New Orleans for (in-between) the holidays

The latest in a continuing series of Diddie travelogues.

For the past few years we have chosen to give ourselves as a Christmas present an out-of-town trip. It works well for us in contrarian fashion; we like to go when traffic and hotel room demand is light and no long lines for restaurants or excursions. Last year it was San Antone, this year we picked N'awlins as our end-of-the-year holiday vacay. We drove over last Tuesday, pausing in Lake Charles for lunch at Steamboat Bill's. I have somehow managed never to have stopped here even though its reputation is large, offline and on (Southern Living magazine and USA Today have raved about it in years past). It was as reputed: tasty, huge portions, inexpensive and fast -- off and back on I-10 in 40 minutes. I had a bowl of shrimp gumbo and some chicken strips but Madam Diddie splurged ahead of NOLA's gastronomia with a seafood platter of fried catfish, stuffed shrimp and crab, and about ten decent-sized fried shrimp.

Arriving in the Big Easy early -- around 3:30, we waited for our room at the Dauphine to be ready with a cocktail in May Baily's. From the site...

May Baily's Place, once one of the better known bordellos in the wildly infamous red-light district known as Storyville, now serves as our hotel bar. Our "Bordello" guest suite takes an appropriate featured place above May Baily's, and a red light still burns in the courtyard next to it as a testimony to its sordid history. Today guests are provided with a copy of the license issued to May in 1857, when sporting houses were legal in the Storyville district of New Orleans.

Dinner Tuesday was going to be oysters no matter what, and while we considered the Acme, we chose the less-popular-but-no-less spectacular Royal House Oyster Bar, and yours truly selected the baked ones three different ways: Rockefeller (topped with spinach sautéed with bacon and sambucca stuffing), Royale (shrimp, crawfish, and crabmeat stuffing), and Pepperoni (smoked chipotle peppers, green onions and parmesan cheese stuffing). The scrumptiousness defied description. The wife couldn't be convinced to sample those, or the bubbling char-broiled ones either, and had her usual dozen raw. Gumbo for me and shrimp bisque for her rounded out the light dining. A stroll down Rue de Bourbon and the expected chicanery and debauchery completed the evening and got us both in the proper festive attitude.

Breakfast, after bypassing the hotel's continental, was had at Cafe Fleur De Lis, based strictly on glowing online reviews and proximity to the Dauphine. I have always enjoyed ambling the Qwawtah in the early hours -- as in dawn, 6-8 a.m. -- when the drunks have laid it down, the early-risers like me are poking about, the working men and women are making deliveries, cleaning up from last night inside and out, and so on. We made our way back a different way, passing by the NOPD station on Royal Street and the upscale galleries and antique shops there, up to the Hotel Monteleone on the corner at Iberville Street. Since we have done all of the ghost and cemetery tours in prior visits, and also since my damned Meneire's-induced vertigo precludes any swamp boat rides or dinner cruises, we found two good options: Oak Alley Plantation for Wednesday and a Treme' walking tour for Thursday.

The antebellum period homes have entranced me ever since I first went through the Bishop's Palace, Ashton Villa, and the Menard home in Galveston, and going all the way back to the Mamie McFaddin Ward home in Beaumont. When we last visited Louisiana just a few years ago our itinerary then was Lafayette and Baton Rouge, where we toured Magnolia Mound. All of these come highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. (Probably nothing tops all the antebellum homes one can go through in Natchez MS, which we've also done, but that's another post.) Oak Alley has been the scene of a handful of movies but today is set up mostly for tours and special events like weddings and the like. The 200-year-old oaks that line the approach are the most magnificent I have ever seen. The grounds and home reflect the period: old Southern charm ... if you were Caucasian and wealthy, of course. There's a listing of the 100+ slaves who lived and worked on the plantation, their names, ages, and value recorded in a county archived tax disclosure filed in 1848.

Our fancy dinner Wednesday was one of the old-timers we had not yet been to: Arnaud's. I thought I was going to have the courtbouillon posted on the website as part of the Vermillion Reveillon Dinner menu, but when we were seated I was told that the prix-fixe had gone away after Christmas. Good news: it was replaced by a better and less expensive one. So we both had Shrimp Arnaud to appetize us; camarones frio doused in their renowned special remoulade. I picked the shrimp creole and Mrs. Diddie went for the pork tenderloin Robichaux, which was finished with a quick sear in the skillet to give it a little crunch on the edges. We closed with suitably decadent and diabetes-enhancing desserts: pecan pie a la mode (pecan praline ice cream) and profiterole, a pastry filled with vanilla ice cream and drenched in chocolate syrup. Hope my doctor isn't reading this.

Thursday I let the wife sleep in and wandered the Quarter before trucking back to the Dauphine for the complimentary breakfast (at least it was little healthier) and then we made Eat New Orleans for lunch (crawfish boulettes, butterbeans with shrimp, red beans and rice with sausage) before our Treme' tour.

It was really one of the best tours I have ever done, in NOLA or anywhere else. Our guide started us at the old J&M recording studio -- which is now, ridiculously enough, a washateria -- where proprietor Cosimo Matassa played host to the legends of the music of the time: Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Allen Toussaint, Jerry Lee Lewis, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Guitar Slim, and many more. From there we moved into the historic African-American neighborhood to the north of the French Quarter and the scene of the HBO series of the same name. The Treme' has been gentrified somewhat since the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina, but remains mostly a lower middle-class AA neighborhood and the center of the city's historical music and culture. Much of the early (as in pre-Civil War) struggles for civil rights were waged here, and after the Anglo-Americans took over from the French -- and before them, the Spanish -- in 1803, black people had quite obviously a much more miserable existence. Slave auction houses were prevalent, the War of 1812 where Andrew Jackson's ragtag bunch repelled British forces cemented the Americans' stranglehold on the port city, and Louisiana became a state of the Union later that year.

Things got no better until the Civil War of course, and even up to the 1960s, when the construction of Interstate 10 bisected the Treme' just as it did Old South Baton Rouge, and virtually everywhere else the highway was built in the cities -- right through the minority neighborhoods -- and the area continued to suffer the erosion of its culture and heritage. Post-Katrina, the neighborhood is getting some attention and investment to preserve its legacy. There's a wonderful African American Museum on Governor Nicholls Street, housed in Treme' Villa, one of the city's best examples of an authentic Creole mansion.

On our way back we went past Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop but were too tired to even stop for a drink, preferring a nap instead before dinner. We walked just a block away from the Dauphine to Louisiana Bistro, where the wife had a lip-smackingly delicious puppy drum and I finally had the elusive courtbouillion. Another really magnificent meal.

On the way back to Houston on Friday we stopped again in Lake Charles at the Isle of Capri so Mrs. Diddie and Mother Diddie could feed the slots. We all hit the buffet and I sacrificed, having a large salad, the only vegetables I consumed all week.

When we picked up the furkids at the PetsHotel, we got those looks that said, "You went to New Orleans and didn't bring us a doggy bag?!"

More Dallas bath and toilet water headed for Houston

It has long been a joke to those who know where Houston gets its water: take a drink from a tap in Houston and say ‘thank you’ to your friends in Dallas for flushing their toilets and doing all the other things that create a city’s wastewater.

In fact, without the Dallas-Fort Worth wastewater, the drought may have nearly dried up the Trinity. Decades ago, that happened. But now, the Metroplex sends so much wastewater down the Trinity, even in the driest year in Texas, the river continues to flow. Which means the wastewater is far more concentrated.

The Trinity River Authority (TRA) said in a normal year, just one-eighth of the flow as it reaches Lake Livingston is Dallas-Fort Worth wastewater. But this summer, that wastewater accounted for one-half the flow.

Nevertheless, the plan to bring more of Dallas' delicious sewage to us surges ahead.

After decades of fits and starts, Houston is pushing forward with plans to move Trinity water nearly 30 miles to Lake Houston. The reservoir, located on the smaller San Jacinto River, fills the taps for millions of people in the region.

