One hundred fifty, one hundred, and fifty years ago today

-- Sesquicentennial: The War between the States ended.

Lee and Grant, both holding the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican War and exchanged awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant arrived in his muddy field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword. Lee asked for the terms, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. All officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property – most important, the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee’s starving men would be given Union rations.

Shushing a band that had begun to play in celebration, General Grant told his officers, “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.” Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks, for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.

Yes, about that 'scattered resistance'.  It continues to this day.

(T)he Sons of Confederate Veterans are now nearing completion on a monument to their ancestors just off I-10, just this side of the Sabine and the Louisiana border.
 
Situated at the corner of I-10 and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, “The Confederate Memorial of the Wind” will feature a walkway lined by the Confederate battle flag and those of several dozen (the count varies in every article) Texas regiments leading up to a circular monument composed of 13 columns honoring each of the Confederate states.

Around the time the project got underway two years ago, Granvel Block, an Orange resident and the SCV’s Texas statewide commander, rejected the idea, often espoused by the NAACP, that Confederate symbols are hateful relics of white supremacy and slavery.

Block said the group wants to preserve history. He said some people, white and black, do not like the Confederate battle flag design because they don’t understand the history. “So many things (about the Confederacy) have been taught wrong or with a poor skew,” he said. As examples, he said the Civil War was not fought over slavery and that slaves were owned in the north, not exclusively in the south. He said individual state governments were sovereign and that “our states were invaded by northern troops.”

Right.  Not about slavery.  Despite what the secession statements of Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas actually say.  Despite what the vice-president of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, said.  Tip of the hat, Grant-to-Lee-style, to Infidel for the links, and for this.

That was the Confederate cause: slavery and explicit racism drenched in self- righteous Bible-thumping.  It's no wonder certain elements today feel nostalgic for it.

Related: Gadfly, on why we need an Appomattox (or a "You lost, traitors") Day.

-- Centenary (plus two days): The birth of Billie Holiday.

She wore white gardenias in her black hair and sang about the scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh.

Billie Holiday, born 100 years ago Tuesday, is being remembered as a timeless American jazz singer who risked her career to record a song with a civil-rights message that resonates still today.

In 1938, Holiday became the first Black woman to work with a White orchestra. One year later, her label, Columbia Records, would refuse her request to record "Strange Fruit," a song about the lynching of a black man.



Major record labels feared losing sales in the South. Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit" with Commodore Records, recognized as America's first independent jazz record label.

[...]

Time Magazine called Holiday's haunting ballad the song of the century. It has sold millions of copies.

The late jazz writer Leonard Feather called "Strange Fruit," "the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism."

-- Golden anniversary: The opening of the Astrodome.

They're throwing a party for her tonight, and I'll be there.

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.

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

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.

Sunday Funnies, Denial of Service edition

Scattershooting contempt

-- The Texas Lege and its budget debate has been just a little too much for me to endure.  Charles has posted and aggregated in full, so if you want to get today's revulsion out of the way early, he's there for you.  Of particular disgust would be the account in the TexTrib regarding the exchange between state Rep. Stuart Spitzer and everybody else, as the Texas House discussed whether his amendment to move $3 million in funding for HIV and STD prevention programs to abstinence-only education was a good idea.  It passed 97-37, which is practically a party-line vote, so that must mean the answer is 'yes' if you're Republican and 'no' if you're a Democrat.

Oh, and RG Ratcliffe has some biography of Dr./Deacon Spitzer.  Yes, he's a surgeon.

The theocracy is strong with this one.  Everybody understood on the night of the first Tuesday of last November that things were going to be just as bad as you could imagine, and Stuart Spitzer is even more terrible than that.  This is "why waste my beautiful mind" territory, and yes, it can get worse.  There's two more months of this legislative session to go.  They're just getting warmed up.

Update: nonsequiteuse makes up for the contempt I can't bear.

-- Much like the Israeli-Palestinian question, I have deferred picking a side in the GMO debate.  My buddy Gadfly thinks it's Luddism to deny or condemn the science -- so does Neil deGrasse Tyson -- but then I read about Monsanto's "discredit bureau", and ask myself why a company producing a safe product would need a such a thing, or have a team of social media activists countering negative GMO data online, or prefer that people eating that food not have it labeled as such.  All of which may suggest the reason the company needs so many lobbyists... even a former lobbyist named Hillary Clinton.

It reminds me of the way the Texas Commission on (Reducing) Environmental Quality is designed to operate.  It's not just Monsanto, of course; Nestle' does this too.  And many other conglomerated food companies, which also are growing larger themselves.

There's a not-insignificant body of evidence that suggests there's a better way.  I wonder if NDG might address some of those specifics.

