GOP food fight in Houston

Via Charles, a fight Houston conservatives didn't need to have has broken out into the open.

The Harris County Republican Party released a flier Monday attacking Houston mayoral candidate Ben Hall for his Democratic ties and previous support for a nondiscrimination ordinance.

Hall, a Democrat, is running on a socially conservative platform and aims to assemble a coalition of faith-based and fiscally conservative voters.

Among top-tier mayoral candidates, he is the most ardent critic of the city's equal rights ordinance, known as HERO. The law is set to appear on November's ballot.

"Ben Hall says yes to HERO ordinance in 2013," the GOP flier reads, citing a 2013 Harris County Democratic Party questionnaire on which Hall said he would support a nondiscrimination policy.

The ad also labels Hall a "current Democratic Party sustaining member" and claims he contributed more than $100,000 to Democrats, including President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry, citing campaign finance reports.

It's also a reminder that the shroud of non-partisan municipal elections is worn through to gossamer.  The Republican establishment is pushing back against the rebels.   Or as I would prefer, the anti-Hotze, anti-Woodfill caucus going after the conservative front-runner.  They want Bill King and not Hall... and it may not even be racial.

"We won't stand by and let a political opportunist like Ben Hall try to fool the voters into thinking that he is some kind of Republican," Harris County Republican Party chair Paul Simpson said. "If some have endorsed Hall with the idea that he's a conservative, then they should have done their homework first."

Simpson beat Woodfill for county chair a year or so ago, and Woodfill hasn't gotten over it.  And Simpson, bullied by Woodfill's shadow chairmanship of the local Republicans, has to respond with the only thing political parties have that holds them together: loyalty.  Fealty.

Hall, a former city attorney, has been backed by several pastors' groups and conservative activist Steven Hotze, who publishes an influential endorsement slate.

However, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt said the majority of local Republican Party precinct chairs are supporting King.

No, it's not racial, but Hall really oughta play the race card just for shits and giggles.  Boy, these people have too much time and money on their hands.

If Simpson and the party cronies like Bettencourt are successful, then you will see two of  Sylvester Turner, Adrian Garcia, or Chris Bell in the runoff.  That's how good this is.

Update: In which I get a tip o' the chapeau from Big Jolly.

Bush should quit and endorse Rubio, Biden dropping in, and more

I still have some Houston city council race previews in the queue, but because of last week's hardware interruption, they await confirmation and verification and such like that.  News is being made by the prezidenshuls, so I got that for ya.

-- Biggest shock to my system was this, yesterday (not Walker quitting but the fallout from it).

It would, of course, be totally ridiculous for Jeb Bush to drop out of the 2016 Republican primary this week. He's got a ton of money in the bank, a ton more money in his super PAC's bank, he's ahead of all the real politicians in national primary polling, and he leads the field in endorsements. If he sticks it out, Donald Trump will probably fade. The Ben Carson boomlet will probably vanish. The nascent Carly Fiorina boomlet will keep going for a while and then she'll come back down to earth too. Bush has the cash to gut it out and try to prevail against all comers and the odds of it working are at least decent.

But if he cares about his family legacy, the good of the Republican Party and the ideological principles he espouses, he should drop out as soon as possible and endorse Marco Rubio.

You might want to read all of it.  Rubio allegedly stands to gain the most from Walker's exit, and he and Bush are both poaching Walker's staff, supporters, donors, etc. in the wake of his withdrawal.  It's hilarious to me that Jeb and Marco are described as "anti-establishment insiders", a classic oxymoron.  Speaking of morons, it's my opinion that Rubio is as much of a stone cold one as Walker, but he seems to think that America is not a planet, so the GOP base thinks he's got some science smarts about him.

Update: More on the logic, or lack thereof, behind Rubo's rise from Steve Benen.

-- Bigger news, lesser shock.

Vice President Joe Biden's aides have begun suggesting to donors that he's more inclined to run for president than not, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The aides say their talks have shifted largely from whether he's going to run to when he's going to announce, sources told the Journal, noting that he could still change his mind if his grief over his recent son's death becomes overwhelming.

“It’s my sense that this is happening, unless they change their minds,” a source who spoke to Biden aides told the Journal.

