Bye-bye Brady

OK now here is the thing. Craig Brady lost his 4-year bid to become the heir apparent for Fort Bend County Sheriff. Lost it big time. Lost it in an embarrassing way.  Here’s the thing. Troy Nehls beat the stuffing out of Craig Brady yesterday, this despite his expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars, including full size billboards that have been up for nearly 4 years.

Annoying things that have only served to remind Fort Bend voters of who they don’t want to be their next county sheriff. Brady listened and listened to a political consultant by the name of Karen, who must have banked tens of thousands of his campaign funds. Karen made a killing off of this guy. This self-important wheeler and dealer in the Republican Party is rich at Brady’s expense because he listened to her advice.

And now he is out of a job come January.
                                        

I am guessing that Brady will be fair and balanced with regard to those that deposed him. Not to be would be unfortunate.

And to Craig Brady I want to wish a happy retirement. You deserve it.

CD-22 Cluster Fart

Yes the early vote gave CD-22 to KP George, but apparently There were over 451 ill-informed Election Day voters in other counties (Fort Bend did its part) who decided that the African-American woman - who is bat-guano tin-foil-hat crazy - was the one to go up against Pete Olson.

You know, the one who thoroughly thrashed her in 2010?

KP got 55% of the early vote district wide, but Rogers received 451 more votes than KP on Election Day, putting her in the lead by a mere 106 votes.

Voting really does matter, but informed voting is even more important.

The Early Vote Is In!!

At 9:15 PM on primary election night 2012 we are already seeing some trends. Some good, some bad.

With just the early vote in, it looks like KP George has finally dialed in an implosion at the LaRouche League. Kesha Rogers is being given her tin foil hat in the early vote by double digits. Early vote has KP George by over 25% with votes for Kesha, at 721 to 1,152 for KP. 

Buh-bye Kesha. Don't let the door hit you on your way out of CD-22.

Paul Sadler is not looking a safe bet for US Senate, though. He is making a weak campaign showing against Grady Yarborough, in his statewide showing of 34% to Yarbrough’s 26%.

In local elections, Ruben Davis appears to be ekeing out an edge over challenger Daryl Smith, this despite Smith’s 20 minute video of Davis threatening Smith with a hand gun at the Chasewood early voting location.

The fun stuff is over at the Republican primary, where winners are chosen based on past performances of the party in statewide elections.

Statewide, despite the projections of some, Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee. In fact, it seems that Texas has the singular honor of putting Romney over the top and he is no longer the presumptive nominee. Congrats Texas GOP. You’ve just nominated the next Republican presidential loser. What an honor.

David Dewhurst has a slim lead over Ted Cruz but the field is so wide and diffuse I wonder if he can be the outright nominee tonight. If so, I wonder if the anyone but Dewhurst vote would be enough to topple him in July (when the entire state is tubing down the Guadalupe River).

Pete Olson appears to be having his way with Barbara Carlson who polls the typical TEA Party vote of 25%.

Locally in Fort Bend, Troy Nehls has outpolled Craig Brady by a 57% to 33% majority. My condolences to my GOP brethren who had to decide between Eeew and Yuck. The Democratic nominee, Michael Ellison, is twice the total of the two of them.

In short, not much new under the sun.

Memorial Day 2012

Who Is to Blame for Falling Gasoline Prices?

Last March, when national gasoline prices averaged around $3.80 a gallon, Mitt Romney, who hopes to be the first Mormon president, announced that it was all President Obama’s fault.

He did.

This is what he said as quoted at CBS News:

“The Republican presidential candidate, speaking in an interview with Fox News, said he ‘absolutely’ believes Mr. Obama is responsible for high gas prices, contending that ‘he has not pursued policies that convince the world that America is going to become energy secure, energy independent.’”

Well guess what. The last time that an American president sought to “become energy secure” was on Apri1 18th, 1977 when then-President Jimmy Carter established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established the solar power industry and introduced incentives to insulate your home.

Neither Reagan, Bush-41, Bush-43 nor Bill Clinton had a workable energy policy.

John McCain had one: “Drill, baby, drill.” A take-off on the Detroit riots cry of “Burn, baby, burn.”

But hey, now we are all seeing gasoline prices fall precipitously, aren’t we? And on Memorial Day Weekend no less, typically a time when you see gas prices spike.

What does Mitt Romney have to say about this turn of events? Obama is still president and seems to have presided over a 40 cent per gallon drop in just a couple of weeks. 

Well, let me look it up…wait one…wait one…

Ah.

Crickets.

My Impassioned Plea to Arizona Sec State Bennett

Unless you have been asleep in this very political year, you have not missed the maniacal actions of the Arizona Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, who has pondered over whether he, as a responsible Secretary of State in charge of elections in his state, should allow President Barack Obama’s name on the November ballot considering the fact that he may not be constitutionally qualified to lead this nation because of the constitutional proviso that the president must be a naturally born citizen and not naturalized.

