Not the News

-- Share this article, add something like "Obama 2016!" when you post it, and then stand back and watch heads explode.

-- Texas boy tasered by officer after breaking up school fight, remains in a coma:

A high school student suffered a brain injury and remains in a medically-induced coma after a Texas sheriff’s deputy tasered him without cause following a skirmish in a school hallway, the boy’s mother claims in court.

Maria Acosta has sued Bastrop County, its school district and Randy McMillan, a Bastrop County sheriff’s officer and school resource officer, according to Courthouse News.

Noe Nino de Rivera, Acosta’s son, suffered a “severe brain hemorrhage” when McMillan Tasered him after the boy, known as N.N., had intervened to halt a fight between two females at Cedar Creek High School on Wednesday, November 20, Acosta claims in a federal lawsuit.

[...]

McMillan and another security officer arrived to break up the fight upon being called by school officials. Acosta says her son “diffused the situation” by the time they arrived on the scene.

McMillan told N.N. to step away, and he did so with his hands raised, but McMillan tasered him nevertheless, Acosta alleges.

Immobilized by the Taser, N.N. fell and struck his head on the floor, at which point McMillan handcuffed the unconscious boy, 17.

[...]

Acosta says the deputy officer was never in harm, and that the defendants allowed him to work at Cedar Creek High School even after he Tasered another student a year ago. That history created a “foreseeable danger” that led to N.N.’s injuries, she says.

According to the Sheriff's Office, McMillan has never received complaints for using excessive force, and he's never been disciplined for using excessive force.

I would have said 'I have nothing to add' to this story, except for those last two sentences. The Bastrop County sheriff's deputy had Tasered a student previously, and the department's official response was that he has never received any complaints, nor been disciplined, for excessive force.

Now then... I'm speechless.

-- Do racism, conservatism, and low I.Q. go hand in hand?

I believe we all know the answer to this question already. But it's nice to see some empirical data... even if it will be rejected by those most in need of it.

-- Diebold charged with bribery, falsifying documents in a 'worldwide pattern of criminal conduct':

One of the world's largest ATM manufacturers and, formerly, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems, has been indicted by federal prosecutors for bribery and falsification of documents.

The charges represent only the latest in a long series of criminal and/or unethical misconduct by Diebold, Inc. and their executives over the past decade.

According to Cleveland's Plain Dealer, a U.S. Attorney says the latest charges are in response to "a worldwide pattern of criminal conduct" by the company...

They won't face any jail time, however, because they are a corporation. And you are not.

-- Something else everyone knew already.  Except for a few souls who watch Fox News (sic).

-- Rooting for failure.

It’s hard to remember a time when a major political party and its media arm were so actively rooting for fellow Americans to lose. When the first attempt by the United States to launch a satellite into orbit, in 1957, ended in disaster, did Democrats start to cheer, and unify to stop a space program in its infancy? Or, when Medicare got off to a confusing start, did Republicans of the mid-1960s wrap their entire political future around a campaign to deny government-run health care to the elderly? 

Of course not. But for the entirety of the Obama era, Republicans have consistently been cheerleaders for failure. They rooted for the economic recovery to sputter, for gas prices to spike, the job market to crater, the rescue of the American automobile industry to fall apart. 

I get it. This organized schadenfreude goes back to the dawn of Obama’s presidency, when Rush Limbaugh, later joined by Senator Mitch McConnell, said their No. 1 goal was for the president to fail. A CNN poll in 2010 found 61 percent of Republicans hoping Obama would fail (versus only 27 percent among all Americans). 

This is all that the mission of Republicans and conservatives is to accomplish.  Their constant complaining, refusal to live by the law of the land, and perpetual obstruction are harming the United States of America.  Eventually their inability to win an election outside the South and a few western outposts may convince them to change tactics, but in the meantime there will need to be another vote taken in Congress to continue funding the federal government on January 15, 2014.  What's the early line on how that might go?

Honestly, at this point, it would be best for the nation if the GOP keeps contracting until there's barely anything left of it but fond memories.

Still digesting

So how did your mixture of tryptophan, alcohol, and relatives go yesterday?

By all indications, Walmart's Black Thanksgiving is going just as badly as you might expect.

Just be thankful you aren't relying on food stamps -- or the generosity of Republicans -- to have a happy holiday season.

The pope is not a liberal, Sarah Palin

He is a full-blown socialist.  Maybe even an anti-capitalist.