I have been saying repeatedly that he would not enter the race, but he sees the same thing everybody who's not actually getting paid by the Clinton campaign sees: she's turning radioactive for those in the DNC and the rest of the other 1% Democrats who would wish to just go ahead and anoint the front-runner now, without any debates (or even primaries, if they thought they could get away with it).  Update: Behind the scenes, Clinton wanted just four debates.  And the scheduling of the six -- for which DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz remains under fire for not increasing -- is also designed to protect Hillary from any further self-destruction.

Prior polling suggested Biden pulls as many votes from Bernie Sanders as he does Clinton, but Nate Silver's crew at 538.com revised that thinking just yesterday.

Four national polls released this month (ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New York Times, YouGov and CNN/ORC) asked Democratic voters who they’d vote for with Biden in the race and without him. Clinton led Bernie Sanders by an average of 44 percent to 26 percent with Biden in the race. Clinton’s 19-percentage-point edge in those polls equals her lead in the Huffington Post/Pollster aggregate. Without Biden, Clinton’s lead on Sanders jumps to 28 percentage points, 57 percent to 29 percent.

In other words, almost all of Biden’s support is coming from people who, without Biden in the race, would support Clinton. So if Biden decides not to run, Clinton’s standing could snap back to where it was earlier this year.

Nobody tell Ted the truth, okay?  He's got too much of his already-weakened credibility invested in whatever today's snap poll is going to reveal to him through his cloudy Hillary filter.

Once Biden does jump in, he's going to start getting those questions about his Anita Hill problem from the early 1990's.  And that is most certainly a problem.

Tangential reading:

-- How Automatic Voter Registration Can Transform American Politics

50 years after the Voting Rights Act, 25% of Americans are still not registered to vote.  Already the law in Oregon, soon to become law in California.  Not Texas, though, in my lifetime.  Our wonderful state government wants fewer people voting, the fewer the better (for them) and will spend millions of your dollars litigating to keep it that way.

-- The New Civil Rights Activists Who Could Decide the Democratic Race

The Black Lives Matter movement will impact the campaigns of Clinton, Sanders, and Biden to some greater or lesser degree.  After the nominee is chosen, their efforts (or lack thereof) will be closely scrutinized for effects on the general election in November, 2016.

Walker falls out: "The short answer is money"

Not even Charles and David Koch had enough to save him from himself.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has concluded he no longer has a path to the Republican presidential nomination and plans to drop out of the 2016 campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Walker called a news conference in Madison at 6 p.m. Eastern time (about one hour from the time of this post).

“The short answer is money,” said a supporter of Mr. Walker’s who was briefed on the decision. “He’s made a decision not to limp into Iowa.”

What does it say about our post-Citizens United political environment when not even the backing of the Kochs can save you?  Being a moron trumps everything, I suppose (pun intended).

The supporter said Mr. Walker’s fund-raising had dried up after his decline in the polls and that campaign officials did not feel they could risk going into debt with the race so uncertain. The governor, who was scheduled to be in New York and Washington this week, partly to raise money, had built up an expansive staff, bringing on aides and consultants detailed to everything from Christian conservative outreach to Super Tuesday states. But his fund-raising did not keep pace with the money needed to sustain such an infrastructure.

Super PAC millions, where are you?  Kindly go back to late January and read what I wrote then about the emergence of Walker.  It's good for some laughs.  Trump has, as we all know, completely reshuffled the race.  Big Jolly has probably moved on -- all confused things considered -- along with the rest of the Harris County GOP, who hosted Walker in March as keynoter for their Rincoln-Leagan Dinner in March.

Gone but not forgotten.  Nobody, not even Rick Perry, ever flamed out faster.

Update: Walker's 11 worst moments as a candidate.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes everyone a happy and balanced equinox as it brings you this week's roundup of lefty blog posts from around the Lone Star State.

Off the Kuff stands with Ahmed.

Socratic Gadfly turns a bit of a skeptical eye to European panic over the Syrian refugee crisis and provides some critical analysis of how it's being handled.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos, and contributing to Daily Kos, tried her very best to watch the second GOP presidential debate but she just couldn't take it any more. She hung in there for two hours and twenty minutes. GOP Debate: A trip back to the Twilight Zone

Tired of watching Bernie Sanders surge, Clinton surrogates grabbed the 'socialist' brush and started smearing him.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs is pretty certain that this is how it's going to go until the Sanders campaign no longer represents a threat to her coronation nomination.