He embarked on his quest to establish President Obama’s true citizenship after receiving over 1,200, count ‘em, 1,200 emails from concerned Arizonans. Now that’s what I call being responsible and proactive.

So I noted today that a new website has sprung up, a website that is alarmed that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is not exactly human. Although the constitution does not explicitly restrict a president to the zoological classification of Homo sapiens, I think it is implied when they use the word “person” in reference to who can be president.

Now I have it on good authority that Mitt Romney has never denied that he is a unicorn. In fact he has ignored the charge, which is completely callous. 

And now I find that this website has collected more than 17,000 emails that they have forwarded to the office of the Arizona Secretary of State. Emails that demand that Mitt Romney subject himself to an examination of his DNA to prove, at long last, that he is not a unicorn but is a human being as he purports to be.

17,000 emails.

Here’s some math:

Twelve hundred emails demanding that Obama is a US citizen goes into 17,000 emails demanding that Mitt Romney establish his humanity is exactly 14 and 1/6 times.

Over 14 times the number of emails that persuaded him to investigate President Obama’s citizenship.

They got mine today. Here is what I wrote in addition to the generic message generated by the website:

Sec State Bennett, thank you for investigating whether President Barack Obama was indeed born in the state of Hawaii. I wasn't there to witness it and I want answers. On the other hand, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has time and time again refused to submit to a DNA test to quell persistent rumors that he is, indeed, a unicorn. Join me in demanding that Mitt Romney prove once and for all the falseness of these outrageous, but believable rumors.

This is serious guys. Unicorns carry lethal weapons mounted on their foreheads, and I have heard of no state law that allows the “conceal carry” or even “open carry” of a unicorn horn. Mitt needs to come to terms with these charges.

The very real stiffness of the man, and his lack of any perceivable sense of humor casts doubt on Mitt Romney’s humanity. This is just the icing on the cake.

Come Clean Mitt Romney!

Texas Death Factories Boast Abundant Supplies

It took a court order, but Greg Abbot, the Texas AG had to go on record and reveal how many capital crime prisoners it would be able to execute given their current pharmaceutical supplies.
23.

Texas can execute 23 more people, and then they are going to have to look for another way to knock them out, humanely.

See, it isn’t that the state doesn’t have enough Potassium Chloride. You can get that stuff easily. KCl stops the heart. Nor is it any problem to acquire Pancuronium Bromide, a muscle relaxant that is used to stop breathing.

They use it in Europe for euthanasia.

Nope, the limiting factor is that the state has only on hand enough Nembutol to carry out 23 executions, because Nembutol is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire for the purposes of the “humane” execution of humans.

And really, not even 23. According to state law, the state must keep on hand another dose of this cocktail in case the first dose doesn’t kill the prisoner. But they don’t do that. Apparently they keep only one dose on hand, but then when it doesn’t work they have someone to run to the chemical storage room to get another dose.

So theoretically the state has only enough of the mixture to rub out 11 and half capital crime prisoners.

What will Texas do? What will they do?

My prediction, to maximize the number of citizens that need to be wasted, they will add a cabinet containing a 5 pound mallet in the execution room, with the sign “In Case of Emergency, Break Skull.

It’s Getting Ugly Out There

I’ve been watching the local GOP primary process as it wends its way to May 29th with interest mainly because, outside of the KP/Kesha race, the Democrats have no primary opponents, in my area at least.

And on that race, I was very disappointed today to see that something I spotted yesterday afternoon has been undone today when I had my camera ready to capture the moment. Apparently some Republican joker decided to support Kesha Rogers’ campaign by planting one of her lawn signs in his front yard, right next to a Mike Elliott for Judge sign.

It seems the Republicans have glommed onto the movement in the Fort Bend County Democratic Party to get the word out on bat-guano crazy Kesha Rogers so we don’t have an embarrassing repeat of 2010 when she won the Democratic nomination to oppose Pete Olson for the CD-22 race. Someone in the GOP decided it would be funny to promote her race.

Kesha Rogers has had Republican supporters, only now it seems they have reconsidered their position and took the Rogers sign down.

The fun race to watch in Fort Bend County has been the 4-way race for County Sheriff. And I noted today that the Fort Bend Star, a local newspaper that makes no bones about its disgust for one of the candidates, Craig Brady, has a poll out. They ask readers to register their preferences among the 4 candidates. The publisher has made an endorsement for ABC (Anyone But Craig).

Here is a screenshot of the vote as of 5:30 PM today.

This pretty much jives with the sign wars. Signs for Troy Nehls pretty much dominate the front lawns.

