Bexar Co. Republican judge switches to Democrats

By itself, not much of a thing.  If it is the beginning of a statewide wave...

County Court at Law Judge Carlo Key.

“The Republican brand of pettiness, bigotry and ideological character assassination can no longer be tolerated in Texas,” the release states. “As the smallest minds continue to make the loudest noise in the Republican Party, true leaders will be driven by their principles and values to become Texas Democrats.”

Joe Straus, nominal head of Texas Republicans in the county, isn't concerned and even took a shot at the way Texas elects its judges.  He could be right; he could be wrong.  It all depends on whether this sort of thing becomes a trend.

As previously indicated, either the TXGOP is going to keep creating the world they have in mind for Texas, or the rest of us will introduce them to the real one.

The Weekly EV Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is old enough to remember when everyone who ran for public office did so on a premise of making it work better.  Below, this week's roundup of the best from the Lone Star State's lefty blogs.

The TPA also reminds Texas voters that early voting begins this morning in many places around the state, and don't forget to bring your photo ID.

Off the Kuff assesses the state of Houston's elections going into early voting.

Texpatriate endorses Annise Parker for re-election as mayor of Houston.

Eye On Williamson has a temporary home at this revised link, and responds to a recent TIME article says that Texas may be the future for the US. It will only happen if we let it: Why Texas doesn't have to be our future.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is really ashamed that all Texas Republicans voted to keep our government shutdown and to default on our debts. Don't forget that it was Pete Sessions who sealed this shutdown with a pernicious rule change. Shame indeed.

There's a disconnect between the power and influence of Ted Cruz and the Tea Party in Texas, and in the rest of the country. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs observes that this dichotomy is going to affect everything that happens between now and this time next year, and they'll either create their reality... or suffer the effects of actual reality.

Neil at All People Have Value moves forward with his blog and website. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

Libby Shaw over at TexasKaos finds it helpful to think of Ted Cruz and his Tea Party allies as part of a John Belushi-like approach to politics. Check out: Ted Cruz and his Texas Tea Party Animal House Shutdown.

==============

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

Grits for Breakfast eulogizes Ruby Cole Session, whose son Timothy Cole died in a Texas prison after his wrongful rape conviction before he was posthumously pardoned.

AzulTX points out that undocumented immigrants make significant contributions to the US economy.

Socratic Gadfly records that Greg Abbott sued Obama, went home, and lost 2 out of 3.

Prairie Weather notes that for some, Ted Cruz --  like alcohol and drugs -- can be addictive.

BlueDaze has some recent photos from the Eagle Ford Shale.

Greg Wythe takes a deeper look at the use of text messages in local campaigns.

Egberto Willies has the sneak preview of Move to Amend's new mini-doc, "Legalize Democracy".

The Texas Green Report endorses Proposition 6, the water infrastructure fund amendment.

Offcite shows what truly open streets would look like.

Progress Texas urges a vote against Pasadena's regressive city council redistricting scheme.

jobsanger has some truth from a Republican.

Finally, all of us at the TPA wish Karl-Thomas Musselman the very best in his future endeavors as he concludes his tenure with the Burnt Orange Report after ten productive and excellent years.

The Lone Star Disconnect

First, Jim Forsyth of Reuters.

"After two months in Washington, it's great to be back in America," Cruz joked in speaking to a crowd of about 750 people in a packed downtown San Antonio hotel ballroom.

Cruz was greeted with an eight-minute standing ovation in an appearance organized by the Texas Federation of Republican Women. People in attendance, many of them wearing red to show their support for keeping Texas a conservative-leaning state, lined up to greet him.

Taking notice of the dichotomy locally are Stewart Powell and Rachel Jackson at the Chronic.

The 26 Republican members of Texas' House and Senate delegation on Capitol Hill expect to face no political price for uniformly voting against the hard-won congressional compromise that temporarily ended the stalemate without changing Obamacare.