Starring David Brock as The Elephant

WCNews at Eye on Williamson sees it becoming clear that the GOP in Texas has no problem with the cuts to Medicaid therapy. They just don't want to be blamed for it: Abbott, GOP want cuts, but no blame.

jobsanger notes that the so-called economic recovery still hasn't reached the middle class.

nonsequiteuse instructs a Houston bar not to use her as an excuse to practice bigotry.

TXsharon at Bluedaze documents another worker's death from fatal fracking vapors.

Neil at All People Have Value said that Alexander Hamilton should remain on the $10 bill. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

And Egberto Willies passes along the Paul Krugman viewpoint the GOP's one-percenters will not allow Donald Trump to secure the nomination... but not for the reasons you might think.

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

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

Grits for Breakfast linked to the coverage of the chase for justice in Smith County.

The Texas Observer psoted on the Fifth Circuit's reversal of the convictions of Citgo's Corpus Christi refinery in violation of the Clean Air Act.

Somervell County Salon passes along the reporting about the anti-SLAPP legislation pending in Congress.

The TSTA Blog salutes education reporter Terrence Stutz on his retirement.

Paradise in Hell annotates Donald Trump's Texas speech, and celebrates its first year of blogging.

Texas Clean Air Matters explains why parents should care about climate change.

David Ortez reports from a Houston mayoral forum on issues facing younger voters.

Danyahel Norris illustrates the importance of Houston's equal rights ordinance.

Lawflog recounts the ongoing tussle between the Booger County Mafia and the city of Hearne's residents.

Finally, the TPA congratulates Lize Burr on her new positions as editor and publisher of the Burnt Orange Report.

Sunday Funnies, Not Debatable edition

Coming to you live

After years of faithful service, my Toshiba Satellite (running Vista, no less!) finally gave up the ghost.  So henceforth Brains will be coming at you with the latest Lenovo technology (4GB and 1 terabyte of memory with Windows 8.1 for awhile until I feel comfortable on it, then upgrading to 10).  While we get back up to posting speed, share with me your experiences running and playing on 8 and 10, please.

My first download is going to be my AdBlocker Plus.  How do you people tolerate all these obnoxious ads?

Fright Night went pie fight

If you read yesterday's predictive analysis, and then watched some of the proceedings (or better yet, followed it on Twitter) then you know things went pretty much according to script.

Trump got beat up.

But whether it was the rattled moment after Jeb Bush dinged him for trying to buy his way into the Florida casino business or when he sputtered through what was (without him) a thoughtful foreign policy discussion, the emperor of the Republican field certainly looked like he forgot his clothes on Wednesday. And that was before his crazy answer on vaccines and autism, or his utter vanquishing at the hands of Carly Fiorina, responding to his comment about her face. 

The other candidates, better polished and better prepared than last time, came across as people who know stuff. Their discussions about government shutdowns, foreign policy, and drug policy had, by the standards of these things, some degree of depth. 

And Trump was noticeably muted through all that.

Maybe his back was hurting from standing for three hours.

Speaking of Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO—so far the lone success story from the undercard debate—built on her success there and showed that her fight to get onto the main stage in the first place was worth it. She not only slayed Trump, she showed she could be the outsider to beat. 

Her answer about defunding Planned Parenthood got some of the loudest applause of the night—second only, perhaps, to her response to Jake Tapper’s question about Trump’s remarks on her appearance.

There's your winner winner, chicken dinner, folks.  She's gonna be movin' on up again.

Beyond that, this was a night of missed opportunities for Jeb Bush, another deer-in-the-headlights moment for Ben Carson, a weed meme, and the same old elephant in the room.  Oh, and Ted Cruz lied about Planned Parenthood again.

It's as entertaining as watching the Housewives of Beverly Hills until you realize one of these morons is going to be on the ballot in November 2016, and that millions of other morons are going to vote for him -- or her -- without a second thought.  Joke's over.

ABC's "9 moments that mattered" is only eight; throw out the one about Rubio.  And this is what 'post-debate spin' looks like.

Did anybody ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz when we're going to have some Democratic debates?  Why, yes they did, and she happens to be thrilled that the clamor for more is being drowned out by the Republicans' food fighting.  Now that's leadership.

