"Let's watch losers debate the man who isn't there"

One No Trump.

Whee, one more Republican debate before Iowa votes, after which somebody will win the Iowa caucuses and nobody will drop out and we’ll have a million more debates, even after Hillary Rodham Clinton’s two terms as president are over. And it’s tonight! What’s going to happen? We don’t know, do you?

It gets a lot NSFW after that, Wonky-style.  Here are YouGov's polling results on Trump's boycott; while he continues to lead in Iowa, even pulling the evangelical vote there, a plurality (43%) in the YG survey deem his withdrawal from tonight's Fox debate  'unacceptable'.  But like many others at this point, I think Trump is going to win the Republican nomination, mostly because nothing he has done has slowed his roll.

As for tonight, Rand gets back on stage, while Carnival Cruz takes the center. And look who the cat dragged in; why, it's Jim Gilmore, fighting his way back to the kiddie table.  Too bad it's way too late to matter; the world in which Ted Cruz is looking like the only alternative to Trump is causing some queasy stomachs in the GOP.

Some powerful Republicans are dismayed at what this election cycle has yielded. Party officials (last) week declared themselves against Ted Cruz. But none, with the exception of the former Alaska governor, will endorse his top rival — Donald Trump. 

Cruz and Trump kicked off their campaigns as radical candidates pit against the stale "establishment," then rose to take the top spots in national and early state polls. Now "the establishment" must choose which they'll support for the nomination. 

Cruz's week of hard hits got worse (last) Thursday. Five Republican senators told CNN they didn't want Cruz to win, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn expressed concern with the race. The AP reported one Republican senator vowed to vote for Democrat Bernie Sanders before Cruz, though the senator denied it, according to the Charlotte Observer. 

That comes after the Republican governor of Iowa, the first state to host a primary caucus, announced he wanted Cruz to lose, and after Bob Dole, a former Republican presidential nominee, said he preferred Trump, who also (last) week got the endorsement of Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin.

Tonight's spotlight dance for the Cuban Canuck may come at a perfect moment for him to surge as the voting is set to begin ... or it could just be another missed opportunity.  Don't watch tonight; I'll do that for you and Tweet some of the best laughs in the top right column.

The stingers get stung

The news broke late yesterday afternoon, and every media outlet has posted a story about it, so consider this one a coda.

A Harris County grand jury on Monday indicted the videographers behind undercover recordings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston and cleared the women's health provider of any wrongdoing. 

The indictments — part of the county prosecutor's investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue — include charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. The grand jury handed down a second charge for Daleiden for “Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs," according to the Harris County District Attorney's office. That charge is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail. 

The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston of breaking any laws.

The Republican district attorney, appointed by Greg Abbott (and subsequently re-elected against a worthy Democratic challenger) investigated the national women's healthcare organization for wrongdoings associated with the undercover and heavily edited videotapes by the two folks named above.  It was the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who pressured the DA to bring charges to a grand jury.  She did, and the grand jury returned an indictment.  Just not against Planned Parenthood.

The irony is so rich it must be fattening.

"We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” Anderson said in a statement. "As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case."

Rarely do you see a group of right-wing freaks get clocked this badly all around the horn.  It reminds me of the kind of embarrassment inflicted upon themselves -- and the rest of the state of Texas --  by the advocates of the Operation Jade Helm conspiracy.  Except in this case, women's lives and health have been endangered by their rabid, frothing extremism.

On to the next outrage, patriots!  You have lost the Battle of the So-Called Baby Killers.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance, in bringing you this week's blog post roundup, hopes everyone stays safe in the Northeast as the socialist snowplows come to the rescue.

Off the Kuff interviewed Harris County Sheriff candidates Ed Gonzalez and Jeff Stauber.

SocraticGadfly questions the mainstream media narrative that the GOP presidential race is down to a Trump-Cruz two-person event with this analysis and has a follow-up skewering of the Trump-Palin fun coming.

McBlogger goes the full 'pragmatism' on Bernie Sanders.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, state Rep. Garnet Coleman, three current and one former Houston city councilmen all want to take the place of the recently-departed Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee on the November ballot. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the latest on the most highly contested 2016 race that you won't be eligible to vote for.

Of course the frackers are big GOP donors. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows that the Texas Republicans don't work for you. They work for their rich buddies.

In additional fracking developments, Texas Vox has the details on the teleconference open to the public on EPA's assessment of hydraulic fracturing and its effect on drinking water, and TXsharon at Bluedaze has more environmental news from across the country.

Texas Leftist writes about the legal challenge to Obama's executive action on immigration moving toward the SCOTUS.

nonsequiteuse attended the HISD meeting where Confederate heroes, and the schools named after them, were on the agenda.

Neil at All People Have Value took a Martin Luther King Day picture of two different types of birds sharing space in peace. We could learn from these birds. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

Democratic Blog News has this pointed reminder: "Texas primary early voting starts on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 and runs through Friday, February 26, 2016. [...] Texas early voting voters will likely have cast about half of their total primary ballots by the time SC Democrats vote in their primary on Saturday, February 27th."

Prairie Weather helps out with a good definition of 'progressive'.

Zachery B. Taylor asks whether academia is helping or hurting democracy.

Jonathan Tilove noted that Greg Abbott flew Air Adelson to Israel and then Davos.

Ty Clevenger appealed the slap on the wrist given US Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. in his judicial misconduct investigation.

Keep Austin Wonky interviews Texas House candidate Huey Rey Fischer.

The Current advertises a movie screening to raise money for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the FEC against Ted Cruz for his failure to report those Goldman Sachs and Citibank loans from 2012.

Anastasia Hansen tells you things you may not have known about Houston's bus system.

And Progress Texas documents four decades of Texas abortion laws.

Sunday Funnies, The Hopelessness of Unaudacity edition

Props to Ted Rall for the title of this week's edition.

Rodney Ellis wants to fill vacancy on Harris commissioners' court

But he doesn't want the interim job.

Longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis has begun making calls to local Democratic Party leaders and plans to run for the Harris County Commissioner seat left vacant after the death of El Franco Lee, a spokesman said Thursday night. 

County Judge Ed Emmett will announce and swear in Lee's temporary replacement in Precinct 1 on Friday and Lee's name will remain on the ballot for the primary. 

But Ellis' campaign spokesman David Edmonson said late Thursday the Houston lawmaker was not pursuing Emmett's interim appointment. Ellis has researched the statute, and has asked an aide to lay out the steps a candidate like him would need to take to get his name removed from the November ballot for senator should the Democratic Party chairs choose him as the general election candidate for the commissioner's seat.

I take this at face value; Judge Emmett will appoint someone to serve for the rest of this year who is not named Rodney Ellis, and that is a little surprising.  Whatever it means, Emmett will announce his pick at ten a.m. this morning, and I'll update here (but not until this afternoon, so watch your Twitter for breaking news at that time).

Update: It's Gene Locke, former city attorney, former mayoral challenger.

Locke, 68, a senior partner at the Andrews Kurth law firm, served as city attorney under the late Mayor Bob Lanier in the 1990s and ran for mayor in 2009, losing in a runoff to Annise Parker. 

"I plan to be a hands-on, on the ground, let's get with the program commissioner, which means that I will follow in El Franco's footsteps," Locke said. 

He added: "This precinct belongs to El Franco Lee, and anything that I do over the next several months is dedicated to him." 

Asked if he intended to run for the post in November, Locke said, "My intention is to go back to the practice of law and enjoy my family."

Locke tried the old "black, brown, and red" (names you'll recognize) route to the mayor's office in 2009, made the runoff but didn't come all that close to City Hall.  In a related development, Quorum Report notes that another powerful state legislator is thinking of challenging -- in whatever fashion that happens to take, since at this point it's the Precinct One chairs who will vote to select a permanent replacement this summer -- for the seat on commissioners' court.

... Rep. Garnet Coleman tells QR he is looking at it as well: "As chair of county affairs, it’s something I’ve looked at for a very long time. I didn’t think that Rodney would pursue it, but he decided to."

Update II:

City Councilmen Jerry Davis, Dwight Boykins and Larry Green said Friday they have begun campaigning, such as it is, under these unusual circumstances. Councilman C.O. Bradford said constituents had encouraged him to run, and he's considering it. 

[...] 

A legal memo prepared for county Democratic chair Lane Lewis outlined a path by which Ellis said he could seek the (November) ballot spot. In mid-June the Democratic party chairs for Precinct 1 will vote for a candidate to replace Lee on the ballot. 

If the party chose him for commissioner, Ellis could withdraw his name from the ballot for state senator, which would trigger a second process by the Democratic leaders to pick a Democrat for state Senate.

Presumably there will be six months of schmoozing the precinct chairs with votes in the contest.  We can start the Ellis/Coleman replacement watch to ticking, and Borris Miles is allegedly the early front-runner in a potential SD-13 special election.