Cruz, in particular, doesn't seem to care about the national criticism.

"Given the choice between being reviled in Washington, D.C., and appreciated in Texas -- or reviled in Texas and appreciated in Washington -- I would take the former 100 out of 100 times," Cruz said on Friday.

More from Patty Hart.

"Elected officials and candidates don't gravitate to individuals who hurt them politically," said (Republican political bullshit artist Matt) Mackowiak. "If they are all gravitating toward Cruz, it's in their political interest to do so."

If you can't get over the firewall to read the rest, just be grateful.  Back to the first Chronicle article for a little more.

"There is just a different political culture here," says James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. "There is a strain of independent self-reliance and self-identity that political leaders can draw upon."

Polls show far more Texans believe Texas is heading in the right direction than most Americans believe the nation is on the right track. Such differing political outlooks show no sign of easing.

"The Texas Republican delegation is united in our determination to cut federal spending and stop the rapid expansion of our national debt," says Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston. "The rest of the country has a lot to learn from Texas."

We're going to find out over the course of the next two months (the 2014 filing period) if the Democrats will pick up this gauntlet.  Here's what's not helping: the fellow who ran against Culbertson in 2008 -- and has come the closest to unseating him over the past twelve years -- is sounding out a capitulation strategy.

What do y'all Dems think about voting in the Republican primary so we can get some moderate R's in there and replace some of these crazy Tea party nuts?

I've excoriated Michael Skelly so many times for running to the right in his bid that even I'm tired of being reminded of it.  Thankfully there are some commenting on his Facebook wall who are calling him on the carpet for his Stockholm Syndrome. But this is another demonstration of the defeatism zeitgeist of Texas politics among those who call themselves "moderate".

It's also evident in the polling that reveals that Americans are finally ready for a third political party... but sadly, they think it needs to lie somewhere between the Democrats and the Republicans.

Fail.  That's not how revolutions organically occur; just look at the TeaPees.  But back to Texas being like a whole other (far too conservative) country.

There's a few things that are capable of reversing this generational trend, and Battleground Texas is working on the most important one.  Having a candidate willing to stand up and fight in the face of long odds comes in a close second.  A few subroutines, a little good luck, and some mistakes by the opposition figure into the algorithm.

But the best thing Democrats can do for themselves is smash this loser's mentality.  It's going to have to happen among the electorate first, bubble up to the leaders and potential candidates, and then show up in the polling data well before the media notices and reports on it.

Otherwise they'll just write pathetic horseshit like this, and then follow that up with this.

A political party in the minority everywhere else in the United States outside the South and a few mountain states, ignorant of reality, science, and facts, and oblivious to its own internal destruction is ripe for the plucking.  It says more about the party that keeps losing to them if they can't capitalize on these fundamental weaknesses.

Because if they can't break through -- and soon -- Texas is going to take down the nation with it.

Sunday Cruzin' Funnies

But they're not racists.

Gun rights protestors storm Alamo

Poll: Grimes leading McConnell in Kentucky

Transitions

-- After ten years at Burnt Orange Report, Karl-Thomas Musselman moves on to whatever's next.  Godspeed to a great blogger and even better progressive.

-- Eye on Williamson has suffered some server issues in recent weeks and has temporarily relocated to here.  Here's their latest, contradicting TIME's recent article: Why Texas doesn't have to be our future.

-- Rest in peace, Bum Phillips.  As some of you know, I grew up in the Golden Triangle, attended Lamar, and my dad worked in the same old Magnolia/Mobil/ExxonMobil refinery in Beaumont that Bum did (so did I, for one summer).  Bum's legacy in the southeastern-most corner of Texas is even bigger there than it is here in Houston.  And it is inextricably linked with the Astrodome's.

Twice Phillips’ Oilers battled the Pittsburgh Steelers for a berth in the Super Bowl, and both times they came up short. After each loss, they were welcomed home by more than 40,000 cheering fans at the Astrodome, inspiring one of the most famous quotations in the history of Texas sports.

