The Weekly Wrangle

With the kickoff of the Wendy Davis for Governor campaign last week, a Houston mayoral debate coming this week, and a nice fall cool snap, the Texas Progressive Alliance is feeling pretty damn good about now as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff shared a personal story from a friend about how Obamacare and the insurance exchanges will make a big difference in his life.

In the Houston suburbs live some of the absolute worst conservatives in the United States, and the Associated Press found one and told his miserable story. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs knows that when Republicans can't tell the difference between soil and dirt, ignorance is the biggest hurdle to Wendy Davis' chances of being elected governor of Texas.

Texas Leftist knows that blame for the current government shutdown rests ENTIRELY on the GOP's shoulders. But just in case anyone is unsure, Rachel Maddow has an epic takedown as proof positive. Do today's Republicans even believe in government??

Neil Aquino wrote about militarized police at his new blog, All People Have Value. All People Have Value is part of Neil's new website, NeilAquino.com.

Noah Horwitz at Texpatriate began a series of intermittent updates on the state of the Texas governor's race. He published three this week, the first of which appeared last Wednesday.

David Dewhurst tries to obfuscate about the racist DPS checkpoints in the Valley. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme and every other sentient being in the Valley knows he spews BS.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw names names. It is on you, Ted . Give it a read.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

John Coby invites Ted Cruz to join his new club.

Concerned Citizens wants to know what the 2014 election is going to be about.

Juanita introduces us to the next Republican member of Congress from Texas to make a fool of himself on TV.

New Media Texas posts video conversations with three Houston mayoral candidates.

Nonsequiteuse reminds us that there are many ways to volunteer for a campaign.

BOR analyzed Proposition 6, the water infrastructure amendment, as part of a series of analyses of the nine constitutional amendments on the ballot this year.

And finally, Blog con Queso published a recipe for Dr. Pepper sheet cake. Because you can't get any more Texas than that.

The difference between soil and dirt, explained for House Republicans

The thirty-two Republican Congress critters who have joined the kamikaze mission of Tail Gunner Ted Cruz in taking down the United States government include the following Texans:

John Carter, John Culberson, Louie Gohmert, Randy Neugebauer, Steve Stockman, and Randy Weber.

Their names come from the list James Fallows references.

Two more quick instances of the wanton damage that 30-odd legislators (named here) are doing to Americans at two levels: those running small businesses, and those working in the large research institutions on which so much of our long-term wealth and well-being depend.

And from there, Scott Slesinger of the National Resources Defense Council has this account from a virologist at an East Coast university.

Just don't get the flu next year and you will be OK. I happen to be vetted for a Federal committee that decides on which influenza antigens to use in next year's vaccine.  It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how fast this is going during The Shutdown.

[This researcher's lab is internationally recognized for having discovered two different viral causes of cancer, and yet] our research funding has been cut, a moving target, but somewhere between 10 and 25%.

I just received an email from one of my more talented post-docs who took a job at FDA as a scientist several years ago.  They couldn't hire him on as permanent science staff because of temporary hiring blocks, "The Sequester", and so forth.

Since they are no longer giving him a paycheck, he says to hell with it and he is looking for a job in private biotechnology.

The problem with Congressional Republicans is that they do not know the difference between soil and dirt.  If you put soil in your oven and bake it at 450 C for an hour, it turns into dirt.  It doesn't matter how much manure you throw on dirt, it won't become soil again.   It's dirt with shit on it.

Fallows, back with the moneyshot and the action item.

Like Robert Costa of National Review, whose reporting on the Republican hard-line faction has clarified why they are willing to wreak so much damage on so many fellow citizens, McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed has been very well sourced among Republicans. Read his account "Where Ted Cruz Is Coming From" for an understanding of how irrelevant any normal concept of "compromise," "leverage," or "public opinion" is with the hard-line faction. And also how contemptible John Boehner* is for protecting his own job, by catering to these people, at the costs of hundreds of thousands of jobs around the country. Coppins writes:

From its genesis in 2009, the Tea Party movement has been fueled by the rhetoric of revolution.... While Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle outraged mainstream political observers when she suggested people may start looking for “Second Amendment remedies” to the country’s problems, one recent survey showed that nearly half of Republicans believe armed insurrection might be necessary “in the next few years.”

Data points like those have long been Democrats’ bread and butter as they work to cast the Tea Party as “extreme.” But they also show just how extreme conservatives consider America’s current peril to be. To believe an armed revolution could realistically be on the horizon is to live with the genuine suspicion that your government could, at any point, be overtaken by tyranny. In that context, some temporary furloughs seem like a small price to pay....

[M]any Tea Party lawmakers view Obamacare as such a catastrophic threat to the country’s healthcare system and long-term economic health that it’s worth the high-stakes legislative brinksmanship to try to slow it down.

At least, that’s what they hear when they return to their districts.

* Why do I single out the affable-seeming Boehner for contempt? He obviously is not a Tea Party hardliner himself. And it is within his power to end this damage in a minute, simply by allowing the House to vote on a "clean" budget measure (which would pass). That would probably cost him his job as Speaker — but his failure to do so is costing many other people their jobs, not to mention longer-term effects.

Here's the list of Republicans in Congress who are willing to vote right now in favor of a clean CR.  (Note that no Texans appear on that list.)

This has gone beyond ludicrous and straight to Insane.

If the only constituents the Congressional conservative sociopaths are hearing from are themselves exclusively motivated by revolution at this point, then that is quite obviously at the crux of our national problem.  So you know all those e-mail appeals you're getting about telling Boehner to take a vote?  The ones that say 'Call your Congressman'?   Maybe it's time to do those things.  Again.  And tomorrow also.  Maybe the day after that, if this shutdown continues.

Besides the real physical danger Americans are facing, the economic ramifications are also swelling.  Republicans are supposed to be the party of business, and even the 1% are figuring out they're getting screwed... along with all the rest of us.

There needs to be a cost to the terrorists responsible (once more, their names are at the top of this post) for the damage being done -- indeed, the lives that will be lost -- due to their wanton irresponsibility.  That cost needs to be extracted now, and again in 2014.

We cannot continue to let the Dale Hulses of Harris County and Texas elect the kooks who run this great state and nation.

Updates (this morning):

Boehner says "not enough votes" for clean CR

GOP in grave danger of losing House in 2014, polls say

Sunday Funnies

"How to end the government shutdown: I think if you hold down Texas and Maine at the same time, it automatically reboots."

-- Stephen Colbert

"People are saying now that before the government shutdown Congressmen went out and got drunk, celebrating that they had shut down the government. This is the kind of thing that could damage their 10 percent approval rating."

-- David Letterman

"Texas Senator Ted Cruz gave a 21-hour speech on the floor of the Senate during which he read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, did an impression of Darth Vader, and admitted his love for White Castle. I'm not sure what Cruz's speech was arguing for, but I'm guessing legalizing weed."

-- Seth Meyers

Texas has the worst conservatives in the country

No, not Ted Cruz or Greg Abbott or Rick Perry or even Dan Patrick.  Not Louie Gohmert or Steve Stockman.  Not Randy Noogie Boogie.  Not David Dewhurst or Todd Staples or even Jerry Patterson.

This guy. And the millions of Texans just like him.

Thanks to Texas' new senator, Dale Huls is out of a job -- at least for now. Yet Huls has never been prouder that he voted for him.

"Without Ted Cruz this doesn't happen," said Huls, a NASA systems engineer who was among roughly 3,000 federal employees furloughed from Houston's Johnson Space Center after tea party Republicans triggered the partial government shutdown.

"This is something Americans have to get used to," said Huls. "Even if it affects your livelihood, you've got to stand up."

When John Cornyn is considered to be on the left flank of the GOP, the sickness becomes more apparent.  There are actually some Republicans who can finally admit they are embarrassed to be Republican, but Dale Huls is never going to be one of them.

Huls said he has enough savings to tide him over for at least two months without a paycheck. But he's worried about not making up money he borrowed from his retirement plan and says he may eventually have to talk to other creditors about extensions.

"But I don't consider myself a victim," Huls said. "I'm in this fight too and this is my role."

Pedro Rivera, a space center programs specialist who is working on the Orion capsule the U.S. hopes to send to Mars, said he too is willing to accept being furloughed even if the shutdown means a delay in Orion's scheduled test launch next year.

"I think it's a small price to pay for the future generations," said Rivera, who says he considers the new health care law un-American.

As Jimmy Kimmel observed... "I want the names of the idiots who elected these people."

There just aren't the proper words to describe how pathetic this disconnect is.  We've all known for a long time that empathy wasn't any Republicans' strong suit, but Dale Huls and Pedro Rivera take it to a new and much lower level.

Clear Lake, the other Houston suburbs, and certainly the remaining exurban and rural parts of the state are full of people like Dale.  Except that most of them don't have a good job and two months of savings like him.  Most of them are broke, without health insurance, and if they vote at all, they vote GOP.

The biggest obstacle to Wendy Davis being elected governor is Dale Huls and every other Texan who has his mindset.  You can't change it, and it takes too long to wait for them to die.  Battleground Texas (and other organizations and campaigns with shared interests) must simply go out and find the millions of Texans who aren't voting, and then change that habit.

There are dozens and dozens of reasons why Davis -- and other Texas Democrats on the ballot in 2014 -- can win.  Not accomplishing that one very tall order is, as far as I am concerned, the only reason why she cannot win, and why so many people, even Democrats, think that she cannot.

We'll just have to watch and see how that plays out.