The 2016 P-Slate

-- For President of the United States:

-- For US Congress, Seventh District:  None.

Jim "Frack You" Cargas is en route to a third consecutive beatdown at the hands of John Culberson.  Frack both of these rotten fellows.  This race is left blank, again, on my ballot.

-- For Texas Railroad Commission: Martina Salinas, Green Party.

Picking between the two major party candidates for this office is actually worse than choosing between Trump and Clinton.  So for all you straight-party voting morons out there on both sides, wise up and split your ticket.  The Libertarian has been praised, but Texas needs an environmental steward and not another corporate stooge on the board that regulates the oil and gas industry.

-- For Justice, Texas Supreme Court, Place 3: Rodolfo Rivera Munoz, Green Party.

Munoz seeks to become the first indigenous American elected to the state Supreme Court.  He elucidates the reasons he has for running in videos on his Facebook page.

-- For Justice, Texas Supreme Court, Place 5: Charles E. Waterbury, Green Party.

The Democrats have a strong candidate, but I won't be voting for her.

-- For Justice, Texas Supreme Court, Place 9: Jim Chisholm, Green Party.

The Republican incumbent is heavily favored, and the Democrat is a placeholder (no updates to her FB page since January).

-- For Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2: Adam King Blackwell Reposa, Green Party.

The Democrat is a former Republican who favors the death penalty to a greater degree than even the notorious chief justice of this court, Sharon Keller.  Pass.

-- For Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5: Judith Sanders-Castro, Green Party.

The Democrat is an embarrassment to the Democratic Party.  A complete and total embarrassment.

(Betsy) Johnson filed in the last hour of the last day to put her name in contention, the Texas Democratic Party confirmed.

State District Judge Sid Harle of Bexar County - who lost a bid for the GOP nod for the Place 5 seat - said he met Johnson after she was dropped from the appointment list for indigent defendants facing felony charges in 2011.

He said other criminal court judges pressed for the action. Since he was the presiding judge, she came to his office to dispute it.

"I hear this clomping outside my door, and she comes storming into my office in, of course, combat boots," said Harle. He said he advised Johnson to work as second chair without pay in a couple of trials to prove to the judges she could try a case, but she refused with an expletive.

Johnson, who is described as partial to unconventional attire such as the combat boots noted by Harle, couldn't be reached for this story. She didn't respond to an email inquiry, and there was no answer at the telephone number she has listed with the State Bar of Texas.

I've covered this previously.  If you vote for this person -- and especially if you're voting for her as a result of a mindless straight-party ticket -- then you're just as bad as she is.

-- For Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 6: Robert Burns, Democratic Party.

Finally a statewide Democrat I can support.  Let's hope Hillary Clinton's coattails in Texas are long enough to get some balance on the CCA.

-- First Court of Appeals Democrats Jim Peacock and Barbara Gardner should be elected, as should be Fourteenth Court of Appeals Democrats Candace White and Peter Kelly.

The only Harris Democratic state district judge you should not vote for is running in the 215th, Elaine Palmer.  I'll cite her Republican challenger (but won't be voting for him myself).

-- Harris County District Attorney: Kim Ogg.

-- Harris County Attorney: Vince Ryan.

-- Harris County Sheriff: Ed Gonzalez.

-- Harris County Tax assessor/Collector: Ann Harris Bennett.

-- Harris County Commissioner, Place 1, Rodney Ellis, and Place 3, Jenifer Rene Pool.

-- Here's a great resource that lists all the Harris County candidates, all races and parties.  Among them, and if I could do so, I'd be voting for Joshua Darr (G) in CD-02 (Ted Poe, incumbent), Hal Ridley (Green, no Democrat running) against the odious Brian Babin in CD-36, Joe McElligott in HD-127 (G, no D running against R incumbent Dan Huberty) and Brian Harrison (G) in HD-147 (Garnet Coleman, incumbent).

-- I'll be voting Against on HISD Prop 1, aka recapture.

Here's the League of Women Voters' Guide, here's the HGLBT Caucus card (very useful for Harris judicial contests) and Deb Russell -- the Green Party's Travis County Sheriff candidate -- also has a progressive's voting guide posted at Facebook for the state capital region.

Questions about other races elsewhere in Texas?  Leave 'em in the comments.

Update: Two hours and twenty minutes on queue at Bayland Park to vote this afternoon.  A 'longest ever' record for me.  I voted there because the lines looked longer at Fiesta on South Main, where the longest I ever waited to vote before today was 45 minutes in 2008.  I believe anybody who might be waiting until Saturday or next week to vote early might be in for a longer wait.  IJS.

The Polls are Open Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates the opening of early voting -- and the beginning of the end of the very worst election in our nation's long history -- as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff analyzes the state of the polls in Texas.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos encourages all Democrats to show up at the voting polls. Texas Democrats have a fighting chance this year. We can right a boatload of Republican wrongs. Nasty Ladies of Texas Unite! Houston is not impressed by Trump.

Socratic Gadfly, given ongoing recent problems in his (Deep East Texas) area, says it's time to nationalize the Internet.

Can Hillary Clinton actually carry Texas in the Electoral College?   PDiddie at Brains and Eggs notes that blue teamers are desperately trying to squeeze out the 1 or 2% the Green Party is polling in order to do so.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes Sean Hannity's pick for speaker of the US House, Louis Gohmert, isn't the worst East Texas Republican this week. Brian Babin is.

Bay Area Houston has instructions for those who plan on voting illegally.

Texas Leftist has his first candidate questionnaire posted: Matt Murphy (R), HD-147.

Two Lewisville ISD Special Olympics volunteers were feted, reports the Texan-Journal.

And Neil at All People Have Value admired the urban amber waves of Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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Jonathan Tilove passes along the thoughts inside Donald Trump's head, as foreordained by South Austin's very own Alex Jones.

Zachery Taylor wonders if Hillary Clinton is indeed rigging the 2016 election (with Trump's help).

The Rag Blog's David Hamilton, one of its original contributors, endorses Jill Stein for president.

Cody Pogue thinks that a bad president is better than a revolution.

BOR is crowdsourcing Texas Republican elected officials' support of Donald Trump, and Kyrie O'Connor and Eileen Smith are #NastyWomen.

Daniel Williams and Leah Binkovitz explain the options in the HISD recapture referendum.

The Texas Election Law Blog rounds up some good reads on voter registration and resistance to it.

Keep Austin Wonky does a deep dive on the “Go Big” mobility bond.

PoliTex reports that candidates are lining up to file against incumbent Fort Worth city council members for next spring's municipal elections.

Lawflog notes another day and another judge's ethical whitewash.

The Lunch Tray wants to know why it's hard to find out information about sugar in school food.

Transgriot reminds us that it is not incumbent upon the people who are being oppressed to forgive their oppressors.

John Wright at the Texas Observer rounds up the latest LGBTQ news from around Texas, including Lite Guv Dan Patrick's push for an anti-trans bathroom bill in next year's legislative session.

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers turns in his 'gay' two weeks' notice.

Sunday Bad Hombres and Nasty Women Funnies

Two days before he said it himself.

Sorry, Snoopy.

"How charges of 'voter fraud' became a political strategy" and more last-minute election scattershooting

-- Republicans believe many more urban legends than Democrats do.

In asserting that the presidential election has been rigged against him and casting accusations of widespread voter fraud, Donald J. Trump has tapped deep into an increasingly prevalent theme of Republican Party politics: that Democrats try to steal elections, not win them.

It is the culmination of roughly two decades of alarms, investigations and political gamesmanship in which remarkably little voter fraud has been documented, but the conviction that it is widespread has gone from a fringe notion to an article of faith for many Republicans.

Many facts to read and absorb there, defanging the wolves cried about by little boys.  Some of which we already knew ...

(A) study by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who currently works in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, uncovered only 31 credible claims of voter impersonation between 2000 and 2014, out of one billion ballots that were cast. An Arizona State University journalism project reviewed 2,068 allegations of election fraud between 2000 and 2012 and concluded that only 10 had involved misrepresentation.

Greg Abbott is a disciple of this sub-religion, and we're still waiting for the big reveal in Tarrant County.  I'm surprised we've had to wait this long, frankly; there's a lot of early votes that need suppressing beginning Monday. 

