Graham Platner, Ken Paxton and Political Hypocrisy

If you want to know just how unprincipled — and how unabashedly hypocritical — politicians and their supporters can be, consider how Democrats would respond if Graham Platner were a Republican.

Platner, the Democrats’ nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, has spent weeks answering questions about his past. By now, you probably know at least some of the story. During what he describes as a dark period in his life after military service, he had a Nazi tattoo emblazoned on his chest — which he maintained for nearly two decades. He has acknowledged inappropriate relationships with women. He has made insulting comments about military heroes and said things about Black Americans that, at the very least, demonstrated remarkably poor judgment.

Now ask yourself a simple question: What would Democrats be saying if Platner were a Republican?

Read the rest here.

Democrat wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in special election upset

Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections. 

With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days. 

Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.

The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November. 

Read the rest here.

The gerrymandering wars is a flashing warning light for US democracy

After the extraordinary scene of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to forestall a rare mid-decade gerrymander, Texas Republicans nevertheless moved this week to approve a new congressional map. It is designed to give their party five additional seats in Congress in next year’s midterm elections, as requested by President Trump. 

California Democrats responded this week by rushing to advance their own plan to draw a new congressional map to counter Texas Republicans. Red and Blue states across the country are now predictably threatening to join this bare-knuckle political brawl. 

Although partisan gerrymandering has sadly become a routine practice pushing us further into tribalism and dysfunction, the current crisis should be seen for what it is: a flashing red warning light for our democracy. 

Indeed, if this race to the bottom continues, every aspect of our democratic system of governance could be captured by extreme partisanship, and every last vestige of trust necessary for that system to work could soon be lost. At that point, it may well be too late to change course. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) has proposed the best way out of the current standoff: a federal bipartisan embrace of independent commissions to draw electoral maps so that voters can choose their politicians rather than self-interested politicians cynically rigging the system to their partisan advantage.

That would solve the immediate crisis, but we must also confront the larger issue of extremism dominating our politics.

The truth is our democratic system has been completely hijacked to yield outsized power to the partisan fringes. These voters on the far left and right of the political mainstream view politics as an existential tribal struggle that must be won at all costs, and they thus demand that their elected officials engage in tribal warfare and scorched-earth politics. 

Read the rest here.

Texas Opens a Constitutional Can of Worms

Texas residents can now sue Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for allegedly censoring their content after a federal appeals court sided Wednesday with the state's law restricting how social media sites can moderate their platforms.

The 15-word ruling allowing the law, which had been blocked last year, to take effect has significant potential consequences. Most immediately, it creates new legal risks for the tech giants, and opens them up to a possible wave of litigation that legal experts say would be costly and difficult to defend.

Texas's law makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more US monthly users to "block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression."

The law creates enormous uncertainty about how social media will actually function in Texas, according to legal experts, and raises questions about what users' online spaces may look like and what content they may find there, if the companies are even able to run their services at all.

The ruling also sets the stage for what could be a Supreme Court showdown over First Amendment rights and, possibly, a dramatic reinterpretation of those rights that affects not just the tech industry but all Americans — and decades of established precedent.

In short, the decision has allowed Texas to declare open season on tech platforms, with huge ramifications for everyone in the country. It could reshape the rights and obligations of all websites; our relationship to technology and the internet; and even our basic, fundamental understanding of the First Amendment.

Read the rest here.

Calexit continues

Elon Musk has told friends and associates he plans to move to Texas.

Details.

On a personal note, I left California five years ago. Since then two of my friends have also left.

The blue-state exodus gains momentum

Nine years ago I published a piece that asserted, “Voters around the country are concluding it’s better to be red than dead” — applying almost the exact opposite meaning to an old phrase referring to communism. New Census Bureau figures appear to confirm my prediction — mostly.

My point was that many voters were, and are, increasingly fed up with the high-tax, heavy-regulation and increasingly social wokeness model that has come to characterize most blue states — i.e., those dominated by liberal politicians and policies.

I argued that voters wanting to live in a business-friendly, fiscally responsible state that minimizes its tax burden would either vote out the liberals destroying their state’s economy or flee to a red state. The latest Census Bureau report highlights the red-state shift.

According to Election Data Service’s analysis of the Census Bureau report, “population projections point to a ten [congressional] seat change over 17 states across the nation by year 2020.”

Seven states are projected to gain one or more congressional seats after the 2020 election; 10 states are projected lose one seat.

The red-state leader is Texas, with a projected pickup of three congressional seats following the 2020 census — and that after gaining four congressional seats after the 2010 election. Florida will pick up two seats, and Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon will each gain one, according to the analysis.
All 10 losing states – Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia – lose only one seat.
Of the seven states gaining seats, five voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Of the 10 states losing seats, five voted for Trump and five for Hillary Clinton. 