“One year ago we knocked on the door. This year we beat on the door,” Phillips said after the 1980 title-game loss. “Next year we’re gonna kick the sumbitch in.”

[...]

Of the first of the two mammoth Dome pep rallies, Phillips said, “Don’t forget all those people standing along the road when we were driving in. There must have been a hundred thousand of them out there. And we’d lost the damned game. I’ll take that memory to my grave.”

Have I mentioned that I am voting to save the Astrodome?

-- Speaking of voting, here's a good site, compliments of ProgressTexas, that will help you make sure you have everything squared away in order to cast your ballot, beginning Monday morning at a location near you.

Sam Houston for Texas Attorney General

Matt Angle telegraphed it last week, and the Texas Democrat who earned the most votes statewide in 2008 confirmed it yesterday.  Careful parsing by the folks at First Reading reveals the distinction in the assertion.

This is very artfully done. When I first read this I assumed it meant that Houston ran ahead of President Obama in Texas. In fact, he did get a slightly higher percentage of the vote - 45.88 percent to 43.68 for Obama. But his vote total - 3,525,141, lagged ever-so-slightly behind Obama's 3,528,633. But Angle's statement is perfectly accurate because Houston did win more votes than any other "Texas Democratic candidate," because neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden is a Texan.

Houston is light years ahead of the three stooges in the GOP primary scrambling to replace Wheelchair Coathanger Ken.  This blog has already pulled the curtain away from Barry Smitherman many times, and yesterday Dan "Curly" Branch stepped up to make his case.

State Rep. Dan Branch announced Thursday his proposal to create a Voter Fraud Task Force if elected as Attorney General.

“I have a clear plan to attack voter fraud in Texas,” Branch, R-Dallas, said in a press release.

Branch said the task force would:

•  ”closely monitor the activities of groups that would seek to subvert ballot integrity

•  appoint a Special Counsel devoted to exposing and prosecuting any instance of voter fraud, and

•  aggressively defend the landmark Texas voter ID law from the Obama Administration’s spurious attempt to invalidate it.”

Well, he has been getting out-kooked, after all.  At least Don Quixote could find a windmill to tilt.

It's now Ken Paxton's turn to do or say something ridiculously ignorant.  We shouldn't have to wait very long.

A pre-EV perspective

-- Charles delivers a good one here. Well worth reading (even with the perpetual underlying premise that more money means 'best chance of getting elected').  Thank goodness he and Texas Leftist and Texpatriate have worked this beat, because I haven't had the heart.  I'll add some predictions, though...

-- Mayor Parker wins without a runoff.  As best as I can tell, Ben Hall has already folded his tent.

-- I'll go out on a limb and say that city controller Ron Green loses a squeaker to the Republican, Bill Frazer.

-- Michael Kubosh and one of either Rogene Calvert or Jenifer Rene Pool in the runoff for AL3.  I can't seem to find many incumbents to vote for in city council races, except for my district representative, Larry Green.  I know I won't be voting for Stephen Costello or C.O. Bradford or Jack Christie.  That much is certain.  Update: Of course I am voting for James Horwitz.

-- I am voting for the Dome.

And I expect it to pass.

This is still the most lackluster election cycle in memory.

The last word on the shutdown

What the shutdown cost:

“The bottom line is the government shutdown has hurt the U.S. economy,” Standard & Poor’s said in a statement. “In September, we expected 3 percent annualized growth in the fourth quarter because we thought politicians would have learned from 2011 and taken steps to avoid things like a government shutdown and the possibility of a sovereign default. Since our forecast didn’t hold, we now have to lower our fourth-quarter growth estimate to closer to 2 percent.”

Moody’s Analytics reported a similar number Wednesday, saying by the end of the day the shutdown will  cause a $23 billion hit to U.S. GDP or $1.4375 billion per day.