Update: Fiorina's star turn -- though she was hideously wrong on climate change, and hyperbolic on Planned Parenthood -- isn't going to last, according to No More Mister Nice because she's not country enough.  That's a fair point, but I think she's got enough crazy going on that the Teabagger base can get along with her.  I still say she's going to fit well as a running mate for anybody except Donald Trump.  And more and better from Vox on all of this, with nearly no mention of Scott Walker or Chris Christie or Rand Paul or Marco Rubio.  That's precisely accurate.  Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham's tete-a-tete on immigration in the matinee got more play than Mike Huckabee.  That nails it as well.

Fight Night II

Or Fright Night, if you'd rather.

The Republican primary field looks very different today than it did nearly six weeks ago, when the first debate was held in Cleveland. Donald Trump has added to his lead, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are starting to show momentum — and some of the others are in danger of joining Rick Perry in falling off the map. A lot is riding on how the top 11 candidates, and the four in the undercard forum, handle the questions from CNN’s moderators at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Here is a rundown on where the race stands and what each of the candidates needs to do to stay competitive.

-- Trump is coming off back-to-back days of massive rallies, in Dallas and in Los Angeles. He spoke to roughly 15,000 people Monday inside the American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks and the Dallas Stars, and on Tuesday he held a rally aboard the 887-foot-long USS Iowa, a decommissioned battleship in the port of Los Angeles. He continues a steady rise in the polls, although his velocity has decreased somewhat. The question is, does this debate mark the beginning of a downward trend for Trump, or can he actually keep gaining in popularity? He’s led the pack now for almost two months, going from the mid-single digits in early July to the clear frontrunner, at 22 percent, in the space of a few weeks. He’s now at 30 percent, but his negatives are very high with a significant number of voters. Political observers have gone through different stages in their reactions to Trump. First came amusement, then mockery, and we have now been in the mild to moderate alarm phase for a few weeks. What happens with Trump on Wednesday night and in the following days will determine whether the GOP establishment goes into action and does what it can to derail and take down the demagogic anti-politician.

Trump is starting to lose women, which is the first data point that his act is finally getting tired.  (But so is Hillary Clinton, a more shocking turn of events.)

-- Carson is arguably the story of the last month, even if he has been overshadowed in the press by Trump’s “perpetual attention machine.” Carson has come from the middle of the pack to now a clear second place, at around 18 percent. And that’s despite a performance at the first debate that most political experts thought was forgettable and unimpressive. But clearly Carson’s lack of experience and absence of establishment connections has benefited him. Now, however, the soft-spoken retired surgeon is becoming a target. He and Trump have sparred recently. And he’ll be under a much bigger microscope than he’s ever experienced.

There is no apparent reason for a neurosurgeon who disbelieves climate change to be rising in the polls except that he benefits from the Herman Cain Effect, which is a wormy calculus swirling in the conservative hive mind that tells them African Americans of all political persuasions will vote for an African American even if he's as lousy a candidate as Cain or Dr. Carson.  Large portions of the Republican racist base believe they can defeat any Democrat by splitting the black vote.  I would like to see this theory tested, which is the only reason I'd like to see Carson maintain his standing near the top of the polls.

-- Jeb Bush has to improve his debate performance. The good news for him is that it won’t be incredibly difficult to do better than he did in Cleveland. The bad news is that he is cratering in the polls. Donors are restless. Bush is flying commercial now to some events rather than on a private jet, a telltale sign of a campaign that is tightening its purse strings. Still, Bush retains significant advantages in his ability to raise money and field a national organization capable of driving supporters to the polls in a drawn-out primary. [...] If he can deliver any kind of body blow to Trump, that would be a huge win for Bush. But at the very least, he needs to show more forcefulness and clarity.

Bush won't be able to lay a glove on Trump.  He can only hope that Trump's mouth eventually does him in.  And even when that finally happens, Bush will see little of the electoral benefit.

-- The freshman U.S. senator from Texas continues to watch the rise of the non-politicians — Trump and Carson and Fiorina — and waits with open arms for the moment when the bottom falls out of their candidacies. Cruz advisers have watched Trump show up to events with little to no organizational effort to identify and collect contact information from supporters. They don’t think he has any capacity to translate his current popularity into votes, even if he doesn’t implode. “I think we are in a breakout moment,” a Cruz adviser said recently. But Cruz does need Trump to lose some altitude for that to happen. Cruz is focusing his energies on denouncing President Obama’s Iran deal, on defunding Planned Parenthood, and on talking about religious liberty. He is third in Iowa and positioned quite well for the fall. He needs to avoid any big errors or damaging moments.

A lot of luck has to break Cruz's way, but I think it is more likely than not that he stands to benefit from the deflation of The Donald, and Mike Huckabee, and the other weaklings mentioned at the end here.

My prediction today is that Ted Cruz will be one of two left standing sometime next spring.

-- Political observers have expressed surprise that Marco Rubio did not reap any real benefit from the first debate, where most agreed that he was among the most impressive. But the U.S. senator from Florida continues to play the role of the tortoise. He does not have a large, expensive campaign and so he does not have to worry about sustaining a massive fundraising effort. He is making smart organizational moves to position himself well in Nevada, which goes fourth in the primary process. His campaign said not to expect any surprises. He’ll be looking to hit singles and doubles, counterpunch if and when he’s attacked, and stay within himself. There’s not a lot of incentive for others to go after him at the moment, however, so it is likely to be clear sailing for him.

Stranger things have happened.

-- The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was the breakout performer from Cleveland. She wasn’t even in the primetime debate, but her eloquence and charisma onstage, as well as in an interview afterward with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, vaulted her into the national conversation and bumped her polling average up to as high as 6 percent in mid-August. She has lost a little momentum since then, but was also given a gift by Trump when he insulted her looks in an interview with a Rolling Stone reporter. Fiorina spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said the Reagan Library debate is “another opportunity for us to introduce Carly to a lot of voters. She still has among the lowest name ID in the field.”

Fiorina is most likely to be someone's vice presidential ticketmate.  Not Donald Trump's but somebody's. The latest news about 30,000 more layoffs at HP should provide easy debate fodder for the debate mods and tough questions for her.

-- Scott Walker has fallen the furthest of any candidate since the debate in Cleveland. For a sampling of all that has been written about his woes, just Google “Scott Walker struggles.” Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), a supposed ally of Walker’s, said in a recent Molly Ball look at Walker’s downward trend, “At some point he will figure out what he actually believes.” Walker has been going the wrong direction for months. He has developed a reputation as a flip-flopper. His campaign knows he needs to have a strong performance at the Reagan Library. “He didn’t use all of his time” in response to every question during the first debate, said an adviser. “He recognizes he can work on that” and that he needs to show “a bit more energy and contrast.” The nod to “contrast” is a signal that Walker will be more aggressive in critiquing others in the field. But Walker also remains in fourth place in Iowa. His favorables are high there. He may need to stop the bleeding, but he doesn’t need to panic yet. “We’re playing the long game,” the adviser said.

As much as he has already lost, he still has the most to lose.

-- The former Arkansas governor may have hoped that his rally outside the Carter County Detention Center in northeast Kentucky, on behalf of the county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, would have given him a bigger bump than he has experienced. And that may still come. But you can bet that Huckabee will bring up his role in the Kim Davis saga. It might be interesting to see what he says if Cruz “mentions” that Huckabee’s staffers prevented Cruz from going onstage and speaking. Clearly, Huckabee wanted the spotlight for himself. But it might be too rich for Cruz, who himself loves the stage, to complain about it.

Mike Huckabee will never be the nominee.  As crazy as the rest of the field is, Huck is just too far gone for even the worst of the GOP base.

-- Like Fiorina, John Kasich’s polling average was so low around the time of the first debate that it’s not visible on the Real Clear Politics graph. And also like Fiorina, the Ohio governor was one of the most talked-about surprise candidates in Cleveland. The home crowd gave Kasich a huge ovation, he made some waves with his welcoming rhetoric toward gays and lesbians, and he has since seized third place in New Hampshire polling, where he is now discussed as a major obstacle there for Bush ­— who is seen as needing to do well in the state since he has little chance to win Iowa. Kasich needs a solid performance here, but nothing spectacular. He just needs to keep his modest momentum going and keep plugging away in New Hampshire.

Frankly, it's Kasich that I worry about the most.  In a saner conservative environment, he'd be the guy at the lead.  And he could still get there.  He's my choice to be standing with Cruz in the rubble of the mid- to late 2016 primary season.



Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and -- once again at the little table -- Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki are all dead men running.  Rick Perry is saving them a seat at the bar for whenever the third debate happens.

Clintonites draw the long knives

They've had enough of all this Sanders surging, and they're not going to take it any more.  From good old Ted's (he likes Bernie, don't forget) Facebook page, Tommy Christopher at The Daily Banter goes off his medication.

After a long summer spent feuding with #BlackLivesMatter and alienating Obama coalition voters, Senator Bernie Sanders appeared to be going in the right direction with black voters. He released a pretty decent racial justice platform, stopped telling people how his 1960s-era activism gave him a lifetime hood pass, and hasn’t openly pined for white voters in months. None of this appears to have translated in the polls, though, as Sanders’ support remains overwhelmingly white, so Bernie made some moves this week. 

First, he decided that drafting Dr. Cornel West as his most prominent black surrogate would somehow be a good idea, which would have worked if Sanders had a flux capacitor and a DeLorean set to 2007. Here in the present, Cornel West  is about as appealing to black voters as a Rand Paul lectureon black party identification. West has been among the most unhinged of Obama critics.

That's probably enough horse shit for anybody to have to consume for the rest of the week.  Christopher used to write for Mediaite, and links to himself nine times in those two paragraphs above.  Click on over to the original and you can quickly get the gist of what the Daily Banter and Christopher are all about by scrolling to the end of this frothing screed, and see what else they have been blogging about.

Whatever the Clintons are paying him, it ain't enough.

It's also pretty low-rent for one of her super PACs to have veered hard right in comparing Sanders to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (RIP) and the UK Labour Party's Jeremy Corbyn, or for center-right Democrats to infer Corbyn is an anti-Semite in a redefinition of the term 'guilt-by-association', and conflate all of this into the usual Clinton surrogate slime-stew they are so effective at pumping out.

But hey, that's politics, as they say.  Right now these little skirmishes are just geek fights on social media and out-of-the-way places online like The DB and Brains and Eggs.  In a couple of weeks you'll start to see more of it as these smears bubble up to the various 24-7 Trump Channels (and you know which lamestream media outlets I'm talking about).

To paraphrase the name of the rabid super PAC run by the odious David Brock above, let's Correct the Record.  Here's a more even-handed interpretation of Dr. West and his motivations.  If you'd like to better understand why Clinton's cronies are so hysterically desperate to slow Sanders' growing support among blacks, here you go.  And last, the Democratic establishment has capitulated, and now wants to wade into the same plutocracy pool the Republicans have been scuba-diving in for a couple of years now.

I wrote in June that Bernie Sanders wasn't going to get the Democratic nomination unless he started to attract minority support from Hillary Clinton.  And that is precisely what her goons are now trying to prevent.  The South Carolina primary will be the ultimate test, but between now and next February -- just five months away -- the battle will be won or lost.

We just get to wait and see what develops.

Update: More on this emerging phenomenon of coordinated strikes on the Sanders campaign from Balloon Juice and No More Mister Nice Blog.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance knows that no one has a constitutional right to be a county clerk as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the very high stakes of the voter ID appeal.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos, and contributing to Daily Kos, asks why the U.S. cannot have high speed rail that is common in Europe and Asia? Why? The do-nothing GOP, of course. Republican are why we can't have nice things.

Socratic Gadfly, linking to the first piece he has written for an in-depth philosophy and social sciences webzine, explores the parallels between Constitutional originalism and religious fundamentalism.

The best debate in the Houston mayoral contest happened last Thursday night, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs blogged about it.

Texas Leftist agrees with President Obama; the economic future of the United States may soon be inextricably linked to the world's next great power player. Here's why it's time for Texas to take a new look at Africa. Plus some coverage as the Houston Unites campaign kicks into high gear.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson understands that the Texas GOP has a problem with health care. They hate it and it shows: Common sense conservatism is bad for your health.

JohnCoby at Bay Area Houston took note of Ted Cruz locking up the coveted Kentucky hillbilly vote.  "Lock up."  Get it?

TXSharon at Bluedaze caught the Texas Railroad Commission sitting on the lap of a fracker.

