Charleston

There just aren't appropriate words.

A white man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in downtown Charleston, killing nine people, including the pastor, in an assault authorities described as a hate crime.

The suspect attended the meeting at the church Wednesday night and stayed for nearly an hour before the deadly gunfire erupted, Police Chief Greg Mullen said.

Among the dead are pastor and SC state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.  The gunman spared the life of one woman, saying 'tell everyone what happened here'.  Another little girl survived when her grandmother instructed her to 'play dead'.  Prior to the killings, the shooter allegedly said: "You rape our women and are taking over our country & you have to go."

The scene of the crime, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the oldest black church in the South.  Dr. Martin Luther King spoke there; it has been at the epicenter of many of the civil rights issues of the times.

Police are releasing surveillance video photos of the assassin and his automobile.  But in contrast to Boston, where the city went on lockdown when the Tsarnaevs were on the loose, nothing like that has happened yet in Charleston.

And that's only the first difference in how the American criminal justice system operates differently for white and black people.  There will be plenty more differences, as we have already seen so many times recently.

Where's that post-racial America Republicans say we live in?  I mean, where is it outside their gated communities, their churches, their clubs.

Update: Dylann Roof, 21, has been captured.  No shots were fired by LEO or the suspect during his apprehension.  Roof's parents gave him a .45 pistol for his birthday two months ago, and he has a police record for drug use and a reputation of racist statements and actions.

Texas Monthly's Best and Worst state legislators for 2015

Best (those with which I heartily concur are in bold; links to selected mentions here and elsewhere):

Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen; also here)
Rep. César Blanco (D-El Paso)
Rep. Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton)
Sen. Kevin Eltife (R-Tyler)
Rep. Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth)
Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio)
Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio)
Rep. John Otto (R-Dayton)
Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound)
Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston)

Worst:

Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. (R-Magnolia)
Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels)
Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston)
Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston)
Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound)
Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso)
Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler)
Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown)
Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford)
Rep. Molly White (R-Belton)

It's hard to pick a bone with any of these, but I thought Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) should have made the 'Best' list just for his perservering against the likes of most of those on the Worst list.  And I thought Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) had a seriously bad session.  As previously posted, she blew up the craft brewers, dishonored Houston's music legacy, shot down "Mr. Tesla" and not only carried the anti-fracking ban bill but also convinced nearly all Houston Democrats in the Texas House to vote for it.

The feature also includes honorable and dishonorable mentions; Furniture; assessments of Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Joe Straus; and a look at Representative Charlie Geren, our biennial Bull of the Brazos.

The rest of these may get feted with Texas Monthly's write-ups linked in updates to this post, but are just as likely to get follow-up postings depending on how much they (RG Ratcliffe and Erika Greider at TM) and I have to say.

Keffer, Harless join Straus loyalists going out

The Speaker is going to have a difficult time getting re-elected, and if he does, then another dirty job maintaining discipline in the next legislative session (January 2017).

State Rep. Jim Keffer, an Eastland Republican who was one of the earliest supporters of House Speaker Joe Straus, has decided not to seek re-election next year...

First elected in 1996, Keffer is finishing his 10th term in the Texas House. He chairs the Natural Resources Committee and previously led the committees on Energy Resources, Ways and Means, Property Tax Relief and Economic Development.

His departure leaves only three members of the original Polo Road Gang — the 11 Republicans who met privately at state Rep. Byron Cook’s house on Polo Road in Austin before the 2009 legislative session to decide who they would unite behind in the race for speaker of the House. The 2008 elections left the House split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats, destabilizing then-Speaker Tom Craddick’s coalition and setting the stage for a change in leadership. The 11 Republicans chose Straus, picked up some other Republicans and a majority of Democrats, and elected him that January.

Now, only Straus, Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Cook remain in office.

Greg and Charles and also I have covered some of the bailouts already.  I never thought I would ever say that losing Patty Harless was big.  But it is.  (This is how far right we have moved in Texas over a short period of time.  And 2016 isn't going to slow it down very much.)

Harless said she has become frustrated with infighting among Republicans in the Legislature and hopes to stay involved in GOP politics and campaigns after her term ends at the end of 2016. "I'm just really disappointed in the way the Republicans act in the Texas House," she said. "People need to know that consensus and moderation and working across the aisle is not a bad thing.

"Some Republicans cater to the 4 or 5 percent who vote in the Republican primaries," she said. "That's not who we represent; we represent everybody in our districts."

Harless is one of House Speaker Joe Straus' stalwarts and serves on three powerful House committees: Calendars, State Affairs and Transportation. She said she thought about leaving after her fourth term: "I stayed last time for Straus. I'm leaving this time for me."

Pond scum about to float away aside, the House is going to harden a little, much like the Senate did this year.  That's a bad thing if you're not wealthy, not a white male who owns guns, and especially bad news if you're a woman who wants a choice about whether to give birth or not.   The tie that binds all of these disparate winners and losers here is voting.  Mad-dog Republicans do so and everybody else does not.  Not for lack of trying in some cases.  But far too many who could close the gap, or even the score a bit, simply cannot tear themselves away from 'Real Housewives'.

With Houston municipal elections coming up quickly, we'll see another record low before the high tide comes in 2016, when some of these Lege retirees get replaced.  And we can only hope their replacements aren't too kooky (an early bet I would not take).

Update (barely related): Harold Cook pre-writes the statements of legislators who will be receiving Texas Monthly's "Best" and "Worst" awards, due today.  A post on that announcement will follow here in short order.

Will Houston's mayoral race mimic San Antonio's?

In some ways I expect that it will.

Ivy Taylor, the socially conservative Democrat who received the backing of the Republicans in the runoff, nosed out Leticia Van de Putte, the more liberal of the two but still a pro-business centrist.  As noted last week, both black and white church-going types -- they call themselves Christians, as we know, though they rarely act like such in word and in deed -- decided to make the election about who hews closest to the bible.  Not much about potholes, or pensions, or budgets, or any of the myriad policy questions of the kind that Charles has frequently posed.  There's a country-club set of GOP in San Antonio (River Oaks-ish types here), and there's a far-flung suburban type who will only consider voting for Republicans.  Of the fourteen candidates in the race for Alamo City mayor, there were two Republicans of some prominence running (Tommy Adkisson and Gerald Ponce), neither of whom gained any traction in the general.  The two highest-profile Latino Dems, Van de Putte and her former colleague in the Texas Legislature, Mike Villarreal, split a majority (56.5%) of the turnout in the first round, with Taylor barely edging Villarreal to move into the runoff.  So while VdP led in the general election, and turnout for the runoff was higher (about 16% versus 12%) she was still narrowly defeated, by all indications by Republican and conservative voters.  The lack of an endorsement from the vanquished Villarreal -- his campaign treasurer did endorse Taylor -- could have played a part in VdP's loss.

This mirrors the result from the 2005 race, where Julian Castro lost to Phil Hardberger by precisely the same 51.5% margin that Taylor defeated Van de Putte.

Update:  Democrats were downbeat...

“At the end of the day, we needed 3,000 Democrats to get off their asses and go vote, and they didn’t," said Colin Strother, a Democratic consultant who had worked for the fourth-place finisher in the first round of the race, former Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson. "And that’s the story of our life in Texas politics, is that Democrats could elect anyone they wanted to any position — statewide, local, you name it — if they would get off the couch and go vote, and they don’t do it.”

... and Republicans were exultant.

"There's no doubt that Ivy has turned the era in San Antonio politics that we haven't seen in my lifetime," said Robert Stovall, chairman of the Bexar County Republican Party. "This is what Republicans are typically so happy to get, which is good leadership and good government. ..."

Weston Martinez, a conservative leader in San Antonio, said Taylor's win was "delivered by the social conservatives, evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics," groups encouraged to see she "doesn't leave her faith at the door when she goes into the mayor's office."

The Democrats voting in Houston -- white, black, brown -- might split over their respective ethnic coalition candidate (Chris Bell, Sylvester Turner, Adrian Garcia), sending one of those three (whomever is best at turning out his vote in November) into the final round.  That leaves Bill King and Stephen Costello, and to a lesser degree Ben Hall, to fight over whatever percentage of Republican/conservative votes there may be in the first round.

I don't see money being a factor in the Houston race, despite whatever spin gets generated from the reporting of campaign finance fundraising and spending.  The three conservatives can spend any amount they choose; the Democrats, particularly Garcia, will be limited mostly due to the size of their individual wallets.

I still rank Turner at the head of the current field of seven, but the Republican most likely to join him in the runoff at the time of this posting appears to be Bill King, by virtue of his appeal to the angry white conservative caucus.  In a runoff between Turner and King, Turner can prevail, no matter how bitter King tries to make things over bathrooms or street/flooding conditions or any other piss-value issue.  If two Democrats clear the bar and advance to the runoff, all bets are off.  As with San Antonio, one is going to have to run to the right to win, and I can't fathom which that might be.

The Pre-Bill Wrangle

Along the Texas coast, some Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers are scrambling for batteries, non-perishable food items, and full tanks of gasoline. But we still have time to bring you the best lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff tries to predict how county clerks and AG Ken Paxton will react to a SCOTUS ruling in favor of marriage equality.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos -- and contributing to Daily Kos -- spanks the Texas Republican Party for its ideological decisions that rip off Texas taxpayers, robbing them of paid for services. Wake up voters. TX GOP: Spite Cheats Texas Taxpayers.

A few people predicted Leticia Van de Putte's close loss in the San Antonio mayor's race, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs found them.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know a labor-bashing provision was in the Latino-bashing border security bill. 50 hours a week is the new norm.

Socratic Gadfly thinks we need to drop a bomb on our entire current health care system, going beyond "single payer" to a full-blown British-type National Health System.

Nonsequiteuse is frustrated by journalists who can't or won't shut down wingnuts when they go into the Gish Gallop.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson has good news regarding renewable energy: Georgetown will be powered 100 percent by renewable energy within the next few years.

Neil at All People Have Value took a picture of the mailbox he used to send a $50 donation to the Bernie Sanders campaign. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Texas Leftist wants you to know about the 150th Anniversary of Juneteenth, and where you can go across Texas to celebrate.

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

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

Scott Braddock looks back at how the Senate operated in a non-two-thirds-rule world.

Juanita Jean is keeping an eye on Tom DeLay as the SCOTUS same sex marriage ruling draws near.

Greg Wythe reviews the list of departing (or possibly departing) legislators so far.

Scott Metzger offers his thoughts on a recent kerfuffle between some high-end restaurants and the Silver Eagle beer distributor that has many Texas microbreweries caught in the middle.

Carmen Cruz and Annetta Ramsey argue that marriage equality matters to both gay and straight people.

BEYONDBones celebrates World Ocean Day while spreading the word about the problem of plastic pollution.

The Texas Election Law Blog critiques Rick Hasen's criticism of the Hillary Clinton campaign's push for voting rights reform.

Jay Crossley calls for an end to road-only bonds.

Jeb Bush's logo forgets important element

Seems to missing a little something, doesn't it?  Thanks for the fix to cartoonist Rob Tornoe of the Philly Inquirer.

Some presidential logos are timeless (and priceless).

Sunday Funnies

22 incredible facts about the life and career of Sir Christopher Lee

Trade vote goes down to the wire *updates*

The vote -- or series of votes -- is happening this morning -- or this afternoon, if the whip count is unfavorable to the president and the Republicans.

After a narrow and suspenseful 217-212 approval Thursday on a procedural vote, the House is scheduled today to have a series of debates and votes that could lead to passage of “fast track” trade promotion authority (TPA) for the still-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and future trade agreements.

A trade bill involving sub-Saharan Africa already easily passed on Thursday. Votes on two more bills today will lead up to the big vote on fast track, which essentially preapproves the TPP.