-- The Homo Haters return to Houston once again for some last-minute GOTBV (Get Out the Bigot Vote).  This is protest-worthy, so I hope some of the HERO organizers and HGLBT Caucus folks have some energy left over after all of the blockwalking for Landslide Hillary to represent for themselves outside the Marriott Hobby next weekend.

-- Was your internet broken yesterday?  Mine wasn't.  Gadfly has been complaining about his for awhile now and has gone the full socialist about it, as in 'Wifi is a human right'.  Seriously though, it's probably not the Russians but somebody's smart thermostat gone sentient like the Hosts in Westworld.  This is probably what we have to look forward to in a brave new (overheating) world, and a good enough reason why we shouldn't be voting online.  Paper ballots, goddammit.

Off to enjoy this beautiful day; back tomorrow with the Funnies.

Latest UH poll has Clinton, Ogg building momentum

The blue wave is gathering strength.

A survey released (October 20) by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs illustrates Harris County’s continuing move toward the Democratic Party, with Democrat Hillary Clinton beating Republican Donald Trump by seven points and several high-profile down-ballot Democratic candidates showing similar momentum.

Clinton received support from 43 percent of Harris County voters who said they are certain or very likely to vote, compared to 36 percent for Trump. If those numbers hold, they would mark a far higher margin of victory for Clinton in Texas’ largest county than that for Barack Obama, who beat Republican John McCain by 1.63 percent in Harris County in 2008 and Mitt Romney by less than 1 percent in 2012.

Gary Johnson gets 6%, Jill Stein has 1%, and 15% are 'undecided', 'none of the listed candidates', or declined to answer.  Not wild about this poll or its mostly undisclosed demographics, but the results don't feel particularly wrong to me, save the high number of undecideds for a "certain to vote/likely to vote" screen.   For example, look at these:

• Among Republican voters, 4 percent are voting for Clinton while 1 percent of Democratic voters are voting for Trump.
• Ten percent of Democrats are undecided about who to vote for in November’s presidential contest. Only 6 percent of Republicans are undecided. 
• Almost a third (31 percent) of all independents are undecided about who they will vote for in the presidential contest.
• Third party candidate Johnson is receiving 18 percent of the independent vote.
• Among independents, Clinton leads Trump 32 percent to 14 percent. 
• Forty-three percent of Johnson’s supporters identify themselves as ‘leaning Republicans.’

But the screwiest part includes this item:

• Males support Clinton's candidacy over Trump by 39% to 38%

Really?!  Some ethnicity was oversampled (and it wasn't white men over the age of 50).

In the race for Harris County District Attorney, Democratic challenger Kim Ogg leads incumbent Republican Devon Anderson by 7 points, 40 percent to 33 percent. Incumbent Republican Sheriff Ron Hickman is in a statistical tie with Democratic challenger Ed Gonzalez, with Hickman ahead by 1 point, 37 percent to 36 percent.

The latest survey appears to show a decided shift toward the Democratic Party in Harris County over the past four weeks, when an earlier Hobby School survey showed district attorney candidates Anderson and Ogg in a virtual tie, 30 percent to 29 percent, and Hickman beating Gonzalez 36 percent to 30 percent. Because the wording of questions on the two surveys was not identical, Hobby School officials said it is difficult to draw direct comparisons.

Gonzalez is the last candidate I would have thought would need to come from behind, but it looks as if he's doing exactly that.  I think these results bode well for other county executive races, like Vince Ryan's and Ann Harris Bennett's, and certainly the Democratic judicials.  Since early voting begins on Monday and so many folks that I know are ready to get it over with, it's going to be interesting to see how the EV totals match up with Election Day.  (That's what we have Charles for, thankfully.)  One last thing to note about this poll.

A Hobby School statewide survey released Tuesday found that Trump leads Clinton by only 3 percentage points in Texas, equal to the margin of error.

I just don't think it's going to be that close.  More like Trump by six or seven points, almost certainly less than ten, but not three or even four.  Who among you reading this is waiting until the last minute to decide?  Who's holding out until November 8 just in case there's an October (or November) surprise?  Let's hear from you in the comments.