Two bacon cheese triple patty nothingburgers to go, please.

This was the foulest load of crap I read on the topic yesterday.  It covered nearly every space on my Brockhole Bingo card.

Let's establish that my primary objection isn't the casual dismissal of this matter by Hillary Clinton herself -- I would expect no less than her condescending rejection at this point -- but the stubborn and rigid attempts of her lickspittles to aggressively discount her probable violations of the law with logic like "I don't care" or "nothingburger".

This is both Nixonian and Dubya-like in its unquestioning faith placed in a corrupt leader.

Once the FBI investigation concludes with no indictment, nobody -- but nobody -- will have the power to hold Hillary Clinton accountable to anything except the people resolutely lined up behind her.  She certainly doesn't give a good goddamn what anybody else thinks.  She will only hear the calls for full disclosure with the expectation of bringing an end to this episode if the stooges currently defending the indefensible rouse themselves from their intellectual torpor and start to question a few things.

If she won't come clean now... when?

In other news: a Trump/Sanders debate.  Priceless.

Winners and losers from last night's returns

-- It's the battle of the incompetent politicos with fortunate surnames for the right to regulate the Texas oil and gas industry (aka the Railroad Commission).  Grady not-Ralph Yarbrough not-Yarborough won his runoff against Cody Garrett, and will face off with Wayne Christian (from now on, appearing in this space as Xtian), who defeated 7-time loser (don't get any Mucus on you if you click this link) on the GOP side, Gary Gates.  The news that broke in this race:

Gates won Harris, FT Bend, Bexar, Monty, Dallas, Williamson, Galveston, Denton, @ChristianForTX won w/ rural vote in 146 counties #txlege

— Luke Marchant (@_Luke) May 25, 2016

This is another Hobbsian choice, a Sid Miller/Junior Samples rerun of a statewide contest. Your best option will be the Green Party candidate, Martina Salinas (though she should update her Facebook page, maybe get a website).

-- Ed Gonzalez will be Harris County's next sheriff after besting Jerome Moore in the runoff.  Rebecca Elliott at the Chronic refries the beans for the fall tilt ...

Gonzalez's victory set the stage for a potential replay of 2008, when former Sheriff Adrian Garcia, a mentor to Gonzalez, unseated longtime Republican Sheriff Tommy Thomas amid a Democratic resurgence led by Barack Obama.

Garcia resigned last May to run for Houston mayor, prompting members of the county's Commissioners Court to tap Ron Hickman as his replacement.

Gonzalez, who has called on the sheriff's office to help reduce recidivism through correctional education, boost transparency and increase jail inspections, distanced his leadership style from Hickman's.

"I think we can do much better," Gonzalez said. "He's had about a year to kind of make his mark on the agency, and I think there's been some questionable decisions that have been made, so I'm looking forward to a very contested general election battle."

Hickman, who sailed through the March 1 GOP primary, has touted improvements to agency morale and cost-savings initiatives. However, he has come under fire in recent months for understaffing and overcrowding at the jail, as well as the death of four inmates who were assaulted or suffered head trauma while incarcerated.

Gonzalez, for his part, is likely to face renewed scrutiny for taking home six homicide case files when he left the Houston Police Department in 2009. Police charged a suspect in one of those murder cases within two weeks of receiving the file years later.

Hickman starts with a sizable financial advantage over Gonzalez, with $227,000 in the bank in February, compared to Gonzalez's $43,000 as of mid-May. 

I voted for Gonzalez because he was the only candidate in the race who opposed 287(g), a callously inhumane Obama immigration policy.  And I was appalled by former sheriff Garcia's active prosecution of it.

Latinos have every right to demand -- and expect -- progress from a Hillary administration regarding this, and if the long-awaited Latino surge in voter turnout finally shows up to vote against Drumpf, Clinton and Gonzalez and many other Democrats in Harris County and Texas and the United States -- and as referenced above, perhaps even a Green Latina -- will be the beneficiaries.

-- Winning their elections but still losers in life include Jarvis Johnson (as predicted), Ron Reynolds (as predicted) and Judge Elaine Palmer and JP Hilary (ex-wife of former City Controller Ron) Green.  You had better options, voters, but the real blame goes to the 97% or so who couldn't be afflicted to participate in this runoff.  When you allow cronies, flacks, and insiders to pick your representatives, you get governed by your inferiors.

... Reynolds attracted support from an array of elected officials including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green and the Democratic party chair of Fort Bend (Don Bankston). Reynolds noted that none of his legislative peers were calling for his resignation.

(Challenger Angelique) Bartholomew's campaign sought to capitalize on the criminal allegations involving Reynolds, as did Annie's List, a statewide group supporting progressive and pro-choice women that endorsed Bartholomew. "The pattern of wrongdoing is stunning!" one news release from Annie's List stated.

In a press release, Reynolds described that characterization of him as "negative smears."

As I have reminded the most ignorant of Clinton supporters, facts are not attacks.

Other events that trailed Reynolds included a ruling from a Harris County judge in April that ordered the representative to pay $504,000 in damages for failing to give a mother her share of a settlement in lawsuit related to her daughter's death in a car crash.

That same day, in Austin, the State Board of Disciplinary Appeals held a hearing to consider whether Reynolds could continue to practice law in Texas. According to an order subsequently filed, Reynolds was suspended pending the outcome of his criminal conviction.

This man is not qualified to serve, but only further convictions may deter him from doing so.  The Democratic voters of Fort Bend County certainly won't exercise due diligence in this regard.

So things are looking good for African American Democrats locally, as they swept nearly every single race across the region.  Harris County Latinos, similarly, have lots of bright prospects for the fall.  Despite my snark, Team Blue has a strong lineup to take back the county in a little over five months, and I'll hoist a glass in their general direction this holiday weekend.

Now that we'll shortly have more Democrats in office, how about some better ones also?

Update: Goodbye, Mary Lou.  The only time you will have been mentioned here, and with your Lord's help, never to be seen or heard from again.

Revolution News Update, Vol. 5: Inevitability is almost here

-- According to Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight.com (who has only been wrong a time or two), Hillary Clinton will clinch the nomination on June 7 -- two weeks from today -- once the polls close in New Jersey, a couple of hours before the polls close in California.   So maybe that's what she meant when she said California's votes won't be counting.

(But Ted will still be an asshole long after that.  Those will be the last clicks he gets from here for a while; you won't be finding him in the Wrangle or in the blogroll to the right any longer.  He voluntarily deported from my Facebook friends list recently, which saved me four seconds' worth of my time and trouble purging him myself.  Bye Felicia, Ted.  Hope to see ya in San Antone next month so I can punch you in the nose.)

-- So we'll see what kind of good Democrats Sanders delegates plan to be in San Antonio at the TDP state convention three and a half weeks from now. The people organizing the delegation are stressing harmony and cooperation, which really isn't tasting like my brand of tea at the moment.

I have media and delegate credentials, but except for a sudden desire to straighten Ted and a few other people out, I'm disinclined to attend the convention at all.  Just won't be able to stomach all the Clinton slobbering and fawning.

-- Let's emphasize: Hillary Clinton is in no danger -- not at the moment and probably not ever -- of failing to be elected president of the United States.  Disregard national horse race polls that show her neck-and-neck with Drumpf, and remind yourself that we do not elect presidents by popular vote.  That is and always has been nothing more than careless media spin.  Pay attention only to state polling in an Electoral College scenario.  Those polls continue to hold Clinton as a prohibitive favorite.  The WaPo's first take, for example, has several states as tossups that really aren't:

Their very conservative estimate above gives Clinton 201 EC votes and Trump 164.

Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada -- by Cillizza and Bump's own admission -- are not seriously swing states.  Add them (51) to Clinton's tally and she is just 18 votes from the White House.  That's Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Iowa.  Or either one of Florida or Ohio.

This premise gives no weight to the formidable (relative to their history) challenge to Trump's electoral prospects by the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and former MA Gov. William Weld, mentioned at the end of RNU Vol. 4.  Whereas the US Green Party is currently ballot-eligible in just 21 states, the Libs are on in 32.  That turns a couple of tossups blue all by itself, IMHO.

And if Arizona and Georgia are truly in play, then Drumpf has no chance at all.  Go ahead, play around with the map yourself.  It's not going to be Landslide Lyndon territory for the former Goldwater Girl, but it's not going to be very close, either.

With these thirteen states -- I contend it's less than ten -- being the only ones where anybody's votes might matter, that leaves a lot of Americans with the opportunity to vote their conscience.  Their votes for Trump or Johnson, in California or New York or every other solidly blue state above, won't elect Clinton president.  Likewise, a vote for Jill Stein in Texas will not -- cannot -- elect Trump.  But you'll continue to see this logical fallacy repeated by Hillbots from now until Election Day.  It's no more true than blaming Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss in 2000.  Now, it's possible that a vote for Johnson-Weld in a swing state could be blamed for Clinton's victory in November, but only if you believe the false premise that Libertarian votes belong to the GOP ... just as Green votes are owned entirely by Dems (sic).  Ross Perot caught grief for Slick Willie and his two terms in 1992 and '96, but let's leave the GOP to fight amongst themselves over that.

Let's call the Clintons extremely lucky in politics, if nothing else.

An indictment of Hillary Clinton by a federal grand jury, presented with evidence that she criminally mishandled classified information could upset the apple cart, but I believe that's simply unlikely to happen (even if she is guilty of the crime, which she very likely is).  And certainly there's a slight chance that she could fuck up a sure thing in some other way.  But I can't see it happening.  Clinton may be a monster; absolutely capable of serious errors in judgment but she is not quite as self-destructive as Trump, and certainly not to the same magnitude.

From the standpoint of a handful of social issues -- women's reproductive freedoms, extending civil rights to all of the LGBTQ community, perhaps some ground regained in voting rights, and some for the obstructionists lost in voter suppression and disenfranchisement -- a Clinton 2.0 administration is a good, good thing.  From the view of incremental advancement in other areas (the federal minimum wage, maybe some of that old Clinton magic dust sprinkled around the economy), Hillary's definition of 'progressive', like Nevada being a swing state, is a charade.

And as for more wars, drone assassinations, the continuing Svengali-like control of corporate lobbyists over her and Congress, and the resulting legislation that further enriches the banks, pharmaceutical companies, and Big Oil and Gas to the detriment of our environment and our health, financial and otherwise ... we might be in worse shape than if we somehow got Trump.  Il Douche, the neofascist, would make no pretense of exceeding capitalism's worst and greediest dreams; Clinton would say she'd do something about it and then not.  Yes, prevarication coupled with the pillaging is worse.

So a lot of Americans, perhaps many more than ever in history, will see no difference between the Demoblican and the Republicrat and won't vote as a result.  That has the odd consequence of making the votes of those who do worth more ... just as our historically low turnout elections for runoffs in Texas and municipal elections in Houston do the same.  Enabling the most fanatical about politics, however, aggravates the system's and its players' worst instincts.

Your vote has more influence in a low-turnout scenario, but simultaneously produces lousier representation and a shittier democracy.  The smallest number of people carrying the greatest weight -- as with the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 -- often produces Murphy's Law-like consequences ... such as 9/11, My Pet Goat, pre-emptive wars based upon lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, American soldiers and the CIA performing torture on innocent Iraqi citizens, Congressional reports about the torture being destroyed accidentally, all while the drones and bombings and special forces' boots on the ground in country proliferate, inflaming Muslim extremists in a dozen nations around the world ... which inevitably results in more wars.

Round and round we go, until there's nothing left.

So vote or don't, Berners.  You may not perceive that it makes any difference in your lives either way, and from a certain point of view you're not mistaken.  As for me, I'll vote my principles.  That lets me sleep well at night.

Runoff election today, Harris Commissioner forum, and more

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The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance doesn't get paid for not working for Ken Paxton or George P. Bush as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff just shakes his head at the Supreme Court punt on birth control.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos explores the deep disconnect between the recently ratified Texas Republican Party's platform and the views of residents in Houston, the state’'s largest city. Political Divide: Texas GOP - Its braying buffoons and "penurious reactionaries" are not who we are.

Socratic Gadfly looks at the most recent imbroglio, or whatever, involving Dallas County DA Susan Hawk, and fires both barrels, saying she needs to resign AND the Dallas media needs to do a MUCH better job covering this issue.

The latest revolution update is posted by PDiddie at Brain and Eggs.

McBlogger says the Dark Ages have descended in Austin with the departure of Uber and Lyft.

Egberto Willies detailed his own bad medical experience to underscore the continuing problems with for-profit health care in the USA.

The Lewisville Texan Journal reviews the art show "Strictly Texas", on display there.

An oily substance covering the town of Mansfield, TX couldn't be blamed on pickles, by the account at TXsharon's Bluedaze.

Neil at All People Have Value walked around downtown Houston this week with a sign that called for us to respect one another. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

And Dos Centavos eulogizes Emilio Navaira.

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

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

Trail Blazers reveals that like Ken Paxton, Land Commissioner George P. Bush has also been paying state employees not to work; the difference is he's paid them not to sue him or the department.

The WAWG Blog observes that the Gig Economy enables you to have the right to work for slave wages as your own CEO.

Make West Texas Great Again notes that even newly re-elected RPT chair Tom Mechler sees the fallacy of having God as your campaign manager.

Jonathan Tilove at First Reading is all aTwitter about Don Willett,  the state SCOTX justice whose name appeared on Donald Trump's short list of potential SCOTUS nominees.

The Texas Observer's review of HBO's All The Way, the biodrama about LBJ, suggests a kindler, gentler, somewhat less crude portrayal of the nation's 36th president.

Robert Rivard excoriates the Supreme Court decision upholding the school finance system, and Better Texas Blog forecasts a scary future for Texas' children as a result of that ruling.

Christopher Hooks contemplates Ted Cruz's future.

Leah Binkovitz rethinks urban design in the wake of recent flooding.

Offcite reviews several new books on transportation.

The Lunch Tray documents a falling-out between the School Nutrition Association and House Republicans.

Save Buffalo Bayou reports on the sieges of herons and the skewers of egrets.

And Pages of Victory is adjusting to his chronological age.

Sunday Funnies