Here’s a bit of mischief that I think we Democrats can visit on the Brady Campaign. It’s kind of fun. If you are a Democrat, you can still vote at the Fort Bend Star for the Sheriff’s candidate of choice. Now who you vote for is strictly up to you. I have only one suggestion. ABC.

The Trials of Tom DeLay

My former congressman, Tom DeLay, has a problem. Here he has a 3 year prison sentence hanging over his head for conspiracy and money laundering, and now, come to find out, in his appeal to the 3rd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals he  is facing a two to one Democratic to Republican judge panel.

Not because of the luck of the draw, as it turns out.

As it turns out, it is because whenever they asked a Republican justice to sit for the case, they begged off. Republicans have declared the former Congressional majority leader persona non grata and are diving for the weeds.

So Tom is up against a Democrat majority panel.

Not to say that his lawyers aren’t still trying to fight to configure the panel to be more like one to their liking. They continue to badger one Democratic judge for an answer on whether she will recuse herself because she had some fairly negative remarks about DeLay several years ago at a political convention.

My question to the lawyer, though, is whether or not a federal court justice is allowed to exercise their first amendment rights of free speech. This means that 5 of the Supreme Court justices should recuse themselves from any and all cases involving a Democrat.

I wonder how Tom is going to look in those orange overalls.

Stay Classy Houston

Today a 4 (white) man, 2 (white) woman jury found ex-Houston PD officer Andrew Blomberg not guilty of “official” oppression – otherwise known as criminal assault. Who is Andrew Blomberg? He is one of four ex-Houston PD officers who were caught on a security brutalizing a 15 year old African-American boy who was fleeing the scene of a burglary that he had just committed.

The video shows the boy being clipped by a HPD squad car and, and the boy immediately submitting to an arrest. The 4 officers then engaged in repeatedly beating and punching the boy.

The video was, hands down, a verification that the officers clearly overstepped the boundaries of what constitutes an arrest in this country. NAZIs were more lenient than these gentlemen.

And yet today, the all-white jury found the first of these four former officers not guilty.

Now here’s the thing. Protesters to this verdict , Quanell X specifically, made the point that this was not a jury of “our peers,” nor the peers of the beaten child.

Here is the rub. The constitutional right to be tried by a jury of your peers was not violated in this case. Andrew Blomberg is a flaming racist, and he was tried by a jury of equally flaming racists.

His peers.

No, we got justice here in southeast Texas. We got it Texas style. Stay classy Houston.

So I Voted in the Primary Today

I broke with tradition and voted on the first day of Early Voting, mainly because they changed Early Voting locations this year, and this took me right past an Early Vote polling location on my drive home from work. In the past it was a little out of the way, but I liked to talk to the lonely poll workers at my habitual Early Vote location. It was a matter of time, though that they got moved.

I’ll miss our conversations.

The Democratic Primary, with the exception of one race, is pretty boring. One candidate running for each office. Republicans have far more fun in their primaries, particularly in contested races where the good ol’ boy network is being challenged.

I am particularly taken by the Republican challenger to a Justice of the Peace office currently held by Gary Janssen. Janssen feels a bit of heat at being challenged by Gregory Thompson for his office. Whenever Thompson has a meet and greet it gets visited by numerous Sheriff’s Department cruisers as they drive by again, and again, and again.

I was once told that Janssen’s wife testified at a trial brought by a present candidate for County Sheriff, for the candidate’s position.

One hand washes the other.

But I digress.

It was very boring voting in the Democratic Primary. With the exception of the CD-22 race which is again a challenged race between KP George and bat-guano crazy Kool-Aid swigging LaRouche “Democrat” Kesha Rogers. Last time it was embarrassing. African-American voters will readily admit that they are motivated to vote for African-American candidates, and Kesha is that. That despite the fact that LaRouche “Democrats” are challenged in the racial acceptance area. Kesha went on to certain defeat against Pete Olson, a tall guy with a weak mind who has himself a primary challenger in Barbara Carlson, a Sarah Palin knock off, minus the MILF.

Let the games begin.

National Teacher Appreciation Day

Last week was National Teacher Appreciation Week, and in the middle of it, on Wednesday, it was National Teacher Appreciation Day. It was a glorious week. A free breakfast on Monday that I forgot about because it was, after all, Monday, a Snickers bar in my mailbox on Tuesday. On Wednesday parents brought in sweets (thank God someone remembered those of us who don’t do sweets, and brought fruit). On Thursday if you stood in line with the kids you could get some shaved ice for free. On Friday there was a rice and bean burrito for lunch along with an embarrassing tote bag that I have to give to a female.

Oh and some kid tripped me in the hall after leaving the lunch as I tried to negotiate a path back to my room in the crowded halls.

I still have bruises.

So yeah, happy National Teacher Week. This Jimmy Kimmel video says it all, I am afraid: