Sunday Funnies

Free rides

Charles has an extensive post about the birth of both Lyft and UberX this weekend in H-Town.  It's going to be a lousy time for cabbies trying to make a living for awhile.

I remain of the opinion that these services are just fine as long as they meet the established municipal code.  Mayor Parker agrees.

"There are some working girls that work the streets of Houston who say, 'We're legal because it is just a donation,' " Mayor Annise Parker said Wednesday. "I'm sorry, we will enforce our ordinances."

This is the same method, as we know, by which drug dealers build their clientele: give it away in the beginning, gradually charge more and more for it once people get hooked.  I am certain that neither of these two fine companies intended for these unsavory analogies to be applied to them, but hey, that's just how they roll.

Please keep in mind that when you consume a service, you generally get what you pay for.

Abbott/Nugent disaster enters fourth day

Here are this morning's headlines:

Rick Perry condemns Nugent's remarks; Ted Cruz doesn't agree with them but in some of his most artistic bullshit to date, finds a way to blame Obama for it.  Rand Paul, the voice of (something approaching) sanity among Republicans, Tweets that Nuge should apologize for the 'subhuman mongrel' comments.

Meanwhile, Abbott "flees" reporters.  (The CNN video of the fleeing appeared yesterday here.)

How is your weekend shaping up?

It's Ted Nugent's party, we just have to live with it

-- That's the headline at this Texas Observer piece written by Christopher Hooks, their new add.

Now, no one’s begrudging Nugent’s right to be an immoral, hateful asshole. Plenty of great artists are assholes. But you won’t see Woody Allen stumping for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and you won’t see R. Kelly posing with California’s Jerry Brown. It’s amazing that so many Texas GOPers are willing to bear-hug Nugent. We’re a long way from the party of William F. Buckley.

Abbott’s team more or less copped to employing Nugent cynically—a senior aide told CNN they were “only bringing on the gun rights activist to help spur voter turnout among the base.” (How much Abbott really needs to juice turnout for a primary in which he’s basically unopposed is unclear.) But using Nugent this way communicates to “the base” that he’s a serious figure and should be taken seriously—it makes the Nugent problem worse. Nugent’s getting more from this than Abbott is. And if you’re hoping for the Republican Party in Texas to straighten out and ditch the stranglehold of the fringe, that’s a crying shame.

The Abbott/Nugent brotherhood continued to bleed out yesterday after Nuge twisted on CNN in the wake of Wolf Blitzer's shout-out.  And then Ted bagged a CNN appearance at the last minute because Erin Burnett is as badass as the Viet Cong he got sick.  Hope it wasn't the runs.

On a more serious note, look at this moment where CNN reporter Ed Lavandera engages Abbott.  You can watch it with your sound turned off.  I gotta say, that is one cocky mofo in that wheelchair.  He isn't remotely interested in what anybody thinks, and that includes Paul Burka.

It reveals Abbott, at the very least, as someone who doesn't have acute political judgment. Nugent is political dynamite. He can blow sky high at a moments' notice. And if Abbott truly believes that he needs Nugent to establish his 2nd Amendment credentials, as if they were in any doubt, then Abbott must believe that his own record doesn't speak for itself. You can't have it both ways. The likely next governor of Texas should be better than that.

I think Republicans should be worried. This is exactly the kind of brashness and bravado that turns voters off -- in particular women voters -- and it may drive some Republican voters out of their party. In my opinion, at least, Abbott and the Republicans are a lot closer to the precipice than most Republicans realize. Yes, Texas is still a red state. But even in Texas, there are limits to what you can say. Ted Nugent put his mark on Greg Abbott. That mark is going to be indelible.

Yeah well, we'll have to wait and see about that, Paul.  There are all kinds of Republicans, not just in Texas, that want to stay close to this shitstain with legs and brandishing a semiautomatic weapon.  The stench may linger into a third day if Dave Carney (Abbott's handler) can't get the muzzle on Nuge.

-- Extending the bad week for the TXGOP: Problemas grandes para Dan Patrick.  Another great headline, may I say, even if it comes from Breitbart Texas.

In a Dallas Morning News report, Miguel “Mike” Andrade, 48, of Missouri City, told (the newspaper) and Houston’s KTRK-TV that he, his cousin and two other men from Mexico worked at one of Patrick’s five sports bars that operated in the Houston area until 1986.

At that time, there were no penalties involved in hiring someone in this residing in the U.S. illegally according to the report.

Patrick's most serious headache here is that he was once hospitable to an immigrant, which is totally unacceptable in a Republican primary.

“He said Patrick was a compassionate employer. He said Patrick offered sympathy over their anguish at living so far from their loved ones and being constantly in fear of being deported.

“He was real, real, real kind with us … real good with the Hispanic community. He was really wishing (he had) some kind of power…to help us to work in this country and have a better life,” said Andrade, who recalled that he was hired at the West Houston sports bar in 1983 or 1984.

In fact Patrick was so kind that he made Andrade an unusual offer, so unusual that Andrade was instantly suspicious.

“He said (is there) anything I can do so you can go and see your mom (in Mexico)? I don’t want to see you suffer,” Andrade said.

Patrick then said, “I can go and bring you to here,” according to Andrade, who said he believed that meant Patrick could drive him to Houston past U.S. inland border checkpoints.

Andrade said he declined to make the trip, for fear he'd be caught and Patrick would get in trouble.