Planners say the Luce Bayou project, a nearly $300 million pipeline and canal, would provide water to the ever-swelling city and suburbs while helping with the area's planned conversion from groundwater. The newly adopted state water plan identifies it among the key strategies to slake the region's thirst in 2060.

Mmmmm. Pour me another glass. Of course it's not just the taste we'll have to acquire...

The project, they say, could invite too much growth, encourage more transfers from water-rich East Texas and damage native habitats along the Trinity and in the bay.

"This project is a game changer," said Brandt Mannchen, of the Sierra Club's Houston group. [...]

Critics say the state plan promotes more pumps, pipes, dams and canals ahead of saving existing water. Although the plan calls for 12 percent of the supply in 2060 to come from conservation, they say more could be done.

With Luce Bayou, "we will have capacity well into the future," said Jim Lester, a water policy expert at the Houston Advanced Research Center. "My fundamental problem with this is, we are doing so little on conservation."

The Sierra Club's Mannchen said the project continues an endless cycle of increasing water supply to meet growing demands. Eventually, Houston may be forced to go farther east to grab water from the Neches or Sabine, he said.

Another concern is the potential impact on one of the nation's most productive and commercially valuable bay and estuary systems.

Both the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers empty into Galveston Bay, but at different points. The bay's northernmost lobe likely will become saltier with less water from the Trinity, experts said.

Conservation? Rainwater capture and purification? No thanks. We'll just build another pipeline and drink Dallas' wastewater. And pay the city of Houston a hundred bucks a month for the privilege.

Oh well, maybe the radiation will kill us all quicker than we think, and we won't have to worry about these long-term projects.

The Last Weekly Wrangle of 2011

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone is enjoying their holiday as it brings you the last roundup of the year.

Last week's House Republican cave-in on the payroll tax cut extension is intertwined with the Keystone XL pipeline: both have to be decided upon again in 60 days. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has some discussion about the implications.

Bay Area Houston thinks maybe Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg should resign.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted the Occupy Houston response to felony charges for some Occupy protestors who took part in civil disobedience at the port of Houston. This is a matter that should be of concern to all progressives, political advocacy groups, and civil libertarians.

Federal court judge Sam Sparks gave an early Christmas present to Texas microbreweries and their customers last week. Off the Kuff explains.

At TexasKaos, Lightseeker reports on the end of the year signs that the war on public education is reaching a critical juncture. Read his report: Public Education in the Crosshairs - Is This the End?

Texas Republicans disallow a crony capitalist tax break letting public schools keep money. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme can tell it's election season. You know Republicans love their cronies and hate public education.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson says it's time for the people to be the focus of our politics and government, and we must start doing what's good for the people of Texas.

BossKitty at TruthHugger  is very pleased with Congressman Lloyd Doggett. The Texas Republicans are still trying to mess with Lloyd's district. Bosskitty shares an example of how Lloyd responded to an email concerning the HR 10 vote: UPDATE: Response to HR 10 Consequences

Season's Greetings from the cartoonists

Only Romney and Paul make VA primary ballot

One last bit of politics before Christmas.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have failed to qualify for Virginia's March 6 Republican primary, a setback in their bids for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Republican Party of Virginia announced the developments Friday and early Saturday, saying that the two have failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot.

That Gingrich and Perry failed to get on the ballot in this state that votes on Super Tuesday underscored the difficulty that first-time national candidates — many with smaller campaign operations and less money — have in preparing for the long haul of the campaign.

It also illustrates the advantage held by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. He's essentially been running for president for five years, and his team, smaller than in 2008 but larger than most of his 2012 opponents, has paid close attention to filing requirements in each state. He will appear on the Virginia ballot, along with Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who also has run a national campaign before.

The significance of this development shouldn't be understated.

As mentioned here previously, the GOP primaries are apportioning delegates by percentage instead of winner-take-all until April 1. So theoretically the fight for the nomination could go on well into the summer -- though I doubt all the way to the convention. It might be the case usually that this would drain resources from the frontrunner(s), but Romney can self-fund and Paul's Army isn't close to maxing out.

With Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida on the calendar in January and Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona, and Michigan in February -- and Washington state on the Saturday before Super Tuesday -- those trailing a field that looks increasingly like it will be led by Romney and Paul appear to have few opportunities to break through.

Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman have very narrow paths to victory left to them, and not just for the most obvious reasons (Reason #1. They're freaks and morons). A deck that once appeared stacked to the advantage of second-tier candidates now looks like it's against them.

Perry is particularly disadvantaged by the moving of the Texas primary from March to April due to the Texas attorney general's legal machinations. He would win it handily in either month, but April (even with him winning all the delegates) is probably too late to help him.

Barring anything more shocking than Dr. No being an embarrassingly obvious bigot, I see this as a two-horse race. How long do the Teas stay lined up with Paul -- or pull out and start clamoring for a third-party challenge -- is the last question left to answer.

The House Republican cave-in and Keystone XL

Part of the payroll tax cut extension deal (that the House GOP came to their senses on last night) is that Obama must fast-track the decision on the tar sands pipeline. It would be on the same deadline -- 60 days -- as the tax cut extension itself. The good news is that this gives the president a golden opportunity to kill Keystone XL. For now, and perhaps for good.

Which may be exactly what the GOP wants: a bat to beat Obama with in 2012 over the economy. But that apparently isn't going to work, either.

House Republicans keep trying to give President Obama a political black eye by wielding the 36-inch diameter Keystone XL pipeline as a cudgel just before Christmas.

Instead, they could end up severely maiming only themselves if they persist with end-of-year legislative theatrics at what some are referring to as the "Capitol Hill Playhouse" this week.

"It's quite a sandbox, isn't it?" Pat Parenteau, a Vermont Law School professor who specializes in Congress and environmental issues, told InsideClimate News. "I think their strategy has backfired and that they've roped themselves with this political gambit. This idea that you have to keep introducing ideology into every issue, that will be their undoing." [...]

This angle developed last week on 'Countdown', but the House GOP's Epic Fail Follies drowned it out.



(skip to the 2:20 mark if you don't need the background, current at the time of this video just to last week, with the Senate's passage of the payroll tax bill)

More on the scam that is Keystone XL with respect to jobs, where the refined oil is going, how it will raise oil prices on the world market AND avoid paying US taxes (bold emphasis is mine):

One of the most important facts that is missing in the national debate surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is this – Keystone XL will not bring any more oil into the United State for decades to come. Canada doesn’t have nearly enough oil to fill existing pipelines going to the United States. However, existing Canadian oil pipelines all go to the Midwest, where the only buyer for their crude is the United States. Keystone XL would divert Canadian oil from refineries in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it can be refined and exported. Many of these refineries are in free trade zones where they may be exported to the international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. And that is exactly what Valero, one of the largest potential buyers of Keystone XL's oil, has told its investors it will do. The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil and its friends in Washington DC.

Canada's excess pipeline capacity is well known. In a Department of Energy report evaluating Keystone XL's impacts on U.S. energy supply over the next twenty years, the agency found that it will take decades for Canada to produce enough oil to fill existing pipelines. On page 90, the report concludes that the United States will import the same amount of crude from Canada through 2030 whether or not Keystone XL is built.

From Canada's perspective, the problem with existing pipelines is they all end in the U.S. Midwest and only allow one buyer - the United States. As Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently said, "we export 97 percent of our energy to the U.S. and we would like to diversify that." However, the Canadian government has put the breaks on the two pipeline proposals to export tar sands through its provinces due to the need to take more time to listen to its own public's concerns about water and safety. Keystone XL would be Canada’s first step in diversifying its energy market. The pipeline would divert large volumes of Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be available for the first time to buyers on the world market. To sweeten the deal, many of the refineries on the Gulf Coast happen to be located in foreign trade zones, where they can export Canadian oil to the world market without paying U.S. taxes.

