The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks Mrs. Sarkozy would have been the better candidate than her husband (but probably still would've lost to the Socialist) as it brings you this week's roundup.

Three more Congressional candidate interviews from Off the Kuff: State Rep. Joaquin Castro, the heir apparent in CD20; Bexar County Tax Assessor Sylvia Romo in CD35; and former Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald in CD27.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger is overwhelmed by the disgusting realization that everyone's future will be determined by America UNDER THE INFLUENCE!  

BlueBloggin sees zombies everywhere. Zombies are disengaging common sense and promoting the Great Unlearning of America at the bidding of the Koch Brothers: Zombie Politics Desecrates Science Education and Economy.

Texas GOP House Speaker Joe Straus and anti-abortion groups make nice. WCNews at Eye On Williamson has the skinny: The political calculus is changing in Texas.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme hopes the Valley recognizes Filemon Vela for the opportunistic a**hole he truly is.

The Libertarians selected former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as their presidential nominee at their national convention in Las Vegas this past weekend, and then pushed all their chips in on the pivotal issue of 2012: weed. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs doesn't think it's a smokescreen.

Lightseeker explains, over at TexasKaos, how Texas has a shoot-first law and even the bill's sponsor didn't know it. Give it a read.

Sunday Evening Funnies

Click on these last two to see the larger version.

'Lesser of two evils' is still evil

He's a smug, Harvard-trained elitist who doesn't get how regular Americans are struggling these days. More extreme than he lets on, he's keeping his true agenda hidden until after Election Day. He's clueless about fixing the economy, over his head on foreign policy. Who is he?

Your answer will help decide the next president.

Is it Barack Obama, as seen by Mitt Romney? Or Romney, the way Obama depicts him? For all their liberal versus conservative differences, when the two presidential contenders describe each other, they sound like they're ragging on the same flawed guy. Or mirror images of that guy.

Will voters prefer the man waving with his left hand or his right?

Blame it on two cautious candidates with more traits in common than their disparate early biographies would suggest.

That article is dead solid perfect.

And Mr. Fish gets it right except for the "voting makes it worse" part. Voting for the lesser of two evils is the real problem, and this is particularly true for those of us living in Texas and other non-swing states, where the presidential contest will never be as close as the polling suggests it to be.

So the key is not to vote for the men. Or any Republicans.

Liberal and progressive women running for office will start fewer wars, torture fewer people, they won't cut education or women's health care, and they're a lot less likely to constantly act like assholes.

I'd of course like to be able to type "none" instead of fewer, but we have to get started somewhere.

Update: And just as a reminder, the lame-ass bunch of moderate Republicans running Americans Elect are not the solution to anything either. Buddy MF'n Roemer, for crissakes.

Libertarians go all in on the ganja vote

The Libertarian Party is wrapping up its national convention today (Vegas, baby!) having selected its presidential and vice-presidential nominees. I mentioned the dilemma Gary Johnson found himself in all the way back in February. Looks like he resolved it.

On the first ballot, Judge Jim Gray of California wins the vice presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party in 2012. Gray thanks (presidential runner-up Lee) Wrights for being a gentleman and said he looked forward to debating (Vice President Joe) Biden.

Judge Gray's candidacy was just rumored a week ago, and quickly bloomed into full flower. Excerpt from Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, who broke this news; if you click the link, you'll understand why they had the inside dope first:

The decision to run with Gray “puts pot front-and-center in the campaign,” one Johnson adviser told TheDC, before adding that Johnson’s opposition to the war in Afghanistan will likely remain the campaign’s defining issue.

According to the biography on his website, Gray “currently presides over the civil trial calendar for the Superior Court of Orange County.” Gray previously served in the Peace Corps, was an attorney in the Navy JAG Corps, and prosecuted cases in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office. He ran as a Libertarian against California Democratic Sen. Barbra (sic) Boxer in 2004. [...]

Gray was a conservative Republican who later became a Libertarian after deciding that the nation’s drug laws did more harm than good. He is the author of several books about law, politics and the drug war, and helped spearhead Proposition 19 in California, which would have decriminalized marijuana in the Golden State had it passed.

“I was a drug warrior until I saw what was happening in my own courtroom,” Gray said in 2010. 

This presents a fascinating conundrum for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Nobody can say with any confidence who loses more of which demographic in a scenario where cannabis is the topic. The Republicans probably have to fall out against it. They've spent all of this time and effort sucking up to the Christian bloc that they can't put the pipe down back away now. Obama is in a bigger quandary because he owned the youth vote four years ago. Even as those voters have leaked away from the President before this development, his focus on addressing the student loan crisis may have been designed to shore up some lagging support.

Twenty-somethings with a mountain of college loan debt, bleak employment prospects, and a soothing habit of anti-depressant, sedative self-medication may be one-issue voters -- if they can find their way to the polls --  just like conservative Catholics.