What's at stake:

The House on Friday will take up two critical bills already passed by the Senate. The first would offer so-called trade adjustment assistance — including job training, relocation allowances and assistance with health care costs — to workers who lose their jobs because of free trade deals. The second would grant this president and the next “trade promotion authority” — the power to negotiate international trade accords that could not be amended or filibustered by Congress.

Who's for it and who's agin' it:

Hours before one of the most consequential votes of President Barack Obama’s second term — whether to give him fast-track trade powers to clinch a sprawling Pacific Rim trade deal — Democrats and Republicans have no idea whether the votes are there to pass it.

What they do know is that pockets of opposition from every corner of the House of Representatives has thrown the package into serious jeopardy.

Everybody seems to be scrambling.

Because of possible Democratic defections, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the GOP whip team may have to approach some anti-TAA Republicans and ask them to vote in favor.

“I think Democrats are playing games with it right now. We’re in a situation where people are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) , a deputy whip, told The Hill. “Liberal, pro-trade union Democrats are breaking ranks and destroying a program that they fought to create because they’re so much against TPA [trade promotion authority].”

You will recall Democrats first defeated, and the next day approved, the threshold vote last month.

Obama's on the Hill right this minute, twisting arms or kissing ass, as the case may be.  I'm going to follow the Twitter feed and C-Span to watch what happens.  Updates here as they roll in.

Update (12:15 pm CST): Speaker Pelosi announced she would oppose TAA and TPA and all of the other trade bills up for a vote today.  The vote will happen shortly; her opposition may be the death knell for them.

Update (12:49 pm CST): There are 302 'nay' votes on TAA.  Democrats voting 'aye' total just 39. One hundred and fifty-six Republicans also voted no.  The initial trade legislation goes down in flames -- a loss for Obama, Boehner, Paul Ryan, and a slew of other free-traders.

Update (1:00 pm CST): The ceremonial TPA vote, occurring immediately after, only allows the previous measure to be reconsidered later and narrowly passes, 219-212.

I love the smell of oligarchy going down in flames in the afternoon. #StopTPP #StopFastTrack

— P.M. McKenzie (@pmmcken) June 12, 2015

Rocky road for LVDP to San Antonio mayor's office

This news is a week old, and I don't follow this race as closely as others do, so I just want to mark these developments for the record.  Some people are reading tea leaves down I-10 to the west that look ominous for the former state senator/lieutenant governor candidate in her runoff against "Poison" Ivy Taylor.

First, an out-of-focus screen grab from FB from a local.



On the left is a flyer being circulated at some San Antonio churches comparing the positions of Van de Putte and Taylor on things like 'abortion without restrictions'.  No need to ask what that issue has to do with the Santonio mayor's office; everybody knows it's a trigger for the RWNJs to twist on and turn out to vote against.  The comment from the person who posted it reads as follows:

Feeling disheartened. Saw this in a church today while at Lillian's piano recital. Perfectly legal. This is why Taylor will win: the white church goers and the black church goers are going to vote for her and they vote in the largest numbers per registered voters. I understand why Mike Villarreal won't endorse Leticia but I don't like it. Without that endorsement, she's got a hill perhaps too hard to climb.

So that might be just one person's opinion, but then you have this SA blogger and a political consultant saying essentially the same thing.  If your FB settings don't let you see that...

Colin Strother called it before it started. It's looking a lot like 2005. What that means, looking back on that race, is that conservative voters will lift the second place candidate past the first place candidate in the runoff. I'm saying this from both an analytical POV and as a reminder to those supporting LVP that you cannot take this race for granted. If GOTV efforts aren't in overdrive with that campaign, the wrong people are at the helm.

Strother follows up...

After reviewing 4 days of EV I'm seeing about 11% of early voters who are e day voters coming out earlier and about 25% new voters.

The race is getting negative (which tends to suppress turnout), but it is also getting salacious (which jacks up turnout) so I'm still not settled on a final count.
 
[...] VdP is on the rise with a steep climb ahead. The nonendorsement from Mike may throw this thing to the bigoted candidate by 2-3 points unless folks get out and get engaged.