Oil Change International investigated this issue in a report that found the Keystone XL pipeline was part of a larger strategy to sell increasing volumes of Canadian crude on the international diesel market.When Canadian regulators at the National Energy Board (NEB) considered the Keystone XL proposal in 2008, they asked TransCanada to justify another pipeline when there was already so much spare capacity. TransCanada conceded that Keystone XL would take oil from existing pipelines, increasing shipping costs. However, TransCanada argued that this cost would be more than offset as shifting Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf would increase the price that Americans paid for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.

So let's review: Keystone XL will raise oil prices, dodge paying taxes, create only a handful of temporary construction jobs and further destroy the environment. What's not to like (if you're a Republican)? If Obama can't win this debate with the GOP in the court of public opinion... well, he deserves to lose.

For the first time in a long time, I am hopeful that Keystone XL is not going to happen.

Look! The GOP finally found some voter fraud!

Unfortunately, they found it in the Indiana Secretary of State's office. Who happens to be a Republican.

Separately, (IN SOS Charlie) White still faces seven criminal felony charges, including three of them for voter fraud, related to the fact that he did not live at the address where he was registered to vote in the 2010 election. As he was not a properly registered Indiana voter, he was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot, Rosenberg has ruled. Moreover, at the time of his election, White was a member of the Fishers Town Council --- a town in which he no longer lived since separating from his wife and moving out of her house, where he remained registered to vote, several years earlier. Democrats charge he retained his registration at the house so that he could continue to collect his salary as a Council Member.

Since divorcing his wife White had remarried and purchased a condominium in a different town, but claimed the reason he stayed registered at his former wife's house was because he had hoped to move back some day. The Indiana Recount Commission accepted that explanation. The Marion County Circuit judge, apparently, did not.

Earlier this week, in the criminal case, White also received bad news. according to the Indiana Star, "A Hamilton County judge Monday denied a motion by White to dismiss his felony charges, which were filed against him earlier this year. His criminal trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 30. Felons are ineligible to serve as Secretary of State." Merry Christmas, Mr. White.

And to all (Republicans who believe in the mythological Demon of Democratic voter fraud), a good night.

Two Christmas presents for the environment

Texas environmental regulators have rejected Valero Energy Corp.'s request for a tax break that cities, counties and school districts feared would lead to devastating cuts to their budgets.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality denied the request because the San Antonio-based oil giant could not show an environmental benefit at its six Texas refineries from the equipment at the center of its application for the tax break.

Texas law provides property tax exemptions for equipment that reduces pollution at the refinery. Valero, however, sought a tax break for hydrotreaters, which are used to produce low-sulfur fuels. In this case, the lower emissions come at the tailpipe.

If TCEQ had granted the exemption, Valero stood to gain up to $130 million a year in property tax relief from cities, counties and school districts, officials said. The company earned $1.2 billion in profits for the most recent quarter, its best quarterly results in four years.

"It's a nice Christmas gift to many cities, counties and school districts around the state that would have had to shell out millions to a rich oil company," said Matthew Tejada, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. "Justice and logic can still prevail in the state of Texas."

One more excerpt from that.

Hydrotreaters account for more than $1 billion of taxable property value in Harris County alone. That is nearly $7 million a year toward county services and about $2 million a year for the Houston Independent School District, according to the Harris County Appraisal District.

TCEQ is not renowned for doing the right thing in favor of our environment and against Big Oil, so they deserve credit here for a good call.

And there's this:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced (yesterday) an important new rule that finally sets limits on mercury, arsenic, and other toxins released into our air. For 21 years, coal-fired power plants were allowed to unleash unlimited mercury and other toxic pollution, poisoning the air. Today’s rule requires power plants to update their pollution-control technology to keep 90 percent of mercury produced by burning coal from being released.

Click that link and read more about the health impact...

