'Absurd' debate, NDO cruising, grand juries and LEO shooting sims

-- Nothing to add to this account of the pie fight between David Dewhurst and Dan Patrick yesterday:

The Texas Lieutenant Governor's Race is Now an Absurdist Experiment in Bitterness.

Chris Hooks at the Observer described it as the nastiest debate yet, in a series of notable embarrassments for the state of Texas.  And yet Democrats will publicly declare that they are crossing over in the runoff to vote for the least worst choice.  That is the purest example of battered spouse syndrome that you will ever find.

-- Houston's non-discrimination ordinance is fait accompli next week.  I had a lengthy discussion  (15-20 minutes' worth) with Council Member Kubosh this week on the issue and also Uber and Lyft.  He seems to be enjoying his job and taking it seriously.  As Charles notes, he engages, listens, doesn't seek points of contention.  That's the best you can expect from your government's representatives, and I would say easily half of them don't meet that low standard.  As for Kubosh, I like the guy even when we disagree.  That makes one hell of a good impression.

-- Socratic Gadfly has an excellent post about Harris County's effort to influence grand jurors by running them through a police officer "shooting simulator".

(T)he degree to which the DA's office (in Harris County) is going to try to get police officers no-billed when they're facing charges related to shooting civilians is reaching national scrutiny level.

It's utter horseshit for this to be happening, especially in the wake of numerous incidents like this and this and this.

Houston police fired their guns at civilians more than 100 times in the last five years, resulting in numerous injuries and deaths, but never in charges against the officers.

From 2008 to 2012, officers shot 121 people, 52 of them fatally.

This Grits post, at the bottom also.

(E)ven a conservative Republican judge questioned Harris County grand juries' lack of action on questionable Houston PD shootings. “The big void on indictments of police officers is certainly alarming, and I just hope each grand jury had decided those cases based on the facts independently of what the district attorney wants them to do,' said 209th District Judge Mike McSpadden.” Remarkably, "The newspaper’s investigation showed that more than a quarter of the 121 civilians Houston Police Department officers have shot in the last five years were unarmed." 

It's not just in Houston, as everyone knows.  And those are just the people that are dead as a result of these trigger-happy cops.  Never mind the family pets.

There's a solution to this problem.

Grand jury nullification, at least in Harris County, Texas. If you're a good liberal, and you're picked to serve on a grand jury, vote to true bill any cop brought before the grand jury. Don't get sentimental.

And, let's do this not just for these cop cases. Given that the US is the only country in the world that still uses the grand jury system, and even here, half the states (probably not "red") have abandoned it, we probably need grand jury nullification until the rest of the states, including (Texas), drop it.

And, actually, it's not "nullification." It's a "runaway grand jury," and Tea Party wet dreams aside, it gets at the roots of what grand juries did 250 years ago; in New England, they connected to the traditional town meeting and its oversight ideas. That said, the idea of a modern runaway grand jury in a state like Texas would be scary, precisely because Tea Party wet dreams can't easily be set aside.

Yeah, runaway grand juries.  My family has some experience with those.

At least Texas requires a three-quarters vote. At the federal level, and in some other states, it's still a bare majority.

In states with elected DAs, my personal thought is that, especially in smaller counties, grand jury work lets incumbent DAs show they're "tough on crime," too. As a second angle, it's used to argue tough cases in court, as in the DA saying, "A Harris County grand jury indicted Mr. Abbott (no resemblance to Greg Abbott or any other living persona named Abbott) on these three charges." So, they must be guilty is the implication.

If you want to prosecute someone, then do it. And defend it. If you want to not prosecute someone, then do that. And defend it, too.

Until we reach that day, though, grand juries, in states that still use them, need to stop being rubber stamps for DAs. No bill a few more ham sandwiches. And, in the case of cops, true bill a few more Reubens.

I've only been asked once to serve on a grand jury, and I did not make the cut.  I wonder if I'll ever get asked again now after this post gets circulated among the local law community.

Denton, Texas will go for fracking ban

They got nearly as many petition signatures as there were votes cast in the most recent municipal election in this north Texas city.

Denton’s Drilling Awareness Group (DAG) will formally file its petition with the city secretary this afternoon. The petition has 1,871 signatures, though just 596 (25 percent of the last election’s 2,385 votes) were enough.

“A lot of the work really begins now to make sure we turn out people to the polls,” DAG Vice President Adam Briggle said.

The City Secretary has 20 days to verify that the signatures on the petition are registered Denton voters, after which it will move on to the City Council. Denton’s City Council must then vote on the initiative within 60 days, and can pass the initiative directly into law.