But two or those five losing states that voted for Trump – Michigan and Pennsylvania – surprised most analysts, since they have been blue-leaners for several years. And West Virginia is losing population in part due to a struggling state economy that has been so dependent of coal.

Arguably, even some of the blue-state gainers may support my general point.

If you are blue-leaning Californian who wants to escape the Golden State’s drift into madness but stay on the left coast, Oregon might be a reasonable alternative.

Ditto for Colorado, which has turned from red to blueish over the last decade or so as Californians increasingly head for the hills, so to speak.

But that trend also highlights a problem: Some of the people fleeing destructive blue-state taxes and regulations appear to drag their pro-big-government philosophy with them — apparently oblivious to the fact those policies destroyed the state they are trying to escape. 

Read the rest here.

George Will: ‘Texodus’ bodes badly for Republicans

...Hurd is one of six Texas Republican congressman who have decided not to seek reelection next year. Until this year, none of them had, since 2011, experienced the purgatory of being in the House minority. In the 2018 “Texodus,” five Texas Republican representatives retired (a sixth resigned) and two were defeated. Of the 241 Republicans in the House when President Trump was inaugurated, almost 40 percent are gone or going. See a trend?

...In the 2016 House of Representatives elections, no Republican incumbent from Texas lost, and only one was elected with less than 55 percent of the vote. In 2018, two lost and 10 received less than 55 percent. In 2016, four incumbent Republicans in Texas’s House were defeated, and only four won with majorities under 55 percent. In 2018, there were eight losses, and 16 won with less than 55 percent. John Cornyn, who recently stepped down as the second-highest-ranking Republican leader (majority whip) in the U.S. Senate, has won three terms with majorities of 55.3 percent, 54.8 percent and 61.6 percent but seems headed for a more competitive race next year. No wonder Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says Texas is “ground zero” for Democrats’ attempts to strengthen their hold on the House.

...In 2008, with the Great Recession underway, John McCain carried Texas by 12 points. In 2012, Mitt Romney carried it by 16. In 2016, Trump (whom Hurd did not endorse) won by nine points. In Texas’s most important 2018 contest for a federal office, incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz won by just three. See a trend?

If the Democratic Party can collect Texas’s electoral votes — 38 today, perhaps 41 after the 2020 Census — as well as California’s 55, it will reap 35.5 percent of a winning 270 from just two states. Then the GOP will have almost no plausible path to 270, and Democrats who are currently hot to abolish the electoral college will suddenly say: Oh, never mind.

Read the rest here.

Dallas Legalizes Theft

Dallas County's new district attorney announced his office will no longer prosecute "theft of necessary items" up to $750.

Read the rest here.

This is outrageous

Rod Dreher has the story. Not only should she be entitled to her job back, she should get back pay, compensation for her legal expenses and punitive damages from the state.

HT: Dr. Tighe

A huge win in the fight against abortion

NEW ORLEANS, LA, June 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Texas will likely see half its remaining abortion facilities close after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a key provision of a pro-life law passed in 2013. 

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court turned back the abortion industry's challenges to a provision of H.B. 2 that required abortion facilities to meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers. All three judges were appointed by President George W. Bush.

Read the rest here.

Judge strikes down gay marriage ban in Texas

A Texas judge has struck down that state's ban on gay marriage.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia did not say gay marriages could be performed immediately. Instead, he stayed the decision, citing a likely appeal.

"Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution," Garcia wrote in his decision. "These Texas laws deny Plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex."

The state's gay marriage ban was challenged by two gay couples -- one seeking to marry in Texas and one seeking to have their marriage, which was performed in Massachusetts, to be recognized.

Read the rest here.

As said in an earlier post, this battle is lost. It's time to refocus on the strongest possible conscience protection legislation.

Forget the rest of the country; in Texas Ted Cruz is a hero

...Cruz may be the most reviled man in the U.S. Senate at the moment, not least among his Republican colleagues. He was the face and voice of the government shutdown strategy that brought the nation to the brink of default on its debt and left his party with its lowest poll ratings ever, while doing nothing to halt the implementation of the new health-care law.

But back in Texas, there is a different reality.

During the past week, Cruz has been greeted as a conquering hero, with a round of triumphal public appearances and welcome-home rallies such as the one that Alford attended Monday night in Houston, which was hastily arranged by the King Street Patriots tea party group.

Even more extraordinary is the degree to which the freshman senator — who until 2012 had never run for public office — has quickly remade the Texas Republican Party in his own image.

Read the rest here.

Kermit Gosnell Was Not an Exception

Caution: Graphic Content.

A second 'house of horrors' abortion clinic is being investigated in Texas, just days after Dr Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murdering newborns at his Philadelphia termination center.

