Texas House passes abortion restrictions in wee hours

3:30 a.m. -ish.

With a sweeping 97-33, the House voted to tentatively pass the Senate’s catch-all abortion bill largely along party lines after 13.5 hours of debates, parliamentary inquiries and stalling. Instant cheers and jeers exploded on the floor and in the gallery where people have been waiting for a vote since 2 p.m.

While applause rang out among conservatives, the shouts of “Shame” were much louder and many in the gallery were escorted out. In her speech, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, said the war on women was alive and called SB 5 the second missile fired by Gov. Rick Perry this year.

Just watching the live-feed and the Twitter stream was remarkable. Reproductive rights supporters wearing burnt orange shirts flooded the Capitol's gallery shortly after lunchtime Sunday afternoon. When they applauded or cheered, they were warned by DPS troopers to maintain decorum, then escorted out. When they used ASL for applause ("jazz hands") they were warned from the dais that they would be removed and arrested.

It now requires a final vote from the House before going over to the Senate, which will more than likely accept the 20-week ban provision and put it up for a vote. Senate Democrats have said they are ready to use whatever tools they can under the law to prevent the bill’s passage. 

And that means filibuster. Go Wendy Davis.

The House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker, who had been missing from the front microphone since around 11:50 p.m., came up around 3:20 a.m. to close on her bill. By not debating and instead asking the chair to make motions to table amendments, Republicans saved about 10 minutes per amendment.

Laubenberg was a case study of ignorance. At one point Sunday evening, under questioning from various Democratic representatives, she compared a rape kit to an abortion -- specifically a D&C -- saying it "basically cleans (the rape victim) out".

Update IV: Laubenberg's full quote in context, from the Statesman.

The bill's sponsor stopped answering questions about her bill after the first two hours after she got into trouble denying Democratic amendments. When Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, called for an exemption for women who were victims of rape and incest, Rep. Jody Laubenberg, R-Parker, explained why she felt it was unnecessary.

"In the emergency room they have what's called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out," she said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. "The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development."

Her apparent confusion about "rape kits" — a phrase generally used to describe the equipment used by medical personnel during forensic examinations to gather physical evidence following allegations of rape or sexual assault — sparked widespread ridicule on social media sites. Laubenberg, who has difficulty debating bills, then simply rejected all proposed changes to her bill without speaking until the end of the debate.

Appalling.

The debate was heated and emotional. Houston Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson, vigorously shaking a coat hanger to warn of the potential for botched home abortions, argued to add an exception for rape or incest.

Here's some more pictures. Rep. Jessica Farrar was eloquent in a point of personal privilege dissent, and Rep. Gene Wu relentless in establishing the hypocrisy of Republican politicians playing doctors on teevee. None of it mattered, though, because no amount of facts or science can permeate the bedrock of the Republican hive mind.

The War on Women experienced its Alamo last night. But that only means there's a San Jacinto in the near future.

Update: Via Claire Z. Cardona of the DMN, the three Democrats who voted in favor of SB5 are Ryan Guillen, Abel Herrero, and Joe Pickett. (Reps. Mando Martinez and Sergio Munoz were previously and mistakenly included in that number.) Update II: Not a mistake.

Updated: FIVE #Prolife Dems who voted for #SB5: Guillen, Herrero, Martinez, Munoz, & Pickett. #txlege (via @DrewSpringer)
— John Seago (@Johnseago) June 24, 2013

One Republican voted against: Sarah Davis.

Update III: More accounts of yesterday's drama from the HouChron.

Update V (Update IV is in the middle of this post): Greg has some excellent inside analysis of those members who crossed over -- and back -- on these bills.

Ed Snowden has left the building

Via Greg Mitchell:

The Guardian actually has a live blog on the Flight of Snowden.   One of the latest updates:  Naming his WikiLeaks companion and claim they are book(ed) on flight to Cuba on Monday.