If the council fails to pass the initiative, or passes it in a different form than what the petition lists, it will instead move to the ballot box in November.

The mayor and council are opposed.

However, despite the City Council voting late last night to extend a moratorium on new drilling permits through September, the DAG doesn’t expect the council to pass the initiative, which means it would be up for a vote in the election in November. The Mayor of Denton, Mark Burroughs, has said he thinks the fracking ban being proposed is illegal.

“If it does pass, the city has to follow it,” Burroughs told StateImpact Texas in April. “We could be bound to enforce an illegal act, which throws into a whole panoply of open issues…. We as a city would be bound to defend it, whether we believed it was illegal or not. So it’s a real open, difficult series of issues.”

“I think that City Council doesn’t particularly like this, for the most part,” Briggle said. “There’s a big difference between what they did and what we’re proposing. They’re talking about a temporary moratorium on new permits, which really isn’t the issue at all. Everything that’s going to happen in Denton is going to be on existing permits. So if we don’t attack that, we’re not attacking anything.”

If the petition passes, either through the City Council vote or as a vote on November’s ballot, it could have a ripple effect throughout Texas.

I got the embargoed press release last night.  My old pal TXSharon at BlueDaze is the leading fracking insurgent in the country, and has been all over this development, start to (almost) finish.

Expect the Big Gas Mafia to start rolling out the heavy artillery now.

Antonin Scalia and Kesha Rogers might be related

They certanly have a lot in common.

-- First: What's wrong with Fat Tony?

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made what UC Berkeley law professor Dan Farber called “a cringeworthy error” last week: he got the meaning of an opinion he cited exactly backward. Worse still — the opinion he misread was his own. As Farber explained:

Scalia’s dissent also contains a hugely embarrassing mistake. He refers to the Court’s earlier decision in American Trucking as involving an effort by EPA to smuggle cost considerations into the statute. But that’s exactly backwards: it was industry that argued for cost considerations and EPA that resisted. This gaffe is doubly embarrassing because Scalia wrote the opinion in the case, so he should surely remember which side won! Either some law clerk made the mistake and Scalia failed to read his own dissent carefully enough, or he simply forgot the basics of the earlier case and his clerks failed to correct him. Either way, it’s a cringeworthy blunder.

There is a broader context for Scalia’s blunder, which has at least two troubling faces. First is the overall incoherence (one might even say mendacity) of Scalia’s judicial philosophy, as another leading conservative jurist, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, argued in a scathing 2012 book review of “Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts,” which Scalia co-authored with Bryan A. Garner.

Second is the bubbling over of that incoherence into intemperate behavior, such as recent remarks that could be construed as invitations to treason. (In one instance he told a student the income tax was constitutional, “but if it reaches a certain point, perhaps you should revolt.” Another instance seemed more like a sarcastic remark.)

Scalia is very likely suffering the early stages of dementia (what is more commonly called Alzheimer's disease, and used to be called senility).  I'm not  a doctor, of course, but I have witnessed the onset of the decline -- and had enough conversations with doctors enough times -- to recognize the initial symptoms when I see them.

It's not yet time for him to resign, but it is time to have a discussion about when an intervention might be necessary.  And as closer observation warrants, the time to intervene hastens.

Scalia is 78 years old (Justice Kennedy is 77; Justice Ginsberg, a rare 6-year survivor of pancreatic cancer, is 81).  SCOTUS justices do go on to productive lives if they retire from the Court.  Former Justice John Paul Stevens, 94, recently gave eloquent testimony to a Senate committee on campaign finance law.  So it's not a question of age as much as it is of cognitive ability.

Perhaps someone close to Scalia, in order to avoid further embarrassment, will talk him out of trying to outlast Obama's remaining two years -- or for that matter, cheerleading during an impeachment proceeding if/when the GOP takes the Senate in November.

-- Yes, I used the I-word.  It's not that far-fetched, my partisan Democratic friends.  Two words: Kesha Rogers.

Have you forgotten that she led the polling ahead of the primary election?  She barely made the runoff, so it's probably unlikely that she defeats the wealthy former Republican, David Alameel, later this month.  But it's worth noting that her fundraising has run more than double Dr. Alameel's.  I do not think, after having been nominated by Democratic voters in CD-22 twice, and with all of the free statewide and national media she has gotten, that there are a plurality of Democrats across the state who do not understand at least some of what she is all about.  Assuming your base voters are actually this ignorant is a stretch too far for me.

On the other hand, and as H. L. Mencken said, nobody ever went broke doing so.  Jim Hogan, the top Democrat in the race for Texas agriculture commissioner, has also noted (paraphrasing) that Democrats have a phone and a computer.  They might even use them frequently.