So since it's all about profit and capitalism anyway, my free market principle is that an apple that won't turn brown might be a wonderful thing, I'm just not willing to pay more for it.  On the other hand, since they're already charging me more for an organic one...

-- What if oil doesn't make a comeback?  This has greater ramifications than just Texas Comptroller Jethro Bodine's tit in a wringer.  The author of that piece concludes with the answer "unlikely" to the question proposed.   So does this analyst.  So does Boone Pickens.  The consensus among the bulls seems to be 70-80 dollar oil by the end of the year, and maybe even this quarter.

For Houston and Texas' sake, they had better be right.

What's wrong with everything

Elizabeth Warren versus Jaime Dimon, from 2013.

A meeting between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jamie Dimon deteriorated almost immediately after the JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO visited the recently elected senator and consumer advocate at her Capitol Hill office in 2013.

In a new afterword for the release of the paperback version of her book A Fighting Chance, Warren recalls that the tenor of the conversation between the two policy adversaries soured when Dimon complained about financial regulations that she has supported:

When the conversation turned to financial regulation and Dimon began complaining about all the burdensome rules his bank had to follow, I finally interrupted. I was polite, but definite. No, I didn’t think the biggest banks were overregulated. In fact, I couldn’t believe he was complaining about regulatory constraints less than a year after his bank had lost billions in the infamous London Whale high-risk trading episode. I said I thought the banks were still taking on too much risk and that they seemed to believe the taxpayers would bail them out -- again -- if something went wrong.

Our exchange heated up quickly. By the time we got to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we weren’t quite shouting, but we were definitely raising our voices. At this point -- early in 2013 -- Rich Cordray was still serving as director of the consumer agency under a recess appointment; he hadn’t yet been confirmed by the Senate, which meant that the agency was vulnerable to legal challenges over its work. Dimon told me what he thought it would take to get Congress to confirm a director, terms that included gutting the agency’s power to regulate banks like his. By this point I was furious. Dodd-Frank had created default provisions that would automatically go into effect if there was no confirmed director, and his bank was almost certainly not in compliance with the those rules. I told him that if that happened, “I think you guys are breaking the law.”

Suddenly Dimon got quiet. He leaned back and slowly smiled. “So hit me with a fine. We can afford it.”

As Warren noted in a 2014 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Dimon was proved correct: Though his bank was forced to pay $20 billion in fines, he still received a significant raise at the end of 2013.

Now, banks like JPMorgan are directing their anger toward Warren, threatening to withhold campaign donations to her fellow Senate Democrats in protest of her advocacy for Wall Street accountability and greater oversight and regulation of financial services institutions.

Bing, bam, and boom.

I would expect that Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority majority leader, is going to have to rein Warren in or knuckle under to Dimon -- or both -- sooner than later.  In a different world (hell, even in a different country) things could, and did, go... differently.

Prosecute bankers?!  ShockedIsay.  Would politicians actually go after lobbyists who bribe them?  And not with fines but with handcuffs?  Not even with slaps on the wrist in the Texas Legislature, as we already know, but -- God forbid -- in Congress?

The banks' confidence in their ability to get away with something that smells like bribery is such that they appear to have telegraphed their quid pro quo offer to a major wire service. But even that understates how broken our system has become. Washington pundits are preoccupied with the question of whether the banks' threat to withhold contributions will impact the pending presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. No one seems to wonder whether it's a problem if the banks, as they appear to, have bought the system.

Our system has become so broken that those participating in it can ignore corruption when it is staring them right in the face. Or worse, they are just waiting to profit from it themselves.

Get. The Money. Out. Of The System.

At Easter season, during Holy Week, as Passover seders are scheduled... even an atheist knows that Jesus said, "Love one another..." and still beat bankers with a whip.

And just like that...

Another pretender to the GOP throne and his budding presidential aspirations explode on the launching pad.

Hoosier daddy now, Governor?

There was this article in the WaPo that said there were well over two dozen other states with similar legislation that nobody was protesting.  And then this other article that said, no, Indiana's isn't like those other state laws at all.

Thanks, Jeff Bezos!

We know these things are incubated here in the Lone Star State and then exported around the country like frozen chicken or beef or even antibiotic-resistant bacteria -- which, come to think, has far too many similarities to extreme conservatism.  But that's a digression.

Texas has no paternity claims to bigotry.  This is simply the latest chapter in America's long, unvarnished, let's-not-talk-about-that history.

We have to get through this stage in order to arrive at a place of greater, more widespread tolerance of others.  History has also shown us that some people are determined to be left behind in terms of evolution and progress.  My brother Neil is at a higher plane of self-actualization than me; I don't believe those folks have much value at all.

