Roundup of some highly readables

With a little extra downtime on my hands as a result of my stepmother's passing Tuesday, and with all arrangements completed and awaiting services and committal Saturday, here is some of what I am reading this morning to share with you.

-- Michael Li has everything you want to know with respect to the latest on the Supreme Court's Texas election clusterfudge. That's a good half-hour's worth alone.

-- Rahm Emanuel is a thug. And like my friend Neil, I hope Occupy takes over his town next May.

-- Seven Occupy the Port of Houston protestors were released yesterday after a judge ruled that an arm tube was insufficient evidence to represent a felony charge of using "anything" in the act of civil disobedience.

There is justice occasionally, and sometimes it is sweeter than a clementine.

-- Plumes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times worse than carbon dioxide, are streaming into the atmosphere as Arctic permafrost thaws. It's pretty much over for humans (and the rest of most living things) on this planet now. The only question left  is how much longer do we have.

-- Finally, in the context of a) not ending this post on a depressing note, and b) offering a bit of comedic value besides a toon, there is yet another GOP not-so-presidential debate tonight on Fox moderated by something called a Cavuto.

Hilarity should ensue. Seriously.

Update: Oh yeah, one more thing: There is Only One Issue in America, according to Steven Van Zandt. As a disciple, he is of course correct.

Third-party presidential candidate news

Because no one else will ever blog about it.

Glenn Beck, Joe Scarborough tout Ron Paul as third-party candidate:

Some conservative commentators are laying the groundwork for backing Texas congressman Ron Paul as a third party candidate if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich to face Democratic President Barack Obama. Even as many on the right warm to the liberty-loving lawmaker, more of the mainstream media is beginning to consider him a factor in the GOP primary battle already underway.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and longtime Gingrich critic, today spoke favorably about a possible Paul general election candidacy as a reaction to “big government” conservative Gingrich. The co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program invoked the words of conservative radio show host Glenn Beck in welcoming a potential Paul insurgency in the 2012 general election.

“Yesterday, Glenn Beck said something that I guarantee you a lot of small-government conservatives, like me, have thought. And that is, if I have to choose between Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich, a guy that George Will said would have been a ‘marvelous Marxist’ and who is the opposite of being a small-government conservative — if Ron Paul’s running as a third-party candidate, I’m going to give him a long look. Because I can’t vote for the two guys who worship at the altar of big government in their own separate ways. And that’s the problem with a Newt Gingrich candidacy. He’s not a small government conservative.”

Really, it makes perfect sense. But Paul still has a shot at scrambling the GOP race if he wins Iowa. He trails Newt in the latest poll there by a single point.

Over the past week, Gingrich's 9-point lead has shrunk to a single point over the folksy Paul, according to Public Policy Poling.

Gingrich is clinging to a narrow 22% to 21% edge over Paul, with Mitt Romney at 16%, Michele Bachmann at 11%, Rick Perry at 9%, Rick Santorum at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 5%, and Gary Johnson at 1%.

Gingrich has dropped 5 points in the last week and he's also seen a significant decline in his favorability numbers.

Republican-leaning independents are going to need some place to go if Gingrich -- or for that matter, Paul -- should manage to capture the GOP nom.

But all that's hardly actual third-party news.

The Green Party's leading candidates for president, Kent Mesplay and Jill Stein, held a debate in California two weeks ago. Stein will appear at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a public interview with Matt Rothschild of The Progressive this Friday.

Harry Braun, running initially as a Democratic challenger to President Obama and now as an independent, has a campaign focusing on a democracy constitutional amendment that will in turn enable fossil and nuclear fuels to be replaced with wind and solar-based hydrogen systems "on a war-time speed" basis. He has a weekly radio show where he elaborates on these and other of his issues.

My thoughts on the ineptitude of continuing to support all of the candidates of the leftish member of the two-party duopoly were posted here last week. My argument in favor of third parties is: what have you got to lose? If you're a Republican and the party nominates someone you can't support, your vote for a third party candidate, be it Libertarian or Constitution or some other is a message to the GOP to shape up. Likewise -- and particularly since this is Texas, where your presidential vote isn't going to matter anyway -- you can send a message to the Democrats to get their shit together.

Go ahead and vote for the Republicans and/or Democrats (or Libs or Greens) down the ballot that you prefer. But until we get more choices everywhere, nothing meaningful is going to change.

Update: I wrote this post intending to include this news about Rocky Anderson.

