Saturday, March 02, 2013

SD-6 results *updated*

The conclusion of the sliming is at hand.

County Clerk Stan Stanart had the early vote/absentee total posted at 7:02, and they show Sylvia Garcia with a small lead.

Garcia  5101 votes, 53.42 %

Alvarado 4448 votes, 46.58%

It might be a half hour or longer before we get some tallies that reflect votes cast today. We'll update here as the night goes on.

Update (8:14 p.m.): Garcia adds another 309 votes to her lead.

Garcia 5911 votes, 54.43%

Alvarado 4949 votes, 45.57%

Update II (8:45 p.m.):  Garcia has a 1400 vote lead with 45% of precincts in.

Garcia 6816 votes, 55.78%

Alvarado 5404 votes, 44.22%

Update III (9:11 p.m.): Garcia's lead narrows slightly, to 1317 votes. 68% of precincts have reported. I don't think that Alvarado can close the gap fast enough.

Garcia 8106 votes 54.42%

Alvarado 6789 votes, 45.78%

Last Update (9:35 p.m.): With 95% of precincts counted, Sylvia Garcia will defeat Carol Alvarado and be sworn in as state Senator of the 6th District of Texas next week.

Garcia 9250 votes, 53.07%

Alvarado 8180 votes, 46.93%

Friday, March 01, 2013

A troll on the Supreme Court

Probably more than one, but let's just deal with the worst one for the moment.


Maddow said that Scalia apparently thinks voting is now a “racial entitlement,” but he only says things like this because he’s a “troll” and loves to hear his comments elicit gasps.

Yes, that's exactly it. It's as if Glenn Beck is on the bench. Because that's where Scalia gets his talking points.


But feeding the troll is a bad idea also. Giving this pig-eyed sack of shit the publicity he seeks only serves to make his trollishness worse. Supreme Court Justices are, however, more difficult to ignore than Sean Hannity.

This is also not the right approach. A single SCOTUS justice has been impeached in the history of the Republic: Samuel Chase, who was acquitted by large margins on all counts. And the charges against him had to do with "intemperate, inflammatory" remarks and not misconduct, the standard by which legal action against judges was established by this precedent. Read that link and you will see many similarities, and not just to Scalia.

No, like Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, I'm just going to place Antonin Scalia on 'ignore' and recognize that what he is saying and doing should serve as motivation to those who do not want to have a Republican president nominate a Supreme Court justice for a long, long, time.

And to make that happen, the best investment of one's time and energy is to encourage as many minority voter registrations as they possibly can. On a daily basis, everywhere one is and everywhere one goes. As far as I am concerned, it is the one thing everyone can do that will make the biggest difference in the fastest amount of time.