Update: And just like *snap* that... Pence backpedals.  Can it happen in Houston -- protests, backlash, and capitulation by the haters -- with the ERO?  We can only hope.

Spring is Springing Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks even Ted Cruz deserves affordable health insurance as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff hears the death rattle of the anti-gay forces.

Harold Cook explains how the "school choice" scam works.

Horwitz at Texpatriate makes an early pick and endorses Sylvester Turner for mayor of Houston.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos and contributing to Daily Kos is pleased to see the H-Town's daily newspaper called out Ted Cruz for being all about Ted, in The Houston Chronicle spanks Ted Cruz.

Houston's LyondellBasell refinery's management turned off an advance warning system near the front gates of the plant, where striking USW workers walk the picket line. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs says that if this is how they demonstrate their concerns for worker safety, it's no wonder they won't end a work stoppage despite the national settlement.

Neil at All People Have Value said you should make an effort with the people in your life as part of a complete outlook on life. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson: Bad things happen when a bunch of government haters try to run the government like a business. This is what happens when we turn government over to corporations.

Bluedaze logged all the Texas (and Oklahoma) frackquakes this past week.

Dos Centavos attended the Cesar Chavez parade in Houston's East End and posted several pictures from  the rally.

Bay Area Houston offers a guide to the Texas legislators who are stealing campaign donations and taxpayer money.

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

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

Nonsequiteuse analyzes Ted Cruz's font and logo choices.

Paradise in Hell examines the Supreme Court arguments about specialty license plates sporting the Confederate Battle Flag.

Grits for Breakfast hopes the state loses that specialty license plate case, though not for the same reason as the plaintiffs.

Socratic Gadfly updates on the developments surrounding oil prices, and takes another poke at Comptroller Glenn Hegar.

HOUequality provided the latest update on the HERO petitions trial, noting that it comes down to 8,500 signatures that the judge has ruled illegible.

Purple City thinks the legislative attempt to kill the private high speed rail line may not amount to much.

Better Texas Blog gamely stumps for Medicaid expansion.

The Texas Election Law Blog explains what recent SCOTUS decisions on voter ID and redistricting have to do with pending litigation over those issues here.

Raise Your Hand Texas testified against the voucher bills in the Senate.

And Fascist Dyke Motors has the second part of a family mystery, involving a talking tree and Charles Bronson.

Sunday Funnies

Which do they despise more -- the gays or public schools?

It's sometimes hard for me to tell, but events this week did clarify things somewhat.  From Austin yesterday, under the headline "Open Season on Public Schools During Voucher Debate":

Like an obstinate weed that just won’t die, the debate over school vouchers returned to the Capitol for the 11th straight legislative session on Thursday.

With former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm and GOP mega-donor James Leininger on hand to testify in front of dozens of adamant voucher supporters, the hearing took on a carnival-like atmosphere at times.

Some voucher advocates, including Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels), used Thursday’s hearing on a pair of school voucher bills to rail about the state of public schools.

“Today we have a monstrosity, a monopoly,” Campbell said. “It’s called public school.”

Not quite as goofy as Debbie Riddle's "pit of hell" remarks a few years ago, but the supply of conservative shrieking hyperbole is getting used up, after all.  Even Texas Freedom Network gets hate mail from these kinds of Christians.  There's some pushback, thankfully...

Pastor Kyle Henderson of First Baptist Church in Athens testified that voucher proponent’s attacks on public schools and teachers bothered him.

“I am stunned by the disdain expressed to public school teachers in this room,” Henderson said.

Joanna Sanchez, University of Texas education policy researcher and policy fellow for Rep. Mary Gonzalez (D-Clint), says that studies on vouchers and student outcomes don’t suggest they can improve student achievement on a large scale.

“The empirical evidence shows that vouchers lead to increased sorting of students by socioeconomic status, and does not support the claim that vouchers help disadvantaged children” Sanchez told the Observer.

Sen. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston) voiced perhaps the most vehement opposition to the bills.

“Isn’t this just a money grab by non-public schools?” Garca asked.

Carol Morgan called the proceedings "nine hours of the good, the bad, and the ugly".

But the assault on public education still pales in comparison to the full court press against all things LGBT.  There are some ups and downs as always; Ken Paxton went federal judge shopping and found another bargain, while Rep. Cecil Bell's legislation to penalize local officials for issuing marriage licenses might get gutted by the invisible hand of the free market.  The most significant developments, however, came not from Texas but out of Indiana.  For the summary, Mahablog.

(Yesterday) Indiana governor Mike Pence signed a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” into law that allows “any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.” It’s understood that the purpose of this is to give homophobe business owners license to discriminate against LGBT customers.

The Indianapolis-based Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had already told Pence that if he signed the bill, the Disciples would cancel their next convention in Indianapolis and find another city.