Turnout is up, (but still low) as of the end of EV last week.  Election Day is tomorrow, Saturday the 13th.  Per Randy Bear's FB page this morning, Strother is now apparently condemning Mike Villarreal -- who was his supporter in the general -- for "being on the wrong side of history" in witholding his endorsement from LVDP.

All that follows on the heels of this (which also appeared during the EV period).

The husband of San Antonio mayoral candidate Leticia Van de Putte has acknowledged falling behind on federal, state and local taxes, but said he's all caught up now.

Pete Van de Putte's business, Dixie Flag Manufacturing Co., had more than $100,000 in federal and state tax liens over the past five years, and until last week he owed $13,000 in Bexar County levies that were due in January.

Even so, Pete Van de Putte doesn't believe his tax woes should ruin his wife's chances of becoming San Antonio mayor. She's battling Mayor Ivy Taylor in Saturday's runoff election.

"If we still owed, if we weren't paying it, if we never made an effort," then his tax history should be campaign fodder, Pete Van de Putte said last week.

"The only thing I can say is we're current with the IRS. Yes, we've owed them money, and yes, we've paid them," Van de Putte said.

Also for the record, Houston Democratic field operative Erik Vidor, who's been assisting LVDP's campaign, remains encouraged.  (I'm guessing he comes right back to H-Town to help Adrian Garcia as soon as he catches his breath.)  As with most every election in Texas, high turnout aids the Democrat -- in this case, the liberal, as LVDP can be defined compared to homophobe Taylor, busily seeking the votes of bigots socially conservative Democrats and Republicans.

For some historical perspective, note that soon-to-be Vice President Julian Castro lost his first bid to be Alamo City mayor -- to "Republican" Phil Hardberger in 2005 -- by a close margin.  Update: I edited this sentence with quotation marks around Hardberger's political affiliation just for Noah, in the comments.

So if several of these people are wrong and Van de Putte wins, we can pop a cork and mop our brow and move on to the next.  If not, we may have an ominous signal for the Houston mayor's contest, which is that homophobia and anti-choice are success strategies. 

Update: More perspective (and personal-destruction politics) from the TexTrib. 

Update (Saturday, June 13th, 9:20 pm):  Taylor wins, with about 51.5% of the 16% turnout.  The vote margin is almost 3,000 out of just under 90K cast.

Women's right to choose will return to Supreme Court

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that hospital-like structural requirements for Texas abortion clinics can go into effect, which will cause all but seven or eight clinics to shutter.

This was the second challenge to the state’s 2013 law that also banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, mandated physicians to have hospital admitting privileges and tightened regulations on abortion-inducing drugs.

The Ninth Circuit just struck down Idaho's 20 week ban less than two weeks ago.  So we have a circuit split, which requires the SCOTUS to decide the matter.  (It will be next summer before that happens.)  Here's the difference between the two appeals courts' decisions.  First, the Ninth, on Idaho.

The decision Friday ruled that Idaho’s law violates Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 Supreme Court decision that affirmed much of Roe v. Wade.

The court ruled that the law breaches Casey’s standard that restrictions cannot put an “undue burden” on the ability to get an abortion before the point of viability.

“Because [Idaho’s law] places an arbitrary time limit on when women can obtain abortions, the statute is unconstitutional,” Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in an opinion for a three-judge panel. Two were appointees of Democratic presidents and one of a Republican president.

The Fifth doesn't see any undue burden on a woman living in El Paso having to drive hundreds of miles, twice, in order to obtain a pregnancy termination legally.  They blame her for being poor.

In an opinion largely upholding Texas’ strict 2013 abortion law, three federal appeals judges disagreed that poor women face significant barriers to abortion as the number of clinics dwindles.

[...]