Mercury especially endangers children and pregnant women, damaging young brain development. But children in communities of color suffer most from a delay in cleaner air — African-American and Latino children are 60 percent more likely to have asthma attacks than whites. Nationwide, mercury pollution alone causes up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually, while coal power plants produce 2.5 pounds worth of airborne toxins for every American each year.

...and that the wailing about the lights going out from conservatives is, as usual, false:

Coal defenders like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have rallied around inaccurate assertions that the EPA rule is a threat to electric reliability because they claim it will force many existing power plants to close. An Associated Press survey of power plants has debunked this claim. AP could not find a single plant operator that solely blamed EPA rules for a plant closure. Instead, it found the average age of plants that could be mothballed is 51 years. A number of utilities executives agree there will be little impact on reliability as the industry moves to meet new standards.

A very Merry Christmas to Texans' -- and Americans' -- lungs.

A third party you can disregard: Americans Elect

I opened a conversation last week about third-party candidates, and lately it seems that everyone else is catching on (and catching up). Today's lesson is that there is one third-party movement to be avoided, and it's Americans Elect. First, some background.

Americans Elect is a collection of Republicans, Democrats and independents who say they are frustrated with the polarization that has caused U.S. politics to seize up and are looking for a unity ticket that would help the political process run more smoothly and responsively.

“It’s going to happen,” said Mark McKinnon, the Austin-based strategist who crafted the George W. Bush message in 2000 and 2004, but backed Barack Obama in 2008. “The system is completely paralyzed, and people have lost confidence in all the institutions of government and the political parties. And things are getting worse.”

McKinnon also is one of the founders of No Labels, a centrist organization that seeks to nurture the “politics of problem solving” and to create space so lawmakers can work with counterparts across the aisle.

No surprise; they want good old Dr. No. (Everybody wants that racist gasbag, except for those Americans of all political persuasions with the slightest remaining sanity).

The name most frequently connected to a third-party presidential effort is no centrist: It’s Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas.

Paul insists he has no intention of running for president as a third-party candidate. Now seeking the Republican nomination, he was the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.

Talking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week, however, he seemed to leave the door slightly ajar.

“I don’t like absolutes — I don’t like to say: ‘I absolutely will never do such and such’ — so I am just avoiding the absolute,” Paul said.

George Will ain't buyin' it -- and is scared shitless.

So, assume three things. That Obama is weaker in 2012 than he was when winning just 53 percent of the vote in 2008. That Paul could win between 5 percent and 7 percent of the vote nationally (much less than the 18 percent that a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed were prepared to vote for Paul as an independent). And that at least 80 percent of Paul’s votes would come at the expense of the Republican nominee.

That link is worth reading start to finish; however let's move past this digression to Paul and return to Americans Elect.

What Americans Elect has done is fashion a new twist to the quadrennial quest for a credible third-party contender. Instead of an outside party, it has crafted a parallel nominating process: a nonpartisan online convention. Anyone with a valid ID and an Internet hookup is eligible to become a “delegate,” and candidates can either register by completing a questionnaire or be drafted by popular support. Through a series of online ballots, the slate of contenders will be whittled down to six in April, and then to a single winner in June. In keeping with the group’s shibboleths, the nominee must tap a member of a different party as a running mate, forming a “unity ticket” that will occupy the chasm in the political center.

For a political start-up, Americans Elect has Establishment-grade cash and credentials. Its roster is dotted with veterans of Washington warfare, both Democrats and Republicans, who have grown weary of both parties’ penchant for pandering to their fringes. Schoen recently authored a column that cast Occupy Wall Street as a “radical” uprising that was “dangerously out of touch” with American values. Another adviser, Mark McKinnon, served as George W. Bush’s media strategist but declined to reprise the role in 2008 out of respect for Obama. Also on the group’s board are a battery of business executives; Dennis Blair, Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence; and Christine Todd Whitman, the moderate former Republican governor of New Jersey. A framed column by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, which predicted that the group would do to politics “what Amazon.com did to books,” hangs in the hallway of its airy 10th-floor suite, from which you can glimpse a sliver of the White House three blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.