(Ugh. I just paired the wisdom of Jim Hogan with that of H. L. Mencken. I feel depressed now.)

Yet -- and you must for the moment overlook the fact that she would have to get elected in order to help bring an Obama impeachment trial to reality -- if she were on the November ballot, the Tea Party faction that opposed John Cornyn so strongly (well over a third of GOP primary voters just two months ago)  would have a rather humorous dilemma:

-- vote for Cornyn the RINO?

-- or vote for the black Democrat who wants to impeach Obama?

That is some serious cognitive dissonance for a conservative Republican.  But it also assumes they would be capable of such complex thought.  Let's not debate which of the two parties' core voters are more stupid, at least for the moment.

If you accept the premise that Democrats just don't know about Rogers or what she stands for, then what is the value of working so hard to motivate even lower-information non-voters to register and turn out?

This is not intended to be a criticism of Battleground Texas' monumental and worthy efforts.  I simply want to note some contradictions in logic.  Must Democrats do all the thinking for the vast majority of Texans who cannot be bothered to vote at all, much less in non-presidential years?

Some would say 'if they want to win, yes'.  I respect that.

It's certainly conceivable that so many Texans might be this ignorant.  It's also possible that they just don't care.  They don't vote because they don't care who wins, who rules, who makes the laws and the judicial appointments and rewards their supporters with ever more taxpayer money no matter how corrupt  it appears.  They might simply think there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans, or at least that there's not enough of a difference to make a difference.  The small number of voting Texans who don't vote for one of the two major parties, about 5% give or take, provide some reinforcement for this notion.  These Texans vote, but are not confident in the representation they have historically received from either the Democtatic or the Republican Party, AND believe that their vote -- no matter the outcome of the election -- still has meaning and impact.  That's a fairly high bar, intellectually speaking; many Texans who do vote think that a vote for a "third" party is a wasted one... even if they mostly disagree with the D or the R's candidate or platform.  This is "lesser of two evils" thinking, and is simply unsophisticated.  Update: Note Ross Ramsey's article today at the Texas Tribune: "Minor Parties Still Matter, Even If They Lose".

Certainly there are sheeple who vote who do no research into the candidates, who cast a straight ticket, or worst of all, outsource their thinking to a political action committee and carry a slate card with them to the poll.  My contention is that not all voters are this ignorant, and furthermore that a majority of non-voters are not this ignorant, either.

They could possibly be ignorant, or they might be too busy trying to put food on their families.  They might be too tired to think about politics, civic issues, etc., at the end of a 14 hour-day at two jobs. It might be all they can do just getting their children fed, loved a little, and then fall into bed exhausted in order to get up and do it again tomorrow.  And do that six or seven days a week, just to keep their heads above water.

It might also be possible that some of these Texans are smart enough to understand that Barack Obama -- and yes, even Wendy Davis -- aren't doing enough to help them better their lives or address the things they are concerned about.  That might be why they don't vote.

With that in mind, is David Alameel really that much different from Kesha Rogers to these Texans? 

No matter what Alameel says about himself or what others say about him, he is IMO the last of the Mohicans; an actual moderate Republican who has been pushed out of the GOP by their extremist factions.  He's also pro-life by deed: he serves on the board of a Catholic charity that contributes to a "crisis pregnancy center" in Dallas.  You know, the ones that counsel pregnant women to keep their babies.  That's not his only personal "liberal" hypocrisy, as we know.  His conversion from R to D comes just a few years after he wrote several large checks to both John Cornyn and Greg Abbott, not exactly the most moderate of Republicans (no matter what the Tea Party thinks).  And let's not ignore that Wendy Davis endorsed Alameel over a fine and qualified progressive candidate named Maxey Scherr in the primary.  Not because he was the best choice for Democrats, as Davis said, but because she needed him to write HER the big checks this year.

Texans were smart enough to figure that one out.

It might be that some Texans who didn't vote in the primary, aren't voting in the runoff, and won't be voting in November understand exactly what they are not voting for.  But like everybody else, from journalist to pundit to political scientist, I have no idea how many Texans like this that there are.

However large or small their number, these Texans -- Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, independents, and all of their potential voters, as well as all of the confirmed non-voters -- might not be all that stupid.  That's all I'm suggesting.

If you buy that, then you're left with the conclusion that something could be dysfunctional in our body politic.  Something might be wrong with our democracy.  It might not even be a democracy at all any longer, in point of fact.

Given that, it might be a little easier to understand why so many Texans -- so many Americans -- do not vote.  The real question is: with so many people passively or aggressively refusing to participate... what comes next?  If it's not democracy any more, but it's not quite oligarchy... what is it?