Pope Francis has taken aim at capitalism as "a new tyranny" and is urging world leaders to step up their efforts against poverty and inequality, saying "thou shall not kill" the economy. Francis calls on rich people to share their wealth.

The existing financial system that fuels the unequal distribution of wealth and violence must be changed, the Pope warned.

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?" Pope Francis asked an audience at the Vatican.

The global economic crisis, which has gripped much of Europe and America, has the Pope asking how countries can function, or realize their full economic potential, if they are weighed down by the debts of capitalism.

“A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules,” the 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, said. 

I love this guy!

Now if you really want to have some fun with it, tell your Drudge-reading, O'Reilly-watching, Limbaugh-listening relative what John Fugelsang said to Ed Schultz last night...

“I think you might just want to blow their minds, Ed, and say that back at the first Thanksgiving, when the Wampanoag fed the Pilgrims, they didn’t know it, but they had just invented socialism for undocumented immigrants,” Fugelsang said. “Then they’ll spend the rest of the night trying to process that.”

[...]

“You can also point out that under Obamacare, we are now making people buy a corporation’s private product — it’s pretty much the opposite of socialism,” Fugelsang argued. “What we have now is socialism; when uninsured people go to an emergency room, and the local taxpayer has to pick up the tab. ‘Hey, right-wing Uncle Larry, why are you defending the socialist status quo?’ That’ll freak them out.”

Happy Turkey Day!

Update: Crooks and Liars assembles some of the right-wing outrage.

Tryin' to get in the spirit of the season ovah heah

First: thanks to Juanita Jean for ruining my appetite for Big Bird tomorrow.

 Guess I'll have to stick to the ham.  Then again...

Here's some things on my wish list.

-- To drive my conservative family members crazy during Thanksgiving dinner, I'm going to pour all of the gravy onto my plate first, and then tell them it will eventually trickle down onto theirs.

-- To piss off the Fox News junkie across the street, the twinkly lights in our living room window are going to spell out SURRENDER, CHRISTMAS.

(Yes, these first two were plagiarized.)

-- I'm going to tip my servers double-time and a half tomorrow just to one-up Neil, and I will not go anywhere near a mall, a big box store, or an airport.  I will probably go to the last days of the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend, and Dickens on the Strand next weekend.  And I heartily recommend that you do the same.  No amount of shopping, Christmas television specials, or Yuletide radio channels -- nothing -- is better for putting a person in the holiday spirit.

And there'll be more toons tomorrow.

Cornyn won't be fooled

That Iran nuke deal is just a ruse. Fool us once...

Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) November 24, 2013

Fool us twice....

No, a real distraction would be war. Like Iraq. RT@JohnCornyn: Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care”
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) November 24, 2013

We won't get fooled again, John, unlike those TeaBaggers who are still calling you RINO this week.

Congratulations! You are the biggest fool in Texas, outfooling the likes of Steve Stockman, Louie Gohmert, and yes, even Rick Perry. A "Mission Accomplished" banner for you!

Oops, one more.

John Cornyn: "Obama is working to prevent global nuclear annihilation merely to distract us from a website with an error rate below 1%"
— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) November 24, 2013

Update: And still more, as only Twitterers can snark it, from BOR.

Beating Abbott now, and beating him in November

Winning lawsuits isn't really his strong suit, but Greg Abbott knows he cannot afford to lose this one to Wendy Davis.  And that has nothing to do with the taxpayer's money he's already spent fighting a losing battle.

"Loser pays" is what the law says.  The law Texas Republicans passed.  And Abbott, as we all know, is the state's biggest loser.

Lawyers who helped Sen. Wendy Davis beat back Republican-led efforts to retool her Tarrant County district urged a federal court Monday to award them hundreds of thousands of dollars spent fighting Attorney General Greg Abbott in the case. ...

In September, a federal court in San Antonio declared Davis a "prevailing" party and instructed her lawyers to file to recoup legal costs. Since then, the redistricting court fight over a state Senate map has centered on a request from Davis' lawyers and the League of United Latin American Citizens for more than $700,000 in total reimbursement.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week rejected Abbott's initial request to block Davis' legal team from being awarded attorney fees. The case now gets bounced back to the court in San Antonio to decide how much, if anything, the state should pay back the Davis legal team.

Abbott lost at the Fifth Circuit.  Let that soak in for a minute.  The $700 large is really just pocket change in the grand scheme; the bragging rights are much more valuable.

Important note: The 5th Circuit did not rule on the merits, i.e. the substantive claims made for or against the fees, in the case. It basically told the state that its appeal is untimely and should come later — after the San Antonio court rules on the requested attorney fees (read the state’s brief here and Davis’ brief here).

A majority of the three-judge panel told the Texas attorney general that he was jumping the gun on his appeal.  "Go back home and wait for decision from the lower court, Skippy".  That is priceless.

Abbott’s legal team can file another appeal with the 5th Circuit if the San Antonio court awards fees to Davis’ lawyers. And Abbott’s office on Monday made clear that it plans to do just that if necessary.

“The 5th Circuit expressed no view on the merits of Davis’ request for attorneys’ fees or the district court’s designation of her as a prevailing party,” Abbott spokeswoman Lauren Bean said in a statement. “Those issues will be back in front of the 5th Circuit at a later date.”

In other words, 'we'll keep fighting and we'll keep losing'.  For some reason I am reminded here of the 43 votes taken in the US House of Representatives to repeal Obamacare, and since those were all failures, Plan B is to complain loudly about a glitchy website. 

All this conservative losing bodes well for 2014, don't you think?

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is thankful for many things, this week and every week, as we bring you the blog post roundup of the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff calls on Wendy Davis to make an issue out of Rick Perry's refusal to follow the Defense Department's directive on same sex benefits for National Guard members.

Texpatriate has special news this week, as Sophia announced in her Week in Review video that founder and editorial board member Noah M. Horwitz will be moving to Austin this January to continue his collegiate studies at the University of Texas and lead a new and exciting chapter for Texpatriate in the state capital.

Eye On Williamson is still blogging at our temporary home. Here's an update on what's happening with local candidate news, and Democratic efforts in Williamson County.

In her final term as Houston mayor, Annise Parker has begun enacting a progressive agenda, much to the surprised delight of PDiddie at Brains and Eggs. Same-sex spousal benefits for municipal employees, a wage theft ordinance, and legislation reining in payday lenders all came to fruition in the past week, signaling measurable progress for the Bayou City.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that John Cornyn has a clear record of protecting rapists. Why? He also says stupid stuff about foreign policy.

Looking to move ahead to the rest of life, Neil at All People Have Value made a donation to Wendy Davis for Governor of Texas. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

Concerned Citizens provides copies of all the documents in the lawsuit filed to overturn Texas' ban on same sex marriage.

TFN Insider celebrates a win for science education.

Mark Bennett debunks a claim about sex trafficking in Texas.

John Coby calls out the Young Conservatives of Texas for their racist "catch an illegal immigrant" game.

Better Texas Blog explains a pilot program to do something about student loan default in Texas.

The Texas Green Report brings word of the possible adoption of the International Energy Conservation code.

The Makeshift Academic applauds Houston's wage theft law.

BOR scoffs at Greg Abbott's claim that there were "no problems" with the voter ID law during this past election.

Yes To Texas makes us all feel old.

And finally, the TPA congratulates Juanita Jean on the birth of her first grandchild, and Lone Star Ma on the occasion of her daughter's first time casting a vote.

Steve Stockman's money problem

It's more of a disclosure problem.

Both as a candidate and as a congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman of Clear Lake has failed to make federally required disclosures about business affiliations that stretch from Texas to the British Virgin Islands, and has provided no details about the business he claims as his sole source of income.

Stockman returned to office in 2013 after 16 years away from Congress - crediting a low-budget, come-from-behind campaign to which he claimed to have lent more than $100,000 of his own money.

Stockman failed to file a federal disclosure form during his candidacy in 2012 when he ran for the newly created District 36, which stretches east and north from Southeast Harris County, around Beaumont, and beyond to the Louisiana line.

Every other Texan in Congress, whether incumbent or freshman, filed a report in 2012.

The Chronicle previously revealed Stockman's, ah, interesting local campaign office in a story earlier this month.

The fire marshal and city building officials in Webster have ordered the emergency closure of an unorthodox campaign headquarters for Congressman Steve Stockman, citing multiple safety violations.

The headquarters had been housed since early 2012 in a former motorcycle shop along the Gulf Freeway. Campaign staffers and volunteers had been both working and sleeping there, even though the commercial building was considered unsafe for human habitation, according to Webster city records and an interview with assistant fire marshal Warren Chappell.

Officials found 14 fire code violations and ordered the office closed and its electricity shut off on Nov. 7, fire department records show. No one had obtained the necessary permit for the campaign to legally occupy the pale yellow two-story metal building along a feeder road on the freeway, wedged between a spa dealership and a strip mall, building department records show.

But he does have actual money problems, too.  The Chron had prior articles that detailed Stockman's perpetual campaign finance woes.

Rep. Steve Stockman has fired two congressional staffers after disclosures that both made prohibited contributions to his campaign.

The incident is the latest in a string of controversial episodes that have dogged Stockman's political campaigns over the past two decades.

The Clear Lake Repub­lican's campaign for Congress in Texas' 36th District has been notified of potential problems with its campaign finance filings in 2012 and 2013 approximately a dozen times, including apparently misreported donations, late or missing filings of required reports, and inaccuracies in certain filings.

Both this year and in the 1990s, his campaigns were investigated for issues relating to campaign materials made to look like newspapers. While the earlier complaints resulted in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and a civil penalty, the most recent complaint was dismissed without enforcement action, the FEC announced Friday.

Stockman spokesman Donny Ferguson told the Chronicle Thursday that staffers Jason Posey and Thomas Dodd had been terminated. Posey had worked with Stockman since the mid-1990s, and was his 2013 campaign treasurer.

Stockman has never been anything but a goon and a goofball, and that goes all the way back to when he unseated Jack Brooks in 1994.  But the good folks of East Texas chose to 're-elect' him, as his 2012 campaign signs urged... and who is to argue with the will of the people?  Even if he hadn't ever represented much of the newly-drawn 36th Congressional District -- and even granting that this is, you know, the Appalachia of the Lone Star State -- they knew what they were getting.

Before the "librul media" whining gets too loud, those who vote in the 36th's Republican primary will need to come to some measure of good sense and stop repeating this mistake.  It's not like Stockman is a coke addict or anything -- as I wrote before, there's good dope and there's bad dopes -- but if this buffoon gets re-elected in 2014, then they own him... and every shitty thing that he does and is.

Hard to imagine East Texas lowering its reputation any further, but it is certainly possible.

Update: Gator in The Bayou wishes Stockman a happy birthday.

Sunday Funnies

"If John F. Kennedy were alive today he would be a conservative..." I agree. He'd be a zombie, with most of his brain missing, so yes he WOULD be a conservative.

Mayor Parker advances payday lending ordinance

Tipping my cap; she's off to a great start in pushing a progressive reform agenda in her final term with this.

"I had initially favored a Houston-specific measure, but decided that joining with other Texas cities in a united front on this issue is the best way to send a strong message to the Texas Legislature," said Mayor Parker. "Lenders deserve to make a profit on their investments, but not by charging astronomical interest rates to desperate consumers who have nowhere else to turn for emergency financial assistance. The statewide model I am recommending for approval by Houston City Council achieves this balance."

While making the announcement at Houston city hall on Friday, the mayor was surrounded by a broad coalition of community leaders who say they are concerned that these loans keep the most vulnerable trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Houston City Council will be briefed on the mayor's proposal on Dec. 4. The first opportunity for a vote will be on Dec. 11.

She keeps this up and and she'll go down as the best mayor in this city's long history.  More from Charles, Stace, and Noah.

Update: In case anybody was wondering about my about-face, this is why.

(Parker) brushed aside concerns about inviting a lawsuit, saying the city is sued daily, and did not finesse her message to the industry.

"They have said they will move outside the city limits of Houston, and I say: Don't let the door hit you on the way out," Parker said. "This is not about making a reasonable profit. This is about preying on vulnerable human beings and making an obscene profit."

That's called 'boom' and 'thud'.  Two hits: the mayor hitting the payday lenders, and the payday lenders hitting the ground.

Oswald acted alone

This I believe.

Like many others, I have played amateur detective in this fifty-year national obsession, more than most but much less than others.  And the more I have learned, the less convinced I am that there was an actual conspiracy.  Here's why...

The vast majority -- 98% -- of all of the documents collected by the Warren Commission have been declassified.  This occurred in 1997 and was prompted by questions raised in Oliver Stone's film 'JFK', which many Americans believe is more accurate than it actually is.  Two things stood out to me from this new data...

-- The "magic  bullet" is flattened on the tail and along one side ("compressed laterally" as the Wiki describes; fourth graf up from the bottom), thus not so magic as its reputation has long suggested.  More on the single bullet theory here if you want it.