The panel upheld provisions of House Bill 2 that require Texas abortion clinics to meet surgical center standards and obtain hospital admitting privileges for physicians. The judges carved out one exception: the Whole Woman’s Health facility in McAllen, the last clinic in the Rio Grande Valley. In their ruling, the judges found that requiring women in McAllen to travel 235 miles to the nearest clinic in San Antonio was too burdensome. In a previous decision on House Bill 2, the Fifth Circuit established 150 miles as the standard for an undue burden. The judges did not grant the same exception to the remaining abortion provider in El Paso, arguing that women in West Texas can travel to New Mexico. (Notably, there are parts of West Texas—Presidio, for example—that are more than 150 miles from the nearest clinic, including ones in New Mexico.)

Besides the obvious contradictions about how many miles constitute an undue burden, and whether those miles include road miles in New Mexico, the most obnoxious part of the ruling was this.

The three-judge panel dismissed a lower court finding that poor women face not only additional travel expenses, but also practical barriers such as lack of child care, the inability to take time off work and internal immigration checkpoints.

“We do not doubt that women in poverty face greater difficulties,” the opinion reads, quoting a previous Fifth Circuit decision on House Bill 2. It goes on to say that in arguing their case, providers didn’t successfully prove that the law has an impact “on at least a large fraction of women.”

Further, the judges pointed to a 1980 Supreme Court case that downplays economic barriers:

“‘The financial constraints that restrict an indigent woman’s ability to enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected freedom of choice are the product not of governmental restrictions on access to abortions, but rather of her indigency.’”

The panel also agreed that the Legislature’s intent was “to protect the health and safety of women,” not to erode abortion access, as plaintiffs argued.

It's hell to be poor, ladies.  Next time press that aspirin between your knees.

It's hard to predict what the Supremes might decide with three or four -- maybe five -- justices on the conservative side of things and  four on the liberal end.  That will be the next parlor wagering opportunity: what will Kennedy and perhaps Roberts do?  That's a year away, though; they're deciding big questions on marriage equality and Obamacare subsidies questions at this very moment, before going on summer vacation.  Kuff has more links; I'll include two brief excerpts from Andrea Grimes...

Texas abortion providers have 22 days before the Fifth Circuit’s decision goes into effect. They will seek a stay from the court on its own ruling, and proceed to the Supreme Court if necessary.

... and Michael Barajas, on that "large fraction of women" mentioned in the decision. 

Perhaps the most stunning thing about the Fifth Circuit's take on HB 2 is how the court determined whether enough women will be burdened by the law to render it unconstitutional. Under the regulations in HB 2 — which, barring some higher court order, will take effect July 1 — some 900,000 women of reproductive age will live more than 150 miles away from an abortion provider. That's one in six women of reproductive age in Texas who will have to travel more than 150 miles just to get to an abortion clinic.

[...]

Got that? According to the Fifth Circuit, nearly 1 million Texas women is not "a large fraction" of women.

Update: From The Week, regarding the sham of hospital admitting privileges.

"Admitting privileges" actually means that the doctor is akin to a staff member of that hospital; among other things, she has the privilege to admit a patient for a stay in the hospital without the say-so of any other doctors. The problem is that because hospitals don't want to become embroiled in abortion politics, they regularly refuse admitting privileges to doctors who perform abortions. For example, doctors at the last abortion clinic in Mississippi applied for admitting privileges to seven hospitals in the area, and were refused at every one.

So what happens if you're a woman who had an abortion and you find yourself experiencing complications, but your doctor doesn't have admitting privileges at the local hospital? Well, you go to whatever hospital you like (or, if it's a real emergency, the paramedics take you to one), and you get treated. If the doctors at the hospital need to consult with the doctor who performed your abortion, they pick up the phone and call her. Which is pretty much exactly what will happen if your doctor does have admitting privileges.

[...]

Like all abortion cases, this one will be determined entirely by the whims of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has so much respect for women's autonomy that he once justified an abortion restriction by going on and on about how some women might later regret their choice, so it's much better to just not give them one. There's no way to tell for sure what he might do, but the question will hinge on whether the restrictions impose an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions, the standard established in a previous case. You don't have to wait 48 hours, have an ultrasound you don't want, and drive 200 miles to get yourself a vasectomy, but Kennedy may well decide that all that is not too much of a burden to impose on women who need abortions.