-- $3.1 billion in lost government services. Although furloughed workers will get their back pay,  taxpayers won’t see the products.  (Source: I.H.S.)

--  According to the U.S. Travel Association:  There has been $152 million per day in all spending related to travel lost because of the shutdown. As many as 450,000 American workers supported by travel may be affected.

--  According to the National Park Service: They welcome more than 700,000 people per day usually in October and visitors spend an estimated $32 million per day impact in communities near national parks and contribute $76 million each day to the national economy.  Those revenues were lost.

--  According to Destination D.C., the official tourism corporation of D.C.: There is a 9 percent decrease in hotel occupancy from the last week in September before the shutdown to the first week of October during the shutdown. This year, hotel occupancy was down 74.4 percent for the week Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 compared to the 2012 numbers. (Source: Smith Travel Research, Inc.) In 2012, an estimated $6.2 billion of visitor spending supported more than 75,300 jobs.

What the shutdown's lost revenue could have paid for:

• The net cost of to the government from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP): $24 billion
• The Department of Agriculture’s proposed budget: $22.6 billion
• NASA’s approved budget: $16.6 billion
• All air transportation programs, including the Federal Aviation Administration, security, research, and other costs: $21.9 billion
• The Child Tax Credit: $22.1 billion
• The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (formally known as welfare): $17.7 billion
• The cost of Head Start, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Women Infants and Children (WIC) program combined: $25.2 billion

The topline figure may not take many other costs into account, such as loans that didn’t go out from the Small Business Administration, permits that got held up, and the loss of billions in tax revenue. Plus the government could still get a downgrade on its credit, which could ding business and consumer confidence and bring about more costs.

The shutdown was just the latest budget crisis that has been costly to the economy. A recent report found that the uncertainty created by fights over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling that have cropped up since 2010 has cost the economy nearly a million jobs. 

Ted Cruz:

"It was an incredible victory." 

Truly epic conservative fail

Your linkage for the above:

"An obvious disaster for the GOP"

"House Republicans are the clear losers"

"Humiliating failure"

"Fiasco"

"Disaster ... Debacle"

"This party is going nuts"

"Republicans have to understand that we have lost this battle"

"We really did go too far. We screwed up"

"Speaker Pelosi Part 2: Opening Jan. 5, 2015"

More surrender roundup here if you need it, want it, like it, have to have it.  A few more developments from late last night worth mentioning....

Senate Conservatives Fund hits McConnell for getting 'Kentucky Kickback' in Senate deal

Ten Takeaways from the Great GOP Cave-in

Ted Cruz admits budget standoff was all about building fundraising lists

No Texas Republican votes to reopen US government or avoid default 

Then there's the actual satire.

Cruz: "The Dream of keeping poor people from seeing a doctor must never die"

His eyes welling up with tears, Sen. Cruz said, “I embarked on this crusade with a simple goal: to keep affordable health care out of the reach of ordinary, hard-working Americans. And while this battle was lost, that dream—that precious, cherished dream—will live on.”

Reflecting on the government shutdown and near-default that almost touched off a global financial apocalypse, Sen. Cruz said, “We’ll give it another try in a few weeks.”

Sen. Cruz’s closest ally, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also spoke reverently of the shutdown, calling it “the most expensive Civil War re-enactment in history.”

“Unfortunately, once again, the wrong side won,” he said.

Over in the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) congratulated his colleagues on the deal to resolve the shutdown, telling reporters, “This proves that when we work together, we can come up with a totally unsatisfactory solution to a completely unnecessary crisis.”

With fail this epic, it's hilarious (or maybe just pathetic) to find there are Teabaggers this morning -- sober, I must presume -- who still think they are winners.  And still support the Speaker, even as they voted 'no' in perfect lockstep last night.

I have to say that this madness among conservatives leaves me astounded.  They're already talking about shutting it down again in a few months.