Egberto Willies documents more of the slow-but-steady rise of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

Neil at All People Have Value was glad to see local outreach by the Harris County Green Party on Labor Day. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

A rally in Dallas tonight for Donald Trump will be preceded by a "Dump the Trump" protest march through downtown during rush-hour, according to Trail Blazers.

Juanita Jean unloads on Houston mayoral candidate Ben Hall.

Grits for Breakfast calls out Dan Patrick for misleading and incendiary rhetoric about crime and the police.

The TSTA Blog rebuts a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the recent SCOTUS charter school ruling.

Prairie Weather uncovers how America became the land of gross inequality and the home of dangerous coverups.

Steve Bates marvels at the self-realization of some Republicans that another government shutdown -- this time over defunding Planned Parenthood -- might not benefit their general cause.

Carol Morgan would like to know how to pronounce "Mission Accomplished" in Arabic.

jobsanger caught the YouGov poll that said 43% of Republicans would be in favor of a military takeover of the US government.

Liz Goulding looks back on three years of being a one-car household.

The Bloggess celebrated World Suicide Prevention Day.

And Fascist Dyke Motors is waiting on Alex Trebek.

Sunday Funnies, Unscripted and Spontaneous edition

Adios, MoFo (with a dream sequence update)

Too easy a headline, considering the departed has been on life support for some time.

Rick Perry's political career ended with a whimper, a remarkable if predictable fall for the longest-serving governor in Texas history and a leader many considered the Republican Party's savior just four years ago.

History may judge it an end sealed back in 2011, when Perry froze on a debate stage and tried to recover with an embarrassed "oops." Others may remember the former governor with the movie-star looks and resume to match as Donald Trump's first political victim.

He left with a tinge of bitterness against the candidate with even more remarkable hair than his own.

In July Perry blasted Trump as a "cancer on conservatism (that) threatens to metastasize into a movement of mean-spirited politics." On Friday he offered another, more veiled, jab at the real estate mogul and star of wildly popular television show "The Apprentice."

"The conservative movement has always been about principles, not about personalities," Perry told the Missouri crowd.

"Our nominee should embody those principles. He or she must make the case for the cause of conservatism more than the cause of their own celebrity."

With $13 million remaining in his super PAC account, Governor Oops can still be a kingmaker of sorts.  Don't count on him crowning The Donald with any money.  The fellow who stands to benefit the most from Perry's second crap-out in four years is probably Ted Cruz.

Cruz feels that Perry's exit will make it easier to attract top Texas donors who hadn't otherwise contributed to the senator, because they didn't want to be seen as publicly choosing sides against Perry, the person said. It also may make the March 1 Texas primary "a lot cleaner," since Cruz will be the clear home-state choice.

At the moment, polling in Iowa shows Trump, Ben Carson, Cruz, and Carly Fiorina first through fourth.

Between the four of them, there’s about two-and-a-half years of experience in public office — all belonging to Cruz — and that experience largely consists of shouting and/or reading children’s books in an empty room while C-SPAN cameras whir softly.

We're gonna let you git on down the road, Goodhair.

Update:  I did not have time to include this in the post, but on Friday night I had a dream that involved me being at a party with Taylor Swift (she performed in Houston this past week) and a few hundred other of her closest friends.  It should be noted here that I am not a fan, don't have any of her music, don't know any of the words or even titles of her songs.

But there I was, sitting at the edge of a luxurious, resort-style swimming pool, legs in the water, eating a delicious stuffed croissant with crab and mushrooms and some kind of creamy alfredo sauce (essentially something I can never eat, as I am diabetic).  A waiter came by and I asked me if I would like to have a 'margarita shrimp cocktail', which he promptly set down beside me.  It was, as you might visualize, a frozen margarita with boiled shrimp lining the rim.  As I surveyed the delicacies I was eating and about to eat, I looked up, and from across the pool Taylor was waving at me.  I smiled and waved back, then noticed from the lower corner of my eye that someone in one of those floating chair things -- the kind with a cup holder in the armrest -- had paddled over to me and was extending his hand to shake.

It was Rick Perry, and he wanted to thank me for everything that I had blogged about his campaign through the years, how grateful he was for all the help, and blahblahblah....

Apparently that was too much cognitive dissonance for my conscious mind to endure, and it promptly shook my subconscious/unconscious by the figurative shoulders and I woke up.  Grinning.

(That's the best imitation of your style that I am capable of, Katy.)