Scattershooting Rand Paul, Rahm Emanuel, and other clay targets

It's as easy as Dick Cheney blasting a pigeon-load into that guy's face.

-- I wanted to save some Randy snark for today because everybody else in the world jumped on Ron Paul's boy yesterday.  Lindsey Graham -- excuse me, Senator Huckleberry J. Butchmeup -- got hot out of the gate on Sunday morning.

“The best (Iran nuclear) deal, I think, comes with a new president,” Graham said. “Hillary Clinton would do better. I think everybody on our side, except maybe Rand Paul, could do better.”

Ha.  Then the rest of the GOP hawks followed suit, running a million dollars' worth of television advertising as he was declaring, calling him a dove.  Or maybe a pussy.  NYT, via Crooks and Liars:

As Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is set to announce his presidential campaign on Tuesday, a television ad tethers him to President Obama’s policy on Iran as part of a $1 million advertising buy painting him as “dangerous.”

The ad is a 30-second spot that will run on broadcast networks and on Fox News this week in the first four early primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, according to a person familiar with the buy, who provided the spot. It is unusual for an outside group to try to swamp a candidate’s announcement day, but Mr. Paul has been viewed with deep concern by foreign policy hawks for his non-interventionist views. The ad is being run by a 501(c)4 group, the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, that doesn’t have to disclose its donors and is led by Rick Reed, a strategist involved in the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Their emphasis.  You gotta love it when they eat their own like this.

Libertarians said to stop calling Rand a libertarian.  FiveThirtyEight pointed out that he's losing his father's base (of racist wingnuts; they have many better options in 2016, after all).  Mark Halperin said -- in an apparent compliment, in context -- that Paul sounded like the "Peanuts mom" to the rest of the GOP. Wahwah wahwah wahwah.  At least he'll let me keep my dick pics.

Seriously though.  Which would you rather buy: a Rand Paul-autographed copy of the United States Constitution for a thousand bucks, or a cellphone case from Ready for Hillary that cannot be used for multiple devices for $20.16?

The choice is clear.  (Neither.)

Update: More hilarious misfires from AMERICAblog that include music copyright violations, Paul's "eductation" policy, use of stock photos to represent supporters, and reTweeting a picture of the Aurora, CO movie theater murderer, Photoshopped, holding  a "Stand with Rand" sign.

This is an even more epic online failure than Ted Cruz's rollout.

-- Score another win for the Evil Empire, as Rahmbo turns back Chuy Garcia in Chi-town.

With nearly all voting precincts reporting results, Emanuel had about 56 percent of the vote compared to around 44 percent for Garcia.

[...]

Many of those heading to the polls Tuesday said the election should be a signal.

"Hopefully he (Emanuel) takes heed of the runoff when he should have been a shoo-in," said Richard Rowe, a 50-year-old, who planned to vote for the incumbent.

Jesus Fernandez, a 44-year-old window washer who voted for Garcia, had the same view.

"If he (Garcia) gets close, we might push Rahm to do something," Fernandez said. "At least we push him a little bit."

Yeahno.

"The mayor is who he is," said Paul Green, political science professor with Roosevelt University. "I think he's sincere when he says he'll listen more, but I don't think it will change much."

Political consultant Don Rose, a Garcia adviser, said Emanuel is both the "ultimate pragmatist" and the "ultimate egotist," so it is tough to say what lessons he will take from the election. One change Emanuel will need to make is his reputation as anti-union, Rose said.

Good luck with the hope for change, Chicago.

-- Speaking of cannibalization, Shell is swallowing BG for $69 billion, and there's more devouring of each other by Big Oil in the pipeline.

I'm sure someone will tell us this is a good thing.

-- Speaking of dick pics, good old Uncle Sam has been wiretapping Americans without a warrant since at least 1992.

The U.S. government was tracking the international phone calls of Americans nearly a decade before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, USA Today reported, citing current and former officials involved with the operation. The report said the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed logs of virtually all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries linked to drug trafficking. The now-discontinued operation was the government's first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, the report added.

Why was it discontinued, pray tell?

The program, run by the (DOJ and DEA), was halted by Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013 amid the fallout from revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about NSA data collection, the paper reported.

Another thing I am grateful to Snowden for.  That makes at least five, counting these four.

Where to from here?

There are some larger questions at stake but let's start with this, yesterday at the Capitol.

During a debate over the repeal of the so-called Texas DREAM Act, Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) said in-state tuition at Texas colleges and universities acts as a magnet for undocumented immigrants.

“[The Texas DREAM Act] is bad policy that rewards illegal immigration in perpetuity,” Campbell said as she laid out Senate Bill 1819, which would shut down the program.

Several experts who testified against the bill, including Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes, disagreed.

“We have absolutely no evidence that in-state tuition acts a magnet for undocumented immigrants,” Paredes said.

The act, passed in 2001, allows undocumented students who graduate from Texas high schools and who have been in the state at least three years to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

Sen. Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso) said that Campbell’s bill unfairly punishes hard-working students who were brought to Texas as children and will have negative economic consequences for the state.

“Our economic future depends on educating these young people,” Rodriguez said while observing the hearing from the dais.

[...]

“There is not one single shred of evidence that suggests that DREAMers are a threat to the border or to Texas,” Rodriguez said. “I think this sends an inaccurate message about these students.”

Dozens of those students, many wearing graduation caps and gowns, waited hours to testify against Campbell’s bill.

Blanca Leyva, a sophomore at Texas A&M University, testified that she has been in the country for more than 14 years and graduated from her Dallas high school as valedictorian. She said she wouldn’t be able to attend college if not for the DREAM Act.

“As DREAMers we simply want to be successful. We want a better life. I want a better life,” Leyva said.