Is it possible that the Democrats could screw up such a gold-plated gift?  I suppose so, but on the morning after this capitulation by the seditionists in the House of Representatives, it certainly smells like their goose is cooked.  Burned to a crisp, even.

I'd rather see them snapped back to reality in a little over year, and not much sooner than that.

T'was the day before Defaultmas...

...and all through the House,

not a creature was stirring.

Not even a louse.

This is going to be a busy week for the cartoonists, and there are so many good ones already that I need to get a few posted before Sunday.

A new Gallup poll shows 60 percent of Americans think the Democratic and Republican parties have done a poor job of representing the people during the government shutdown.  They think a third major party is needed.

Blog Action Day: Human Rights

Here's what we're doing today.



The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is where the conversation begins. Here's some history, examples of violations, and some additional dimension and focus.



Among the participating partners of #BlogActionDay, Amnesty International is at the forefront of the consciousness of this topic in the USA and the world. This post on the scourge of human trafficking in Houston is my most recent contribution to the discussion. Also my brother Neil is making a financial contribution to Amnesty Int'l every time the Houston mayoral campaigns of Annise Parker and Ben Hall send out an e-mail attacking one another, a noble if too-active public shaming.

There's lots of places to join the conversation. Feel free to pick one.

#BAD2013 #OCT16 #Humanrights

Steve Stockman is still a dope

When Kinky announced for ag commissioner and highlighted the ganja as his primo issue, I predicted that there wouldn't be any Republicans who would ask him not to bogart.  (This definition, not that one.)  My mistake: I overlooked former homeless person -- I prefer this term over 'vagrant' -- and once-jailed-on-a-drug-charge-himself Congressman Steve Stockman.

But even when blind hogs occasionally find acorns, they're still blind... and they remain swine.

Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, has recently backed a bill to require federal officials to comply with state marijuana laws, which was introduced in April and has since garnered support from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle.

The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2013, introduced by California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, would bar federal drug enforcement agents from penalizing any person abiding by the marijuana laws in their own state.

The law “shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with State laws” — that is, people who are in compliance with their state laws regarding possession, manufacture or use of marijuana will not be subjected to federal penalties.

That's the rub here: Texas is the second worst of these United States in which to get busted for pot.

On an annual basis, no state arrests and criminally prosecutes more of its citizens for pot than does Texas. Marijuana arrests comprise over half of all annual arrests in the Lone Star State. It is easy to see why. In 2009, more than 97 percent of all Texas marijuana arrests — over 77,000 people — were for possession only. Those convicted face up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, even upon a first conviction.

Despite Texas’ dubious distinction as the #1 pot prosecuting state in America, police and lawmakers have little interest in exploring alternatives. In 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation (HB 2391) into law granting police the option of issuing a summons in lieu of an arrest in minor marijuana possession cases. Yet aside from police in Austin, long considered to be the state’s lone bastion of liberalism, law enforcement have continued to fervently make arrests in even the most trivial of pot cases.

In 2011, Houston Democrat Harold Dutton introduced House Bill 458, which sought to reduce penalties for the adult possession of one ounce or less of marijuana to a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 and no criminal record. Within weeks, over 2,500 Texans contacted their House members in support of the measure. Nonetheless, House lawmakers refused to even consider bringing the measure to a vote. 

You can guess why, can't you?  One word: it starts with an R and ends with 'douchebags'.

Stockman's signing on to this federal legislation does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of marijuana decriminalization -- not to mention fracturing the prison pipeline -- in Texas.  That's why it's perfect for a duplicitous sack of shit like him to support.

So while it may be perceived in some quarters that grass could be a bipartisan issue, the truth once more is that the only way things like this are ever going to change is if people simply stop voting for Republicans running for statewide office.

And if you're one of those people who likes to get stoned but doesn't like to vote, you might want to be the first on your block to change that habit.

Update: More Grits. And also The Defense Rests.