A new political party has entered the fray as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans ahead of the 2012 elections. On Monday, former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson announced he will run for president with the newly formed Justice Party. Although hailing from a solidly red state, Anderson has been known as one of the most progressive mayors of any major U.S. city in recent years. During his two mayoral terms from 2000 to 2008, Anderson was an outspoken champion of LGBT rights, environmental sustainability, and the antiwar movement in opposition to the Iraq War. Vowing to fight the influence of money over politics, Anderson kicked off his campaign on Monday with a pledge to limit individual donations to $100 a person. Anderson and the Justice Party say they hope to build a grassroots movement heading into the November 2012 elections. "We launched the Justice Party because the entire system is so corrupt," Anderson says. "It’s so diseased. We know that the public interest is not being served by anyone in the system right now, particularly the two dominant parties who have sustained this corrupt system and who are sustained by it."

Anti-incumbent fever sweeps out city hall

If voters were happy with (Houston's) mayor and current city council, they certainly didn't show it in runoff elections Saturday.

They threw out two incumbents by large margins and filled two other seats with men who had no government experience.

The results illustrate a continuation of a national trend of anger and frustration toward government during the worst economic stretch since the Great Depression, political observers said.

In short: Voters want change.

"A lot of people are angry at virtually all institutions and the government is high on their list," said Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston. "And these are the people in a low-turnout election that are most likely to show up because they are angry. They're agitated."

About 57,000 voters participated in the election, 6 percent of the 920,000 people registered to cast ballots in Houston.

Yeah, the 6% want change, all right, and they're turning out in record (low) numbers to elect the very worst people on the ballot. This crew has burned through several labels in the past few years -- angry white males, TeaBaggers -- but suffice it to say that they have more time on their hands than they do good sense.

And the lower the turnout, the more incumbents are endangered. Which is why the King Street/True the Vote vote-suppressing criminals are fully weaponized for 2012.

Councilwoman Jolanda Jones lost At-Large Position 5 by 8 percentage points, and councilwoman Brenda Stardig suffered a 10-point defeat in District A. In races to replace term-limited council members Jarvis Johnson and Sue Lovell, voters chose a restaurateur, Jerry Davis, over one of Johnson's aides, Alvin Byrd, and picked a pastor, Andrew Burks Jr., over a former state legislator, Kristi Thibaut. Davis will represent District B, Burks will take At-Large 2.

The results show clear opposition to the status quo, particularly following a general election in which Mayor Annise Parker and several council members narrowly avoided runoff elections, said Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University.

"It's a strong repudiation of this administration -- not just the mayor, but the council," Stein said.

District A, which elected the city's first TeaBagger, has a 57% Hispanic population. Barely any of which can vote, or bothered to. Byrd and Thibaut weren't incumbent office-holders but suffered the same fate as Jones and Stardig because they were perceived by the slight majority of the 6% as such.

Even without a 600,000-vote suppression tool like the TXGOP's Voter/Photo ID bill, 2012 is shaping up as an absolutely brutal year for incumbents of both parties, and that includes candidates who resemble incumbents by virtue of their prior proximity to the corridors of power.

As we wait for the court to give us some extended filing deadlines, that's something else to think about for those considering running for any office ... in any party.

Update: Charles disagrees. At least until he gets his numbers, anyway.

Occupy the Port of Houston today

On Monday, December 12, Occupy Houston will be joining our brothers and sisters in the Occupy movement around the United States in a coordinated action targeting the nation’s ports. This event is an expression of solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and West Coast truck drivers who have come under attack this year, as well as a statement against the multinational conglomerates and their relentless campaign to outsource American jobs and undermine our economy in the pursuit of ever-widening profit margins. We will be joined here in Houston by hundreds of Occupiers and concerned citizens from all over the state, including Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth.

12:00 PM:    Meet up at Tranquility Park

1:00 – 3:00 PM:  Rally at POH Offices. we will be protesting outside the security perimeter where the Port of Houston Authority’s executive  offices are located, 111 East Loop. (77029)

4:00 – 6:00 PM:  Main Street March. From Tranquility Park on down the length of downtown Main Street in a visible display of support for  the West Coast Port Shutdown effort and the American working class.

Here is an approximate breakdown of the day’s lineup:

12:00 PM    Meet up at Tranquility Park to get the caravan ready
12:30 PM    Make our way over to the POH executive offices
(111 E. Loop, map link)
1:00 PM       Gather up at the gate and start protesting
2:30 PM       Start heading back to the cars
3:00 PM      Get back to Tranquility Park
4:00 PM      Head out for “Main Street March” during rush hour
6:00 PM      Wrap up the march in time for dinner and the 7PM General Assembly

Occupy. Magnify. Amplify. Solidify.

Update: 19 20 arrested at Port of Houston

Update II:

"We are here in solidarity with the West Coast port shutdowns, but we're not here to shut down the port," said Amy Price, an Occupy Houston protester. "We don't want the Houston port workers to lose money. We just want to cause enough havoc to draw a spotlight on what's going on with our port. And the way to do that, we think, is civil disobedience."