Houston doctor Douglas Karpen is accused by four former employees of delivering live fetuses during third-trimester abortions and killing them by either snipping their spinal cord, stabbing a surgical instrument into their heads or 'twisting their heads off their necks with his own bare hands'.

Read the rest here.
HT: MCJ

Kermit Gosnell is what abortion is all about.

A Texas Town Mourns the First Responders Who Paid With Their Lives

WEST, Tex. — Three-tenths of a mile from this town’s own ground zero, barely more than 24 hours after an explosion at a fertilizer plant tore through people’s houses and hearts, dozens of firefighters and emergency responders stood at attention.

Their hands raised to their brows in salute, they faced one another in two lines in the parking lot of a school, forming two walls of blue as the body of a fellow firefighter was escorted between them in the night. A bagpiper blew “Amazing Grace” as the remains, draped in an American flag, were placed in a vehicle.

It was a ritual they performed over and over — once for every person discovered in the wreckage who had been affiliated with a fire department. The scale of the disaster could be measured by the length of the ceremony; the firefighters and responders stood in the cold for about two hours, forming an honor guard 12 times for 12 bodies.

“We’re family,” said Joe Ondrasek, 46, a fire official from Brazos County who stood in salute that night and had traveled here to represent the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas. “It’s like losing your family. It’s like six members of your family got killed in a car wreck. That’s what it is, at that level.”

Read the rest here.

Texas: Massive Explosion - Hundreds Injured

A large fertilizer plant explosion rocked a small Texas town Wednesday night, injuring "hundreds" of people and leaving dozens of homes destroyed.

It is the “most devastating thing that’s happened to this community,” West Mayor Tommy Muska said at an news conference, late Wednesday.

"We need your prayers," Muska said. "There’s a lot of people that are hurt. And there’s a lot of people that I’m sure are not going to be here tomorrow."

Multiple officials confirmed that there were fatalities in the explosion but wouldn't give any early numbers

Read the rest here.

Good grief! This has been a week of unrelenting bad news. Prayers for all concerned.

Fears High After Second Texas Prosecutor Assassinated

KAUFMAN, Texas — Deputies escorted some Kaufman County employees into the courthouse Monday, two days after the district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home in an attack that stirred fears that other public employees could be targeted by assassins.

Law enforcement officers were seen patrolling one side of the courthouse, one holding a semi-automatic weapon, while others walked around inside.

Read the rest here.

Federal court rejects Texas voter ID law

A federal court in Washington on Thursday blocked a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November, saying it would place an unfair burden on minorities and the poor.

A three-judge U.S. District Court panel ruled that that SB 14, described as the most stringent voter ID law in the country, imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

“Texas, seeking to implement its voter ID law, bears the burden of proof and must therefore show that SB 14 lacks retrogressive effect. But as we have found, everything Texas has submitted as affirmative evidence is unpersuasive, invalid, or both,” the opinion said.

Read the rest here.

In Texas A Big Win For The Tea Party

Onetime long shot Ted Cruz won the Republican nomination in a U.S. Senate race in Texas on Tuesday, providing tea party activists with renewed momentum in what they said was their biggest victory of the year.

Cruz, a 41-year-old former Texas solicitor general and a first-time candidate for elective office, is the tea party’s first bona fide star of the 2012 campaign: a charismatic speaker with an up-by-the-bootstraps biography who upended the Republican establishment in the nation’s largest red state.

Read the rest here.

Romney wins Texas primary; likely nails down GOP nomination

Mitt Romney won the Republican primary in Texas on Tuesday, a victory that gives him more than the 1,144 delegates needed to secure his party's presidential nomination.

Following a bruising primary season earlier this year that extended longer than many Republicans had hoped, NBC News projected that Romney had finally won the necessary delegates to secure the nomination, though the former Massachusetts governor won’t earn the official nod until August's Republican National Convention in Tampa.

The race for the Republican nomination has been largely over since the April 3 primary in Wisconsin. Romney's win in that contest prompted the eventual withdrawals of his remaining rivals: Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. It also hastened the onset of President Barack Obama's own re-election offensive versus Romney.

Read the rest here.

Report: Texas executed innocent man

He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found.

Even "all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them," and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman.

Liebman and five of his students at Columbia School of Law spent almost five years poring over details of a case that he says is "emblematic" of legal system failure.

DeLuna, 27, was put to death after "a very incomplete investigation. No question that the investigation is a failure," Liebman said.

The report's authors found "numerous missteps, missed clues and missed opportunities that let authorities prosecute Carlos DeLuna for the crime of murder, despite evidence not only that he did not commit the crime but that another individual, Carlos Hernandez, did," the 780-page investigation found.

The report, entitled "Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution," traces the facts surrounding the February 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a single mother who was stabbed in the gas station where she worked in a quiet corner of the Texas coastal city of Corpus Christi.

Read the rest here.