What's the matter with Texas in two pictures

We've had some serious questions come up lately: the average intelligence of our rural brothers and sisters, the leaders they elect, some unfortunate weather-related calamities and how Obama is responsible for them.  (That's not satire.  There's plenty out there that is, just not the one linked at the end of the previous sentence.)

These items are hard to address and harder to fix, especially when the state legislature continues to underfund public education and the folks who write the textbooks consider Moses a Founding Father.

So the two pictures side-by-side below do not reveal the full scope of our problems, but they show enough for us to identify something that can be, and needs to be, immediately fixed.

And when the motorcycle gang members are protesting because they think they've been treated unfairly, or because the cops might be hiding something, then yes, we might have some deep-rooted issues.

We MUST get a handle on our municipal police departments' conduct, and that ain't just in Texas.

Third mayoral forum ignites on pensions

Mike Morris at the Chron's piece on Saturday's third debate hits the mark for comprehensive detail on the policies as well as the political jousting.

All seven top-tier candidates vying for term-limited Mayor Annise Parker's chair this fall appeared at a forum Saturday morning focused on labor and workers' rights.

The questions often revealed little distance among the hopefuls, and, indeed, a few noted it would be tough to find a Houston mayoral candidate opposed to comprehensive immigration reform or living wages for workers.

All the candidates said they support those issues, as well as worker training programs and improved access to health care, two other questions posed by forum panelists. All seven candidates shared at least some level of concern about issues such as gentrification and low voter turnout.

The one question to generate any fireworks was a predictable one: Whether the candidates support keeping and funding the defined benefit pension plan for municipal workers.

There's been prior coverage of Sylvester Turner's hand in breaking the retirement program logjam a few months ago.  That and his frontrunning status made him the target.  Chris Bell even leapt to his defense after tirades from Ben Hall, Bill King, and Steven Costello.

Hall, King and Costello all took swipes at Turner on pensions, prompting Bell to draw a sustained laugh from the crowd when he quipped, "Don't worry Sylvester, I'll protect you."

The executive summary of the discussion by Morris, from the end of his article.

Here are some highlights of what the candidates said about economic inequality, workers' rights and affordable housing:

• Bell said at least twice that he would put a labor liaison on his executive staff as mayor and also stressed the need to address growing economic inequality in Houston. "If we don't address this issue we're going to continue to have a city of haves versus have-nots," he said.
• Costello focused several times on worker training. He advocated the use of "best value" rather than "low bid" selections in city contracting to enable the city to better penalize irresponsible companies that cut corners. On affordable housing, he advocated for the city to provide more incentives to developers to avoid gentrification, and for similar efforts creating an affordable district for artists.
• Garcia: Touted his efforts while on City Council to get vaccines to Latino kids in his district when he learned his district had one of the city's lowest immunization rates. He focused heavily on affordable housing and gentrification, and said the city must find ways to prevent citizens from paying for their neighbors' investments in their own taxes.
• Hall said he would give preference in city contracting to companies that provide apprenticeships and said he would pursue policies to "grandfather" existing homes in gentrifying areas to prevent residents from being pushed out.
• King said he would work to increase the number of and funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers, and would evaluate whether city clinics unnecessarily duplicate services with county clinics. He said any contractor caught stealing workers' wages should be fired and banned from doing business with the city.
• McVey said because the Legislature has blocked the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the city should seek a way to get payments directly from Washington. McVey also called for more urban planning, with a focus on preventing gentrification.
• Turner touted his support in the Legislature for expanding a health insurance program for impoverished youth and for increased funding for trauma centers, and took issue with an expansive subsidy program launched under Parker to pay developers $15,000 per apartment or condominium built downtown; "It's about time we pushed that to the neighborhoods," he said.

There's enough there for everybody to find something they like and something they don't.  I'll digest this, along with what I gathered from coverage of the first and second mayoral forums last week, and present some thoughts about the current status of the mayor's race in a forthcoming post.