Free speech or hate speech?

I'm still kinda sorting all this out, so I'll ask you the questions I'm asking myself.

Maybe you haven't been following the latest in the Charlie Hebdo matter, what with the elections in Canada and the UK and all.  Here's an excerpt to catch you up.

Critics argue that Charlie Hebdo routinely engages in Islamophobia, and many Muslims take issue with its depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, which are considered blasphemous.

Defenders counter that Charlie Hebdo, a provocative left-wing publication, lampoons religious leaders and politicians of all stripes and has devoted more time to attacking conservative politicians who favor anti-immigration laws — such as the National Front — than Islam.

First question: are we all still "je suis Charlie"?

Closer to home: was Pam Geller yelling fire in a crowded theater when she sponsored her Muhammed cartoon contest?  (Let's look past her ridiculous and Orwellian "I'm saving lives" justification for what she says and does for the moment.)  Is it a good thing that she hires her own heavily armed security for these events -- you know, Second Amendment remedies for First Amendment provocations?  Less important question: Were the two single cells in the Garland, TX "terrist network" ready for jihad... or just martyrdom?

Update: Ted Cruz blames Obama, of course.

Most important question: do you really and truly feel like defending to your death the right for Geller, or Charlie Hebdo, or anybody else to keep on like this, under the current global socio-political circumstances?

Report.  Decide.  Ted Rall's opinion.

When exactly does free speech cross over the line to hate speech?  What is the proper reaction when it does?   (Obviously not shootings and bombings... but what?)  Certainly it's got to be okay to tell people to shut up.  That's free speech also, yes?  Or is that censorship?  If it's not OK to tell them to shut up, is it acceptable to ask them to tone it down a little?

Is this just an endless loop of point/counterpoint, as Nick Anderson shows?  (Don't skip the petulant complaints and baiting taunts from the very worst of Houston's conservatives in the comments.)

If you have the right to insult people to the point that they become so angrily deranged that they kill you -- religious excuses aside -- why is it wrong for others who don't want to be caught in the crossfire or maimed by the blast or the shrapnel to tell you to pipe down?

No answers here yet.  Still just asking the questions.  But a few more toons posted here on Sunday will further illustrate the quandary in which we we all find ourselves.

How much intolerance is tolerable?

Imagine a Green elected Texas governor

And you'll be able to relate to what happened in Alberta -- the Texas of Canada -- this week.

On Tuesday night, the near-unthinkable happened here in Canada when the New Democratic Party (NDP) stormed to a commanding majority in Alberta's provincial elections. To explain this in American terms: Imagine that Texas just overwhelmingly elected a legislature dominated by a left-wing party that opposes major oil pipeline projects; promises a core review of the obligations that oil and gas companies have to their communities; and favors fundamentally rethinking the tax structure toward large-scale redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Oh, and it's going to insist that climate change is real, man-made, and should bear on any policy that involves burning more hydrocarbons.

Even this comparison is tough, because Americans don't support a mainstream party as unabashedly left-wing as the NDP. (The Greens would be a decent analog. Or a breakaway party of Bernie Sanders acolytes.) Publicly NDP members say they're “social democrats,” but most of its members, like Canadians at large, use that term interchangeably with “socialist.” Alberta has traditionally been unyielding soil for the NDP. The province is defined by its vast fossil fuel reserves, comparable to Saudi Arabia in its oil underfoot. Once oil was discovered there in the 1940s, actual Texans rushed up to establish companies and, concomitantly, a pro-capital, pro-religion, pro-firearm style of politics that the rest of Canada regards as distinctly American. For 44 years before Tuesday night, a span of twelve straight elections, Alberta has been run by the Conservative Party, a decent analogue to the Republican Party. Before that was nearly 40 years of even more conservative rule under the Social Credit Party.

Kaboom (and that's not the sound of an exploding tar sands oil train, either).  This is what revolution at the ballot box looks like.

Still, to put what just happened Canada in context for you Yanks, imagine Bernie Sanders becoming Texas governor by a big majority.

— Doug Saunders (@DougSaunders) May 6, 2015

Honestly, I'd rather see Sanders in Washington as opposed to Austin; after all, he wouldn't be able to deal with the Lege that would still have too many Republicans in it (unless they shock us all and manage to let Texans get stoned legally, but that's another story).

It’s a game-changer for a number of reasons, one of which should have been immediately obvious: Alberta is home to the massive tar sands deposits that the oil industry wants to tap and ship south via the Keystone XL pipeline. And with the changing of the guard, the industry’s just lost a top Washington lobbyist – and is now facing leadership that opposes the pipeline and is committed to reducing the climate impact of oil development.

Can it happen here? Can something sort of like it happen here? Please?!

Garcia announces... something today *Updates: He's in

What he's announcing does not seem to be clear from the Chron story.

Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia will address his expected bid for Houston mayor on Wednesday afternoon, according to sources close to his campaign.

Garcia's expected announcement would end months of speculation about whether the longtime lawman and former City Council member would run to replace term-limited Mayor Annise Parker.