Also,  you can follow his alleged airliner on its path here, as it nears Moscow.  News report on Julian Assange claiming he brokered the move. 

All this after Hong Kong indicated that the US extradition paperwork "did not comply" and thus they allowed him to board the flight to Moscow earlier today. The latest at the live-blog, as I post this, is that Snowden intends to continue on to Venezuela from Cuba.

I won't update this Bronco chase here unless something more significant occurs. Twitter -- not the teevee -- is the best source for these kinds of developments.

Sunday Funnies

Aggregation for dissemination

-- Let's take Kris Banks' Facebook posting from last Tuesday to catch ourselves up on the Houston mayoral contest, and specifically Ben Hall's nogoodverybad week.

So, let's go over the past 24 hours at the Ben Hall for Houston Mayor 2013 campaign:

1. Shortly before midnight (Monday 6/17), the campaign posts two bizarre Facebook posts, one alluding to some unspecified endorsement that was coming as soon as they arranged the logistics, and another accusing the Mayor of telling Ben Hall she would not debate him, and expressing outrage.

2. For some reason, the campaign posts a comment on the debate post refuting some unspecified IRS problems and claiming Ben Hall was the victim of IRS malfeasance. If the comment was in response to another comment, then the comment being responded to is (no) longer there. However, a subsequent comment in which I ask who he is talking to generates more likes than the original comment.

3. At noon (Tuesday 6/18), the Mayor's campaign posts that his comments about the debate are false, she IS willing to debate, but only if all candidates are involved, indicating Ben Hall only wanted to debate her.

4. The following picture, which was posted in April, suddenly gets a very interesting comment.

Kris has kept it going with this most recent post last night.

Day 3 of the Ben Hall for Houston Mayor 2013 campaign keeping up this phony endorsement, in which the alleged endorser refutes it in the comments. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, this is on the brink of going from "dumb mistake" to "willful dishonesty."

In other municipal election updates, Noah Horwitz -- via the Caucus FB page and a comment there by Green mayoral challenger Don Cook -- notes that Parker will gain a second opponent from her left, Michael Fitzsimmons of the Socialist Workers Party.

-- Republican on Republican assault in the Lege, as time grows short in the special and tempers fray.

A House Republican screamed at a fellow member of his own party as they emerged Thursday afternoon from a longer-than-expected GOP caucus meeting.

The argument appeared to be about proposed changes to House districts. The chamber is debating redistricting bills Thursday.

“You’re a liar,” state Rep. Pat Fallon of Frisco yelled at his colleague, state Rep. Bennett Ratliff of Coppell.

Other House Republicans tried to hush Fallon, but his fury wouldn’t ebb.

“Touch your buddy Gene because you’re in the same party as him,” a red-faced Fallon loudly continued, as Ratliff walked away and placed a hand on state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, as he passed by.

Asked a few moments later what the dust-up was all about, Fallon said simply, “Forgot.”

The hollering could have stemmed from a quiet dispute brewing during the redistricting debate. ...

Juanita Jean suggests the campaign slogan: "Touch Me, I'm Gene Wu's Buddy".

-- Yesterday's hearing on Texas' abortion restriction legislation just concluded a few hours ago. It also got contentous.

After more than 10 hours of testimony, and one loud protest that led to a brief recess so order could be restored, the House State Affairs Committee closed its hearing on two abortion bills at 3:40 a.m. Friday without taking a vote on either measure.

Around midnight, as the hearing that began around 4:45 p.m. continued without a break, Chairman Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, announced that the committee would receive only one more hour of testimony on House Bill 60, a sweeping abortion regulation measure, saying the comments had become repetitive and unhelpful to the committee’s decision.

The news was greeted with increasingly angry shouts from several hundred people in the audience, most of them opponents of the bills. Several shouted that that they had been waiting to speak since 1 p.m., the original start time of the hearing that was delayed about four hours by extended House debate on three redistricting bills.

After an audience member commandeered the microphone to address the committee, only to be led away by officers, the crowd loudly chanted, “Let her speak.” Cook recessed the committee, returning about 20 minutes later after several Democratic representatives helped restore calm.

“I don’t appreciate you telling me that I am repetitive,” Leslie Simms later told the panel. “I am 22 years old. I will be here every time you come for me, and if you think that’s repetitive, I’m sorry that I’m doing my civic duty.”

More here and here. Hearing will continue today. The extremist Lege elements in the Senate backed off the fetal pain crap, but intend to take the number of women's clinics in Texas from 47 to 5.

So I would anticipate more Texas women vigorously exercising their civic duty.

Update:

After a raucous night, the House State Affairs Committee met in a small room and approved without discussion three contentious abortion bills.

The House will meet at 2 pm Sunday to debate the bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, increase standards for abortion clinics, make doctors who perform abortions gain admitting privileges at an area hospital and mandate protocols — opposed by the American College of OB/GYNs –for pills used to induce abortions.

The three bills were passed along partisan lines.

Paula Deen whips up a Southern fried shitstorm

Oh y'all, Paula Deen has dun done it again. She has baked up and then stepped in a big ol' Chocolate Cow Pie with extra flies.

"Well, what I would really like is a bunch of little n***ers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know like in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,” ... “Now that would be a really Southern plantation wedding, wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

Another alleged racist incident listed in the lawsuit: “In the presence of Ms. (Lisa) Jackson and Uncle Bubba’s restaurant manager and a vendor, (Deen's brother) Bubba Hiers stated they should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico so he could n***er-rig it.”

Me and Paula have crossed swords before, back when she came out about her diabeetus, so I can't say this cornmealy-mouthed prevarication surprised me at all. Her version of the story, which came under oath:

Lawyer: Do you recall using the words “really southern plantation wedding”?

Deen: Yes, I did say I would love for Bubba to experience a very southern style wedding, and we did that. We did that.

Lawyer: Okay. You would love for him to experience a southern style plantation wedding?

Deen: Yes.

Lawyer: That’s what you said?

Deen: Well, something like that, yes. And -–

Laywer: Okay. And is that when you went on to describe the experience you had at the restaurant in question?

Deen: Well, I don’t know. We were probably talking about the food or –- we would have been talking about something to do with service at the wedding, and –-
...
Lawyer: Is there any possibility, in your mind, that you slipped and used the word “n----r”?

Deen: No, because that’s not what these men were. They were professional black men doing a fabulous job.

Lawyer: Why did that make it a -– if you would have had servers like that, why would that have made it a really southern plantation wedding?
...
Deen: Well, it –- to me, of course I’m old but I ain’t that old, I didn’t live back in those days but I’ve seen the pictures, and the pictures that I’ve seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America.

Lawyer: Okay.

Deen: And I was in the south when I went to this restaurant. It was located in the south.

Lawyer: Okay. What era in America are you referring to?

Deen: Well, I don’t know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.

Lawyer: Right. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.

Deen: Well, it was not only black men, it was black women.

Lawyer: Sure. And before the Civil War –- before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right?

Deen: Yes, I would say that they were slaves.

Lawyer: Okay.

Deen: But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying that I loved their look and their professionalism.

If you're not over Paula Deen yet, then you damn sure ought to be. But before you go, be sure and read Awesomely Luvvie's compilation of #PaulasBestDishes, yesterday's Twitter hashtag bomb.

What a delightful Juneteenth gift.

Update: Deen stiffed the Today show this morning, so I guess John Oliver and Jessica Williams at the Daily Show had the last word.

The Dome lives on

The Astrodome will not be demolished after all. The Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation recommended Wednesday that the Houston landmark be renovated with public funds.

The renovations will cost $194 million and will take 30 months to complete, according to officials.

My hat is off to commissioner's court for finding, at last, the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing. Honestly, I didn't think they were capable of it. I thought the best we were going to get was a subterranean parking garage with the skeleton of the old girl standing over a park for tailgating and shitkicker events.