Elections do have consequences.  When people who want better public schools (so that ignorant people like Donna Campbell aren't elected) don't vote, this is one of them.

If DREAMers lose their affordable tuition, would they mobilize, organize, turn out their families to cast a ballot?  In every election, not just in the presidential ones?  I don't think it's appropriate to make excuses on their behalf when they don't.  But this is a small point in a larger one: what more, better, or different should Democrats do to get people who are suffering (or are going to suffer) to vote for them?  And not just the people who very recently voted for them, but don't any more?

My recent experience -- in my precinct, face to face, door to door -- tells me people who were once engaged simply aren't any longer.  They have 'consciously uncoupled' (thanks, Gwyneth).  When a middle-aged white woman with a Democratic primary voting history tells you she doesn't see the point in voting, and you ask why, and she shakes her head and closes the door...

How hard should someone try to change the mind of a person who thinks like that?  How much should somebody like Steve Mostyn spend in order to get people of that mindset to vote?

How bad does it have to get before some folks decide, "this is as bad as we can stand"?

At some (low) point-- irrespective of skin pigmentation or the lack thereof, mind you -- people are going to have to figure out the importance of voting on their own time, and on their own dime.  I get the feeling that another low point is going to come on the evening of the first Tuesday in November, 2016.  Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton is going to set more drought records.  We're in for another shriveled, withered voter turnout, and maybe one like we've never seen.  No bets taken yet on the outcome, but as H.L. Mencken said, you won't go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Of the many reasons, nefarious or otherwise, plain old stupid may be the best explanation why Jeb Bush registered to vote as an Hispanic.

The Republicans win not because they raise and spend more money, but because they have carefully cultivated an ignorant, apathetic citizen.  Those cuts in education have a purpose, folks.  They're not just hard-hearted (but that's a helpful pre-requisite).  DREAMers were at the Capitol yesterday begging  Donna Campbell, et. al. not to cut off their path out of poverty.

"When people think, we win." -- some former president.

And when people vote only because they are motivated by fear or greed, you get more Republicans voting.  Bernie Sanders had a great reframing of this dilemma in his chat with Evan Smith last week: "If you knew that the Republicans want to cut Medicare, Social Security, start a war and then abandon veterans after they get home... would you vote for that?"

(Scroll down a bit here for the tapas; go here for the full hour, half one-on-one, half audience Q&A).

Some variation of that is what I should have said to that lady before she closed her door.

The Democrats don't need to raise more money or hire more advisers; they just need to talk about what people should really be afraid of.  They need a small handful, two or three is enough, of people in every precinct going door to door -- every single door, and NOT a predetermined walk list from a Democratic voter database -- and ask people a question like that.  (Keep in mind that one of the fallacies of trying to recapture lost voters is that there is some number, significant or not, of Texas kinda-sorta Democrats voting in the GOP primary because they think that's the only way their vote makes a difference.) 

And any focus that may require extra application needs to be on younger people, irrespective of the color of their skin.  This effort requires no consultants, no polling, and no advertising.  Just volunteers who are willing to try to save the world, as they say.  And willing to have doors slammed in their faces, threatened with guns, and dogs and the heat and get up and do it again next weekend.

Good luck, Democrats.  The future of democracy, our nation -- hell, the entire planet -- depends on your improvement in this regard.

Update: McBlogger has a similar-yet-different take.

The Weekly Wrangle

With Easter eggs collected, baskets and fake plastic grass all put up, and stuffed bunnies and lawn crosses ready to be stowed away, the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that our state can learn the lesson of the Indiana debacle.

Here's the round-up of lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff compared Greg Abbott's performance in heavily Latino districts to that of Rick Perry in 2010.

Libby Shaw, writing for Texas Kaos and contributing to Daily Kos, is absolutely stunned to learn Texas elected a crook as its top cop. Not. The Texas attorney general is an "admitted law breaker".

Socratic Gadfly wrote about the DPS' stupid disciplining of trooper Billy Spears.

Nonsequiteuse explains to Rep. Stuart Spitzer -- the Kaufman Republican who bragged about his sexual history on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives during debate on a budget amendment -- that virginity and abstinence aren't the same thing, and neither will protect a person from all methods of HIV transmission.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston has the rewrite of Greg Abbott's press release on Indiana's RFRA.

Bluedaze noted that Rep. Drew Darby and the authors of HB 140, the bill intended to allow the state to overrule city ordinances regulating fracking, told an inconvenient truth.

Dos Centavos commends Durrel Douglas, a candidate for Houston city council who opposes SB185 (the "show us your papers" bill in the Texas Lege) and has urged Council's involvement.  That's well ahead of any mayoral candidate to date.

A conversation between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon from 2013 provides a clue as to what's wrong with everything, according to PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value said look at things you see in everyday life because they are interesting, and use as few words as you can. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

Grits for Breakfast rounds up news stories about the failure of the latest "border surge".

Unfair Park watched the Dallas mayoral debate, and observed that voters seem to be hip to the Trinity Toll Road con.

Better Texas Blog explains how lower oil prices would affect the state's finances.

Texas Vox calls for strengthening the Texas state senate bill aimed at combating government corruption.

The Quintessential Curmudgeon called out the Amarillo Globe News for its hypocrisy.

Carol Morgan blogged about "potty parity" and other useless bills at the Lege.

Joe Cutbirth wants Texas to stand tall for equality.

Elizabeth Rose saw the signs of discrimination in the Deep South as a child, and she sees them today in Indiana.

RG Ratcliffe rounds up a week of Texas political scandal.

And Houston Matters, in today's radio program, will discuss changing attitudes about football and East Texas church arsons.