Indianapolis is hosting the men's college basketball Final Four weekend after this one, and the NCAA did not pump-fake its response.

"The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events," NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement issued immediately after Pence signed the law. "We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.

"We will work diligently to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending, next week's Men's Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill,” the statement continued. “Moving forward, we intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce."

Translation: no more Final Fours in Indy after next weekend.  Boom and thud.

Salesforce Marketing Group, Eli Lilly (headquarters in Indianapolis), and the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce also have expressed opposition to the bill.

Yeah.  About Salesforce.

Here’s what their CEO stated: “Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination. We are forced to dramatically reduce our investment in IN based on our employee’s & customer’s outrage over the Religious Freedom Bill.”

Salesforce is only a $4bn company, but it is an up-and-coming heavyweight in the tech industry. Having such a high-profile announcement from such a powerful player so quickly was a big surprise. Even if no one else openly joins them, their absence from trade shows, user groups and other activities is going to reverberate, creating pressure on other companies and hurting Indiana businesses.

Flanked by powerhouse Chicago on one side and the booming tech center of Columbus on the other, Indiana is a state that already struggles to compete in this lucrative, well-paid field. It is difficult to develop and retain technical talent and well-paid jobs there in the wake of a collapsed manufacturing base. Becoming a pioneer in discrimination is unlikely to help.

This is a Republican saying these things.

There seems to be a fundamental disconnect in Republican circles over the political value of gay-baiting. The environment changed very fast, and Republicans are not known for their speed of adaptation. Picking on gay people is no longer a winning political tactic. Even Jan Brewer recognizes this. Can we just accept this and move on?

As for the “religious exemptions,” you can’t possibly be serious. We’ve been here before. If the ability to persecute gay people is a central tenet of your religious faith, then your religious faith sucks. We all bear a Constitutional duty to preserve the basic rights of religions that suck, but only up to the point that your religion starts ruining other people’s lives. If you want to hold a job that serves the general public you will be expected not to act like an asshole, even if you think your religion commands it. Be an asshole in private where your right to be an asshole remains sacred.

Once more from the sportswriter Dan Wetzel at Yahoo.

The tide has turned. The young and more enlightened are rising up, which is why laws like this won't last 10 years; maybe not even five. This is the last gasp of open discrimination.

Soon enough everyone supporting these ideals of discrimination will be incredibly humiliated they ever did so, the way old timers hang their heads when asked about how they thought a segregated lunch counter for third graders was a just idea. Most will pretend they didn't agree with it in the first place. Shame will cause everyone to run from it.

 [...]

Mike Pence isn't even a creative, trend-setting bigot. He's just a dense follower. Indiana is the 20th state with some kind of similar law – the kind that would never be allowed against any other group of humans. It's long past time they answer for it too.

This is the era where civil rights victories for gays and lesbians are sweeping the country; next month, the Supreme Court will consider whether to make legalized gay marriage the law of the land.

So use the momentum to right past wrongs. Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois, Alabama, wherever else you want to do this, it's true the rest of America may not be able to change the law – time and young people will do that for you.

National organizations such as the NCAA and NFL sure can say that if you're not willing to do business with all of our customers, then we'll go and do business where they will.

After all, the best counter to these religious freedom measures has come from an Oklahoma representative named Emily Virgin.

She introduced an amendment in her state that would require a business that will refuses service to certain individuals to "post notice of such refusal in a manner clearly visible to the public in all places of business, including websites. The notice may refer to the person's religious beliefs, but shall state specifically which couples the business does not serve by referring to a refusal based upon sexual orientation, gender identity or race."

Essentially, it tells everyone your intentions, who you are and what you are about. That way the gay couple looking for a florist knows not to go inside … and the rest of the public who think you're an idiot can go find another florist, too.

Then the religious freedom florist will cling to a dwindling customer base until it goes out of business.

 The invisible hand of the free market just got a little more visible.

Where Ted Cruz (and his logo) really comes from

Seriously though, his icon looks really familiar.

It's most likely just a shoutout to the "world is on fire" religious fundamentalists.  The WaPo noted that it appears to be Pentecostal in origin.

Truth to tell, Ted Cruz isn't a candidate.  He's a strategy.

Whether he (and the entire Republican party, for that matter) is doing so intentionally or not, constantly forcing the political discourse to the farthest right makes a small compromise -- like a Scott Walker or a Jeb Bush -- look moderate by comparison.  Thus Ted Cruz enables his competitors to point at him and say, "See? At least I'm not THAT crazy."

Take the most extreme conservative position on an issue, move over half a step, call your new position 'centrist'.  It might be an accident... but it seems like the plan.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, their world really is on fire.

To paraphrase Def Leppard: Armageddon it yet?