Should he run, Garcia would join a crowded field of some half-dozen competitors. He would also be required to resign as sheriff.

Nor the KHOU report.  The assumptions made by the reporters lean toward yes, but they've left enough doubt to cover their asses in case he says he's not.  Rarely does a politician extend this kind of fanfare to an "I'm not running" press conference, after all.  The departed Teddy Schleifer covered all of the 'in' speculation seven weeks ago.

So is he in or is he out?  Anyone want to speculate, offer some scuttlebutt, start a rumor ahead of this afternoon's 'announcement'?

Update: Sure enough... in.

Update II:

County Judge Ed Emmett, who received Garcia's resignation letter Wednesday, has not decided who he wants to replace Garcia, though he prefers someone who wants to run for office in 2016, said Emmett's spokesman Joe Stinebaker.

Noting that it would be beneficial for Garcia's replacement to have a combination of law enforcement and management experience, Stinebaker added that "speed is of some importance here."

In his letter of resignation, Garcia said he hoped the Commissioners Court would appoint an independent or Democrat to serve the remainder of his term.

Those speculated to be interested in the job -- none of whom are Democrats, to be clear -- were also previously named here.

Update III: More on who might be the next sheriff here, with a decision coming in about a week.

Update IV (5/8): State representative Allen Fletcher jockeys himself into the lead for the interim appointment, to be made in short order by Harris County commissioners.

2016: Same as it ever was

A sure sign that voter turnout in 2016 is going to set another record low.

This map feels like déjà vu: It’s effectively the same map we featured for much of the 2012 cycle, and it unmistakably suggests the Democratic nominee should start the election as at least a marginal Electoral College favorite over his or (probably) her Republican rival.

Let's add the qualifying 'but'.

However, at the starting gate it is wiser to argue that the next election is basically a 50-50 proposition.

Florida remains swingy, I would posit, because of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.  Otherwise not so much, despite what portends to be a spirited Republican primary to replace Rubio in the Senate.  Colorado and Iowa elected right-wing freaks for US Senators in 2014 because Democrats stayed home on Election Day.  If John Kasich makes it onto the ballot somewhere, then Ohio is more red than not.  Nevada is bound to have a lively Senate contest because Harry Reid is retiring, so that's an ongoing development that could send its electoral votes either way; the truest of tossups.  Vermont (or is that New Hampshire?), irrespective of Bernie Sanders' ultimate fate, doesn't seem likely to be anything but blue.  I would have to think that Virginia is more red -- despite what Larry Sabato's Crystal Ballers say -- than they are letting on, and North Carolina (not currently considered a swinger) somewhat bluer.  Then there's Wisconsin, which could outright flip with Scott Walker somewhere in the mix, causing Hillary Clinton a multitude of problems.

In other words, this election is going to be as boring as being alive.

Americans still want taxes raised on rich to adjust for inequality

There's a lesson in these 30-year polling results for every single one of the Texas House Democrats who voted to cut state taxes last week (in conjunction with their Republican brothers and sisters).

Despite the growing focus on inequality in recent years, the 63% of Americans who say that money and wealth should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people is almost the same as the 60% who said this in 1984.

Americans' agreement that money and wealth need to be more evenly distributed reached a high point of 68% in April 2008, in the last year of the George W. Bush administration, and just before the full effects of the Great Recession began to take hold. Americans became slightly less likely to agree with the idea later that year and in surveys conducted in 2009, 2011 and 2013. This year's increase to 63% is close to the average of 62% agreement across the 13 times Gallup has asked the question since 1984. The latest data are from Gallup's April 9-12 Economy and Personal Finance survey.

Worth emphasizing: the percentages deviated steadily during the Reagan and Bush the Elder years, narrowed sharply after Bush the Lesser's election selection in 2000, rose to its highest separation levels as the economy slid off a cliff at the close of W's Debacle in 2008.... and then cramped again, as it became apparent to Fox News consumers that Barack Obama was, indeed, a socialist.

Stop the wars, tax the rich.  That's an easy campaign slogan, but the Democrats don't use it because they know they can't follow through on those promises.

"Don't extrapolate a national poll to Texas", you may be thinking, especially since Republicans who quite clearly don't stand with the majority dominate the Lone Star electorate.

Yes, I'm sure that all this has nothing to do with historically low voter turnout in Texas, particularly among former Democratic voters.  You can blame a bit of that on the most restrictive photo ID legislation in the nation, of course.  But at some point Democrats have to take responsibility for their collective fate, and when they decline or refuse to do so when the votes get called in the legislature, or the Congress, then you get what we had here last week: failure to communicate.

Is anyone really surprised?

Update: Thanks to Gadfly for the link to Gallup. And more from Vox.

But in some ways the most interesting demographic sub-sample is the age one. Respondents ages 18 to 34 are supportive of redistributive taxation by a 59-38 margin, while those over 55 are much more skeptical — 47 percent say tax the rich, and 50 percent disagree. In other words, the age stratification of American politics isn't just about gay marriage or marijuana; it cuts to the core economic policy divides in Washington and state capitals around the country.

Now if they would only vote.