already agreed to do and in fact had done publicly.

The White House source in the CNN article is right that Gregg was erratic. But in another sense, Gregg is being consistent. He's always been a right-wing Republican, and like all Republicans aligned with the most conservative faction of their party, that allegiance is more powerful than their duty to country, indeed their oath of office.

Given the choice of serving his country during one of the worst economic crises in the past hundred years, Judd Gregg would rather obstruct.

Just like John Cornyn.

Every Republican member of the House of Representatives voted against the stimulus. All but three Republicans in the Senate voted against it. The public supports the stimulus package. But the Republicans don't listen to the public, except for that small minority that makes up the extremist Republican base. The Limbaugh Listening Caucus.

When called to serve his country, Judd Gregg flinched, revealing himself too beholden to the views of a Republican party controlled by bitter, vindictive zealots.

Bi-partisanship only works when both parties put the national interest first. All but a few of the Republicans in Congress put their party before the good of the nation. Judd Gregg's refusal to serve in the Obama cabinet demonstrates once again that the Republicans would rather obstruct progress than contribute to the welfare of the United States of America.

Why do Judd Gregg and the GOP hate America?

Happy Birthday, Chuck Darwin

Update (at the top this time):

It's well known that Charles Darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution made many people furious because it contradicted the Biblical view of creation. But few know that it also created problems for Darwin at home with his deeply religious wife, Emma.

Darwin held back the book to avoid offending his wife, said Ruth Padel, the naturalist's great-great-granddaughter. "She said he seemed to be putting God further and further off," Padel said in her north London home. "But they talked it through, and she said, "Don't change any of your ideas for fear of hurting me.'"

The 1859 publication of "On the Origin of Species" changed scientific thought forever — and generated opposition that continues to this day. It is this elegant explanation of how species evolve through natural selection that makes Darwin's 200th birthday on Feb. 12 such a major event.

Alas, only 4 in 10 Americans believe:

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity.

Here are seven pieces of evidence that demonstrate evolution in action, courtesy National Geographic.

And so that Texas students don't continue to be failed by their state board of education, visit the Texas Freedom Network for more on how to combat the ignorance. Here's the latest from their blog.

Tom Schieffer and Kinky Friedman *update*

Well, at least we may have a contested gubernatorial primary in 2010:

Tom Schieffer of Fort Worth recently returned to Texas after serving as U.S. ambassador to Australia and, more recently, Japan under former President George W. Bush.

Before that, he was president of the Texas Rangers baseball team when Bush was a part owner of the franchise.

Now, figuring out what to do next, Schieffer has been calling friends and associates, weighing a possible race for the Democratic nomination for governor next year.

Yes, Democratic nomination. Before hooking up with Bush, Schieffer, brother of CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, was a Democratic state representative from Fort Worth in the 1970s.

He has been away from Texas politics (and the country) for years and, thanks to his Bush connections, likely would encounter a cool, even hostile, reception from many Democratic voters.

But Democrats aren’t overwhelmed with potential gubernatorial candidates. With Houston Mayor Bill White and former state Comptroller John Sharp planning to run for the U.S. Senate, it takes some imagination to come up with much of a list, since all statewide offices are held by Republicans.

Which means that Kinky is currently the front-runner:

Humorist and author Kinky Friedman may run for Texas governor again, but if he does, he says he’s serious this time.

First, he’d run with the help of a major party — the Democrats — instead of launching an independent campaign like he did in 2006.

Friedman told the Associated Press on Tuesday he learned some hard lessons from his fourth-place defeat to Republican Rick Perry in a race with three political veterans. He said he found out he couldn’t win as an independent and that he shouldn’t crack so many jokes.

“I’m toning down the one-liners a bit. If I run, it’s going to be a serious run,” said Friedman, peppering the interview with one-liners.

Friedman noted that Democratic comedian Al Franken did well in his U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, though his victory is still being debated in court.

“So this can be done,” Friedman said.

This is just a target-rich environment, isn't it?

But I'm going to hold my fire until this early jockeying turns into something, ah, serious. Ted at jobsanger has more on Schieffer (and you may recall that he was a supporter of Kinky's in the last cycle).

Update: Ted has some thoughts on Kinky which respond to some recent criticism of Friedman and his candidacy as a Democrat from John, Vince, and Neil.