And there's the problem with AE: moneyed power brokers are behind the movement. And in the spirit of this cycle's Super PACs and Citizens United, you don't get to know who they are.

The dingbats behind “Americans Elect,” a shadowy centrist third-party effort to get an Internet petition onto actual presidential ballots, refuse to reveal who’s funding their efforts, because their donors are very worried that someone might call them dingbats.

That’s what reporters on an Americans Elect press call learned today, according to Dave Weigel. When Politico’s Ken Vogel began asking difficult questions about why the group hides its donors, a spokesperson said it was because of “fear of retribution.”

Americans Elect COO (and son of the group’s chairman) Elliot Ackerman explained what this “retribution” might look like:

But hang on: What sort of retribution were we talking about? “My father, Peter Ackerman,” offered the group’s COO Elliot Ackerman. “He’s been mischaracterized in the press frequently.”

Sragow wasn’t about to let this suggestion fly — this idea that working with AE wasn’t dangerous. “Don’t suggest that there is no retribution,” he said. “Nobody who’s spent 10 minutes in politics could think that.” He’d been vilified for participating in the group. He’d been attacked and insulted. “Fortunately, in this country, we don’t use molotov cocktails literally,” he said. “We use them figuratively.”

So! Random unknown billionaires will fix our politics by paying an unknown third-party candidate’s way onto our ballots, but we must never know who did this or why, because someone might “mischaracterize” them, with figurative Molotov cocktails. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

As with every other link here: follow it, read the whole thing, and follow the links there.

Now if this does sound like your bag, then just know that besides Ron Paul you'll likely have 'man of the people' choices like Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump to pick from.

The only way you'd be wasting your vote on a third-party candidate is if you paid any attention at all to whatever Americans Elect comes up with.

Something reeks in the Harris Co. DA's office

And no, it's not the immanent smell of spilled beer and cigarette smoke.

A prosecutor who last week refused to answer questions from a grand jury said Monday she is the target of political forces aligned against her and her boss, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos.

"The fix is in," Rachel Palmer said from the witness stand. "It's really clear to anyone who is not already affected by bias."

Palmer asserted in a hastily called recusal hearing that state District Judge Susan Brown, her husband state District Judge Marc Brown and a special prosecutor appointed by the former were working together to unseat Lykos in a plot that has ensnared Palmer.

Parker Palmer appears to be something more than just a victim here IMHO. All of this grinning and smirking seems out of round.

Thursday's hearing was postponed until Monday when Palmer's attorneys moved to have Brown recused from the proceedings.

An administrative judge quickly appointed civil district judge Al Bennett to preside over a hearing on the request that is scheduled to continue early Tuesday.

In the wide-ranging motion, Palmer alleged a far-flung whisper campaign that included St. Martin's political support of one of Lykos's 2008 Republican primary opponents and interactions among Palmer, her politically active husband Don Hooper and the Browns.

"I'm afraid of Judge Brown," Palmer said on the stand.

Though in Palmer's defense, there is almost surely something fishy going on.

The man challenging Lycos in the Republican primary for district attorney happens to be married to the woman who performed the swearing-in of the grand jury forewoman (scroll about halfway down, and note that my style preference is to keep titles like these gender-specific) who wishes to compel Parker Palmer's testimony. And one of the special prosecutors appointed by Judge Brown at the grand jury's request, Stephen St. Martin, was a supporter of Lycos' challenger Kelly Siegler in 2008.

St. Martin donated a healthy $3,000 to Siegler’s campaign when she was fighting Lykos for the Republican nomination. Also, Lykos kicked him out of the Special Crimes Division of the DA’s Office, and then publicly snubbed him when the FBI gave him an award.

Talk about a bad Grisham novel. Sure, it's a stretch even for the conspiracy-inclined but if Big Jolly is scared, then you ought to be too. Unless you're not a Republican, in which case you need to go pop some more corn.

And just think: all this could have been avoided if Democrats had managed a few more votes for C.O. Bradford for DA in 2008.

Update: For those who have inquired... yes, that last was total sarcasm.