I believe that allegation qualifies Dan Patrick as a coyote.  Oy vey.

Have you cast your ballot yet, conservatives?  Are we experiencing any debilitating cognitive dissonance?  If so, you'll get a second chance to make it right in about two months, and if you're really feeling queasy about now, just hang on until November.  Nobody is yet convinced that this strain of stomach flu will last all the way into the fall.

Pants Crappers for Greg Abbott

-- There's not much for me to add after yesterday's media meltdown over Greg Abbott and his "blood brother", the child predator.  If the Abbott campaign can't fully comprehend what a fantabulous pooch-screwing they performed yesterday... well, I'm not going to remind them.  Let's move on.

-- I almost made this its own post: Texas Libertarian Candidate for Statewide Judicial Race Outpolls Democrat in Texas Bar Poll...

On February 14, the Texas Bar Association released a poll of its members, for the 2014 statewide partisan judicial races. Over one-eighth of all bar members participated in the poll. See this story, which has a link to the results.

For Court of Criminal Appeals, place 3, the Libertarian, Mark W. Bennett, outpolled the Democratic candidate, John Granberg. Bennett is well-known in Texas, partly because of his blog “Defending People”. He is a Houston criminal defense lawyer, who was also a Libertarian nominee in 2012 for a statewide judicial race. In his 2012 race, in which his only opponent was a Republican, Bennett polled 22.1% of the vote. His 2012 vote total, 1,331,364, was the highest number of votes ever received by any Libertarian nominee for any office.

The full results for the 2014 poll for Criminal Appeals, place 3, are: Republican Bert Richardson 2,166; Republican Barbara Walther 2,115; Bennett 2,083; Democrat John Granberg 1,802.

Libertarians and Greens also did well in the poll in some other judicial races. For Criminal Appeals, place 4, a race with no Democrat, the Libertarian, Quanah Parker, received 23.39% and the Green, Judith Mills Sanders-Castro, got 16.06%. For Criminal Appeals, place 9, another race with no Democrat, the Libertarian, William Bryan Strange III, got 23.02% and the Green, George Joseph Altgelt, got 19.42%. In the race for Supreme Court, place 7, a race with a Democrat and a Republican, the Libertarian, Don Fulton, got 13.10% and the Green, Charles Edwin Waterbury, got 5.78%.

Repeat after me: no straight-ticket voting in 2014.

-- Egberto Willies, one of the real shining stars in H-Town's blogosphere, shares the insights of Houston Latino activist Ivan Sanchez, which is worth about a thousand times more than everything Marc Campos has ever said and done combined.  There's too much good stuff there for an excerpt to do justice, but here's a place to start before you go read the whole thing.

In 2014, we Hispanics: Mexicans, Colombians, Cubans, Ecuadoreans, Argentineans, Bolivians, Salvadorians, Peruvians, and every other Latino Country – make up 44% of Houston’s population. However, the countries we come from divide our united voice as each Latino from each country separates themselves into multiple segregated groups, therefore forming smaller separate percentages. Our cultures, soccer fanaticism, pride and other variables are separating and diminishing our united voice in the United States. Hispanics need to realize that no matter where we come from, here in the US, we all pledge to one flag. There is nothing wrong with preserving the culture, but we need to understand that we as individuals are nothing without each other. And as Houston is a melting pot of all ethnicities, I only hope all Hispanics melt together as well. My family already did.

-- Ten more reasons (nobody should need any more, but here you go anyway) why the Keystone XL pipeline needs to die (again). Number one:

1. There are no jobs on a dead planet.

-- Some people say that the end is near for Mucous.

Michael Quinn Sullivan, the political warlord who’s striven to purify and shape the Texas Republican Party in line with his particular vision, has managed to outfox a number of threats to his would-be empire in the last couple years. But increased scrutiny from the Texas Ethics Commission over charges of impropriety and the question of so-called “dark money,” the fuel that powers Sullivan’s political activity, presents the possibility that the state political Establishment he’s always railed against, and by extension state government itself, has finally found a way to weaken him.

Meh.  He's already lined up an afterlife at Breitbart Texas.

-- Mark Morford, on how to eat an Internet troll.  Short answer: Don't feed them; let them consume themselves.

Here’s something you surely already suspected but which is nevertheless sort of nice to have validated by science:

Internet trolls? Those nasty, scabrous, hate-spitting folk who spend their sunlight-deprived days taunting, baiting and venomizing all over the Interweb’s anonymous comments sections in response to, well, just about about any article, column, video, photo gallery, product review or heartfelt tale of love and woe from the here to Gawker to Amazon, Car & Driver to Knitter’s World to the NYT, including but certainly not limited to the very Slate article which discusses the general cruelty and stupidity of trolls itself?

Turns out they really are awful people. Sociopathic, sadistic, narcissistic, cruel by nature, highly unpleasant to be around. They love to cause pain. They delight in ruining the beautiful. The more pure and integrity-filled something is, the more they enjoy corrupting it. So says a new psychology study. Also, they’re antisocial. Poor dressers. Ungainly. Hairy in all the wrong places. Smell like soggy asparagus and old toenails. I’m just guessing.

I actually do spend too much time watching these trainwrecks, and it's probably not good for my mental health.  So I am going to cut back a little on that.  After all, there are people who might mistake me for a troll, and I wouldn't want that...