Greg Abbott is either incompetent or defiantly ignorant

Or he's playing some kind of long con game that nobody else can decipher.

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a panel of federal judges to postpone the trial in Texas' Voter ID case because of complaints that state Attorney General Greg Abbott continues to stall requests for information.

The inability to get documents and Abbott's fight to keep Republican legislators from having to testify make a July 9 trial date impractical, Justice Department lawyers said in their motion to a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C.

Abbott wanted a quick trial to put the Voter ID law in place for the Nov. 6 general election.

"If Texas wants a speedy trial, then Texas will have to follow the rules. They shouldn't cherry-pick which rules they want to enforce and which rules they want to ignore," Mexican American Legislative Caucus Chair Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said Tuesday. 

The court agrees with the DOJ.

In a harshly worded order issued this afternoon, the court in the Texas voter ID case reprimanded the state for what it said were “well-documented” discovery violations “that can only be interpreted as having the aim of delaying the Defendants’ ability to receive and analyze data and documents in a timely fashion.”

The court said:

Texas has repeated ignored or violated directives and orders of this Court that were designed to expedite discovery, and Texas has failed to produce in a timely manner key documents that Defendants need to prepare their defense.  Most troubling is Texas’ conduct with respect to producing its key state databases, which are central to Defendants’ claim that S.B. 14 has a disparate and retrogressive impact on racial and/or language minority groups.  The record reflects that these databases are voluminous, complex, and essential to the preparation of the opinions of Defendants’ expert witnesses. Yet, according to Texas, the full production of such databases to the United States was only complete on May 4, 2012 - 35 days after they were initially due.  The production to Defendant-Intervenors is still not complete.

The court told Texas that “[b]ased on the record to date, this Court would be well within its discretion to continue the July 9 trial date, to impose monetary sanctions against Texas, or to keep the July 9 trial date and impose evidentiary sanctions such as an adverse inference upon Texas.”

I simply don't understand what the Attorney General of Texas thinks he's going to accomplish here. His stonewalling might delay the trial he claims to want that he believes will settle the Photo ID business just in time to suppress November voting. But the judges seem more inclined to simply punish him for his sloth, or his deception, or whatever it is.

His refusal to comply with basic rules of discovery -- while attempting to create some kind of long-game legal precedent with this 'legislative privilege' BS that seems designed to produce a victory at the SCOTUS -- actually appears more directed to win in the court of TeaBagger opinion when the GOP finally loses the case. "Oh well, we lost because they forced the legislators to testify, and that's why the Ill Eagles are still able to vote 50 times..."

Greg Abbott is an abject failure at the simplest of tasks of an attorney's practice, and yet the very worst people representing the Republicans of Texas throw rose petals at his chair wheels.

Is this some parallel universe I have stumbled into?

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.