February 28, 2014

Greg Abbott went to law school with plaintiff in gay marriage suit

What does Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have in common with Mark Phariss, one of the plaintiffs who sued the state to challenge its gay marriage ban?

They were law school classmates. They knew each other. Phariss tells KERA they were good friends.

And now the attorney general and Phariss, an attorney who lives in Plano with his long-time partner, are on opposite sides of Texas’ brewing battle over gay marriage.

...

Phariss also says he flew to Abbott’s bedside in 1984 when Abbott was hit by a falling tree limb and paralyzed.

They haven’t talked in about 10 years, but they exchange Christmas cards.

“He was a very good friend then and I consider him a very good friend now,” Phariss told KERA.

http://keranews.org/post/greg-abbott-went-law-school-plaintiff-gay-marriage-suit-he-s-fighting

Politics makes strange... nemmind.

February 27, 2014

Ted Cruz belives he is the Chosen One

Cruz, who spoke at a Politico Playbook Breakfast, was pressed by moderator Mike Allen on whether he planned to run for the presidency.

"It's premature," the Texas Republican said.

But Cruz said Republicans would stand a better chance of capturing the White House if they put forward a conservative, rather than moderate, candidate.

"Let's look at the last 40 years," Cruz said. "Every single time Republicans have nominated a presidential candidate who ran as a strong conservative, we won. And every time we have nominated a candidate who ran as an establishment moderate, we lost."

"What I find to be astonishing is that the D.C. political consultants look at that record and say, 'In 2016, we need another establishment moderate," Cruz said.

http://news.yahoo.com/republican-cruz-puts-clinton-odds-white-house-win-185404688.html

Beware this ass, people. As a 7th generation Texan, you can bank it: he's going to run. The only thing that's premature is whether he can con enough people to win the nomination.

February 21, 2014

Green 97, D 94

Socialist 78
Libertarians 58
Republicans 2

February 16, 2014

Reprehensible

This is the deepest, most disturbed, most profound cognitive dissonance on public display I can say I have ever witnessed. You couldn't craft a villain with these characteristics in a novel or a script and sell it to a publishing house or a studio. They'd say it was not believable.

Greg Abbott is so unspeakably hideous that people with a functioning conscience can't really comprehend him. Which naturally excludes the vast majority of Texas Republican primary voters. But that's not even the worst part.

You want to know what the worst part is? It's hard to predict how truly hideous a governor Greg Abbott is capable of being in the wake of fourteen years of Rick Perry... but Texans are very likely to find out.

February 8, 2014

Quite right

Somehow this never sinks in.

200,000+ registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush.

Not only that, but this, from Emily Przekwas at this link (scroll to the bottom):

(O)ver half of the registered Democrats (in Florida) did not vote at all.

Every one of the eight third-party presidential candidates in Florida received more than the 543 votes cited as the deciding factor in the election.

On some discarded ballots, voters both filled in the bubble for their candidate and wrote the candidate's name in the write-in-space. If these had been included in the count, Gore would have had a net gain of 662 votes, enough to win the election.

...

We can only guess as to why so many Democrats abandoned Gore; I only know that I was not one at the time. But it is ridiculous for any Democrat to claim all -- or even a portion -- of Nader's 97,421 votes in Florida and not acknowledge that more than twice that many were lost by Gore to the Republican. This, more than anything else, is why Gore lost.

http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com/2012/09/of-urban-legends-and-2000-election.html

February 5, 2014

If you only have time to read one or two pieces today on Texas politics

then read Paul Burka...

The evolution of the Republican primary into a race to the far right is a sad moment in Texas politics. There is nothing left of the party of George W. Bush, or even the party of Rick Perry. The press has done little to hold up its side of the equation; they can't get away from the Wendy Davis saga. We should be talking about how Republicans have allowed creationism to creep into the schools, about the myopia of the media when it comes to setting the agenda for a political race, about the failure of the business community to shoulder its share of responsibility for educating Texans about the things our citizens need: better schools, better roads, better health care.

There's only three more paragraphs there. Burka isn't all that accurate all that often any more, but he's dead solid perfect there. And so is Charles Kuffner. All the grafs ahead of this one excerpted below are important, and so is this last one.

Here’s where Mark Jones’ idea (that Democrats should just give up and vote in the GOP primary) really makes no sense. Pretty much every county where Democrats are strong features important primaries. We already know about Harris County, where the need to nominate Kim Ogg outweighs Jones’ suggestion all by itself. Travis County is electing a County Judge, as is El Paso County, which also features three hot legislative races. Bexar County has races for County Judge, County Clerk, District Attorney, District Clerk, and a slew of District Court judges. Dallas County has a power struggle between current DA Craig Watkins and Party Chair Darlene Ewing, with the former running his own slate of candidates, including one against Ewing. Tarrant County will be key to Rep. Mark Veasey’s re-election. And those are just the big counties.

The media and the consultants and the anal-ysts like Rice U's Mark Jones have so far dictated the terms of this election, and not just with the roasting of Wendy Davis for the snarling consumption by the fringe right hogs in this state.

The only way that will ever change is if enough people refuse to buy what they're peddling, and upend the conventional 'wisdom' with their direct action at the polling place. If that does not happen, then Texans will keep getting what they have been for the past 20 years. And after that long, will excruciatingly deserve what they will surely get in the years to come.

This is your final warning.

The deadline to register voters has passed. It's GOTV time. There were eight million Texans registered to vote in 2012 who did not do so. That means that Dems have their address, know where they live, maybe even have their phone number and/or e-mail.

I trust that everyone here knows what to do with that information, yes?

Early voting begins two weeks from yesterday. It's time to reach out and touch your neighbors. Do what you can, when you can, as often as you can. There's no way we will ever change anything in this state if you don't. Now if you will excuse me, I have some work offline to do.

February 4, 2014

Davis had 38,000 contributors

Abbott's money came from 9200 donors. Thus the math looks like this.

Avg. amount of contribution for Davis: $24 and change (rounding)

For Abbott: $336.95

Any questions?