Tom here seems to capture many of the absurdities of the haze surrounding legalization.

Toke of the Town has more (of the story).  

Update: You did know that yesterday was the Global Marijuana March, right? Yeah.

Update II: The secretary of state in Michigan (a Republican) will refuse to place Johnson's name on the ballot in that state due to an arcane law known as "sore loser", which is to say that nobody who lost his party's nomination can be nominated on another party's ticket. This development -- particularly if it spreads to other states -- bodes ill for the Libs unless they can successfully appeal it through the courts.

Update III: More opinions of Gary Johnson and the Libertarians' prime role as spoiler from Socratic Gadfly and The Daily Beast.

Sunday Seis de Mayo Funnies

Happy belated Cinco de Mayo. Stace has the Cinco de Meow report.

A couple of debates last night

Both were in Houston. One was televised. The US Senate candidates were at the Melcher Center at U of H, and the Harris County DAs -- also known as the Republicans -- gathered at TeaBagger Central.

In a Thursday night forum in Houston among candidates vying to succeed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz picked up where he left off after a Dallas debate last month, blistering Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the front-runner.

Asked about an ad the Dewhurst campaign released last week questioning Cruz's connection as an attorney in a case involving Chinese copyright infringement, Cruz called Dewhurst a liar.

"The reason that he's lying," he said, "is because conservatives all over this state are uniting behind our campaign."

Isn't this too nasty even for the TeaBags?

I was shocked at the anger and animosity Ted Cruz demonstrated throughout the evening. Sadder yet, Dewhurst tries too hard to match it thinking he's appealing to the same subset, but that's a fool's game for him.

Craig James really might need to kill 5 hookers in order to get some attention, and poor Tom Leppert is going to have to fire his makeup artist after she made him look ready for casketing last night. But the creepiest thing was seeing Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart, in every shot just over the shoulder of the moderator in front of the audience, half-grinning at the camera all night long. It was disturbing, I tell you.

 The two Democrats, former state Rep. Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard, a 31-year-old small-business owner from Dallas, faced the dual task of introducing themselves to a broader audience and quickly offering a contrast to their GOP counterparts. Texans haven't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

Hubbard said he was older than Joe Biden the vice president, when he was elected to the US Senate from Delaware at 29. "I'm the only one in the race who isn't a career politician or a super-wealthy person," he said.

Sadler, an acknowledged expert on public school finance when he served in the Texas Legislature from 1991 to 2003, used his interview time to talk about education.

Hubbard impressed me with his knowledge and his poise (but I've been on his bandwagon for a long time now). Sadler was the legislative heavyweight champion on that stage -- much more experience and success even than the light gov -- but he's stultifyingly boring, untelegenic, and appears to be running a campaign as an independent in the grand Joe Lieberman tradition.

Time for a youth movement in the US Senate. And if the Dems can't nominate Hubbard I will easily transfer support to the Green, David Collins.

Update: Here's Peggy Fikac's live-blog of last night, and if you click here, you can vote in the online poll for the candidate you support in the primary (click on 'newest' if you don't see it when the page loads). Sean Hubbard is currently leading. ;^)

You'll have to wait for Big Jolly to post his slathering review -- here's the advance -- of the DA swap meet when he gets around to putting it up. I'll only say that by excluding the Democratic candidates for district attorney, KSP strengthens the case against them in the lawsuit they have already lost once.

Update II: Thanks BJ. Now empty your drool bucket, please.

Update III: Here's TexTrib's video of the entire two-hour affair. One-on-ones with Dewhurst, then Hubbard, then Leppert, then Sadler, and then James and Cruz. My advice is to fast-forward through the Republicans unless you are a masochist. The best part -- the second hour -- is when all six are together at the table and fielding questions from the moderators.

Give me your thoughts in the comments.

Real guns WILL be banned in the 'free speech' zones, however

You know, the ones outside the convention hall down the street, where those anarchists and dirty hippies exercising their First Amendment rights are being kettled.

In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said this week that banning handguns from downtown Tampa during the convention, as the city's Mayor Bob Buckhorn requested, "would surely violate the Second Amendment."

"It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law," Scott said in a letter to Buckhorn Tuesday, emphasizing the words "law-abiding." "It is at just such times that the constitutional right of self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach."

Buckhorn said today that he was "disappointed" by Scott's decision, but that the city will "plan and train accordingly."

Tampa officials are expecting thousands of protesters to descend on the Florida metropolis for the GOP convention. While no handguns will be allowed inside the convention, which is being protected by the Secret Service, concealed carry license-holders will be able to carry their weapons in the streets surrounding the convention.

They will not, however, be able to have "super soaker" water guns, sticks, poles, portable shields or glass bottles.

This isn't 2012, it's 1984. Either that, or we are through the looking glass.