Saying none of the 19 privately submitted ideas for repurposing the Astrodome met the required criteria, officials said they will recommend converting the Dome into a massive convention and exhibition space, promising "a new Dome experience."

"We feel we have the best idea," Sports Corporation Executive Director Willie Loston said. "That idea is a space that will allow many of the ideas that the proposals brought forward to take place."

Under the $194 million plan being recommended by the Sports Corp., the seating would be removed and the existing below-ground portion of the stadium would be filled in to create a street-level exhibit space of 355,000 square feet. The exterior of the structure would transformed into "an inviting green plaza," officials said.

The proposal will be officially presented to Harris County Commissioners Court at its June 25 capital improvement projects meeting, though Harris County Ed Emmett's office issued a statement saying sports corporation officials have briefed court members throughout the selection process.

In a statement released during the meeting, Emmett praised the sports corporation's plan.

"The concept is excellent," Emmett said. "It not only preserves an iconic structure, but it gives Houston and Harris County a truly unique and historic venue for conferences and events. Meeting planners around the world will want to use the space."

With Hunker Down's weight behind it, the Texans and the Rodeo are probably feeling a little raw after the screwing they just got. You know, the one in the parking lot.

Culture Map has more of the concept's renderings.

Other improvements would include adding glass at the stadium's four compass points for enhanced natural light and aesthetics, with a signature entry at the south end; installing solar panels on the domed roof and incorporating other building systems to improve energy-efficiency; and removing the berms, entrance ramps and ticket booths from the building's exterior to create a more continuous and useable outdoor plaza, with food vendors and restroom opportunities as well as green space.

"What we want the 'Dome to become for major events in Reliant Park is the front door," explained Miller.

The reimagined space could serve, he said, as the headquarters for Reliant Park's 24-hour security post, and would help facilitate emergency operations within the county in the case of disaster. The interior could be easily reconfigured to accommodate swim meets, graduations and other community events, football games, conventions and more.

The bond issue still has to go before the voters at some time in the future, and that could throw a monkeywrench into the plans if the TeaBaggers mobilize opposition, but today is a day to be very encouraged about the future of the Eighth Wonder.

Update: Swamplot is severely cynical about the whole thing.

The clearest sign so far that the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation wasn’t really into the half-hearted call for bids to redevelop the Astrodome it sorta-but-not-really issued a couple months ago? At yesterday’s press conference where it — surprise! — announced its own plan to reinvent Houston’s most recognizable landmark, officials didn’t even bother to describe any of the 19 submissions it had received. None of them, declared executive director Willie Loston, actually came with private money attached. (At least not in the inside pockets of their presentation binders.)

The Corporation’s own new idea of turning the dilapidated former sports stadium into additional convention space doesn’t have any private funds attached to it either, but the estimated $194 million plan does already appear to have gained the enthusiastic support of County Judge Emmett — which isn’t so surprising, since he proposed a similar idea a mere 4 years ago. Rodeo chief Leroy Shafer tells the Chronicle’s Kiah Collier that he considers the latest plan to be a scaled-back version of a proposal the Corporation — with the Rodeo’s backing — promoted last year, after a half-million-dollar study led by some Dallas consultants.

[...]

...By the time the 2017 Super Bowl rolls around, if all goes according to plan, Reliant Stadium would sport a new front entrance — and the Astrodome will have been repurposed into the world’s largest . . . event foyer.

Having neatly disposed of all possible alternatives (save, of course, demolition), the Corporation is now passing its this-or-nothing proposal onto the county commissioners. They’ll vote on the plan next week. If the whole thing is an ingenious ploy to cue the Dome up for demolition — which the Texans and the Rodeo have a study saying they could do for a cool $29 million — we might get a sense of that fairly soon.

I suppose I could get pretty mad about that, if that were to happen.

Update: John Royal at Hair Balls is yet more caustic.