If one party is locked in to ruling Texas -- the same can be said of Democrats in California and the northeastern states -- and one party might be locked in to the US House of Representatives, and possibly even the White House as well, is it just going to be partisan gridlock for the foreseeable future?  Is what we have had for the past ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty years essentially the same thing we will continue to have for many years to come?  Is it any wonder, then, why the large majority of people are disillusioned by and uncoupled from the process?  And is that by design -- a form of top-down, oligarchic influence in and of itself?

How best to motivate those who are apathetic to a place where they care enough to participate.  The hardest of questions to answer.

Update: We could give "NOTA" -- none of the above -- a whirl.

As it stands, our system is great for the Democratic and Republican Parties, who happily maintain the fiction that all Americans can be served by our two enthusiastically pro-business parties. But it’s a system that’s pretty crappy for everyone else. Why can’t I say so with my vote?

Who's with me?!

Greg Abbott's Scandal O' Week, shared with Rick Perry

It's an old scandal, but as new details emerge, the boil continues to fester and ooze.  Wayne Slater, tying all the latest strings together.  (My emphasis below.)

A political group allied with Wendy Davis opened an attack Monday using cancer survivors to highlight allegations Republicans Greg Abbott and Rick Perry benefited from money designed for cancer research.

The Progress Texas political committee began airing an online video accusing the state leaders of complicity in the scandal. One cancer agency official has been indicted, the agency board has been replaced and a grand jury is investigating. Perry, who is considering another race for president, was instrumental in creation of the state cancer research agency. Agency grants have gone to political donors. As attorney general, Abbott was on the oversight board that failed to take action to avoid questionable grants, including at least one to an Abbott campaign donor.

After The Dallas Morning News first broke stories raising questions about funding problems, Abbott’s office announced it would investigate what went wrong at the Cancer Prevention and Research Fund. That announcement put Abbott in the position of investigating an agency over which his office already had oversight. That means the attorney general potentially is looking into the behavior of board members who are his campaign donors. Abbott says he sees no problems with these arrangements.

A grand jury investigation of Rick Perry is now under way for his threatening to withhold state funding for the Travis County District Attorney – while she was investigating activities at the cancer research fund. Perry has denied any wrongdoing.

More from Jonathan Tilove at the Statesman.

“When I found out the money had been misspent, at first I was angry, extremely angry. I mean, these are people’s lives. You go through anger, disbelief, shock, then you want to get even,” Becky Arreaga, an Austin business owner, says in the ad, in which she is joined by Austinites Kerry Tate, a homebuilder, and Berry Crowley, an attorney, and Pat Pangburn, a Dallas homemaker.

[...]

The gist of the attack on Abbott is that campaign donors were also investors in companies that received grants from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas — known as CPRIT — that had not been properly vetted, and that Abbott, who was part of the oversight board for the agency, turned a blind eye, not even attending the board meetings.

This is the same old cancer cronyism we've known about for a couple of years now.

In another time, place, or state, this would be a bombshell.  The presumptive governor-in-waiting would be forced to publicly address the accusations of corruption, and would be then held to account for his unethical conduct by the voters.  Of all political persuasions.

But this is Texas, and this is Rick Perry and Greg Abbott.  And they are Republicans.  And that's how Texas Republicans roll.  Abbott will go into hiding from the media for a week or two, while Perry will adjust his glasses, fly to Iowa with his state-paid Texas Rangers security team in tow (the tab is almost $3 million now), says "aw-shucks" and "second chances", and Republican primary voters will snort and say it's all just another liberal media conspiracy.

Facts cannot frack any understanding into their skulls.

We'd all like to think that it will be different this time around, but I'm not confident it will.

Update: Like cockroaches, built to last.

In the case of Perry and Abbott, it's as if both are trying to out-cockroach each other. Rick Perry's entire time in office has been one of bribery, slush-funds, under-the-table-payments for appointments and a million other gubernatorial transgressions. Maybe that's why he chose to be re-baptized recently. Nothing less than the Pacific Ocean will wash his political sins away.

And what of Greg Abbott? He wants to sacrifice four-year-olds to Pearson, the omnipotent gods of testing, but only for informational purposes. He hangs out with pedophiles and misogynists and worst of all, while he served as watchdog, on the Oversight Board of Cancer Research Institute, his donors' companies received $42 million of Texas' taxpayer money.

[...]

In spite of all the proof, the publicity, the news stories, and all the examples of backroom deals, illegal grant writing, and garden variety political theft, voters will continue their present state of passivity and continue to vote for the political profiteers based solely upon the single letter beside the candidate's name.