-- Oswald was scored a 'sharpshooter' while a Marine in 1956, and a 'marksman' in 1959.  Do you know the distance at which a military sniper must qualify for those ratings with shots within the target?

200 yards.

Do you know how far away Kennedy was from the 6th floor of the Texas school book depository?

Between approximately 189 feet, or 63 yards (neck shot) and roughly 80 yards (head shot).

(Lots of people throw cold water on the postulate that Oswald was a crack shot, for whatever that may be worth to you.)

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

Oswald undoubtedly had conversations -- deranged rants is probably a better descriptor -- with people about killing Kennedy.  Did he have conversations about killing Kennedy with the Russian government, or the CIA in Mexico City, or people loosely associated with the Cuban government or anti-Castro Cubans in this country, or elements of organized crime?  Perhaps.  Was he a patsy, as he claimed?  I doubt it.  Useful idiot?  This fits better to me.

Sidebar: When I lived in St Pete, Florida in 1992, I researched the Tampa gangster of Cuban descent, Santo Trafficante, who seemed as if he might be the link between the nebulous "parties with motive" most often mentioned... along with the CIA and the military/generals/MIC.  I had a personal connection for this interest: my wife's older brother -- born in Cuba like her, and emigrated to the US in 1961 as a teenager with the rest of her family -- had been shot to death by Tampa police in 1976 while running guns for some disjointed segments of the Mafia (essentially petty hoodlums who knew mobsters) and we were caught up with pursuing clues about that.  Nothing significant came of it.

Despite whatever "encouragement" he might have received, did Oswald act alone when he shot the president?  Almost certainly.  And I would not have said that even five years ago, mostly on the basis of an afternoon-long conversation at a Beaumont crawfish boil with Zack Shelton, the retired FBI agent who runs this website.

There's a lot there, much of it probably new to the average conspiracy theorist, so don't go in without a full glass and maybe something to eat.

The subscription channel Reelz has a series running this month called "JFK: The Smoking Gun" and it's fun, particularly if you like the various medical forensics angles like the dispute over the autopsy photos and Kennedy's missing brain and things like that.

And if you have a spare hour-and-a-half, watch Executive Action, the 1973 flick with Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, and several other character actors you'll recognize.  It follows the line that the CIA did it, and that is the only conspiracy theory that hasn't been properly debunked.



But the Warren Commission's conclusion is based on things that can no longer be reasonably disputed, namely...

-- The shots which killed Kennedy -- and wounded Texas Governor John Connally -- were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building.

-- They were fired from a rifle owned by Lee Harvey Oswald; Oswald worked in the school book depository, and carried with him to work on the day of the assassination a wrapped package he described as "curtain rods".

-- Oswald's fingerprints and palmprints were found on boxes in the location of the shooting (the TXSBD sixth-floor window) and his palmprint was found on the barrel of the rifle.

Conspiracy theorists are good at raising doubts about various portions of the Warren Commission account, but are also fairly poor at suggesting plausible alternatives to it.

I'm of the mind that a bonafide conspiracy exists today only in a few feverish minds (lots of people have reasonable enough doubts, but that just wouldn't be enough to acquit Oswald in a trial -- and away we go with the Ruby conspiracy theory).  And the main reason I can't ride in that car any more is that, if anyone actually had inside, verifiable information that there was a conspiracy of any kind... they would have cashed in by spilling the beans in a million-dollar tell-all book years ago.

People crave conspiracy theories and where one does not exist, one will be fabricated. Just look what happened with CBS and Benghazi.

Update: Socratic Gadfly, from the comments, has the best conspiracy theories.

Senate filibuster nuked

I really didn't think Harry Reid had it in him, but he did.

The Senate approved a historic rules change on Thursday by eliminating the use of the filibuster on all presidential nominees except those to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In doing so, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invoked the long-threatened ‘nuclear option,’ meaning he called for a vote to change the Senate rules by a simple majority vote. It passed, 52 to 48. Three Democrats voted against changing the rules — Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

The unprecedented rules change means that President Barack Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominees no longer need to clear a 60-vote threshold to reach the Senate floor and get an up-or-down vote.

Both parties threatened to change the rules in recent years — but Reid said he felt compelled to finally pull the trigger after what he described as unprecedented use of the filibuster on Obama’s judicial picks, namely three blocked judges to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

One picture says it all.

Let's roll.