Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

White supremacy is terrorism.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Fight them, without becoming them!

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: Texas Repubs Discover They’re the Marks

Open Thread: Texas Repubs Discover They’re the Marks

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You know the old saw, If you look around the poker table and can’t tell who the mark is, it’s you ?

Texas Republicans are turning Texas blue, and they’ve picked an incredibly awkward moment to do so.

Awkward for Republicans, that is, and conservatism more generally. The electoral implications are obvious; If President Trump hadn’t won Texas, he would have lost the Electoral College. Beyond that, though, Texas Republicans were — until quite recently — the gold standard of conservative governance in the 21st century United States.

During the period now known as the “Texas Miracle,” the state was the most powerful proof of concept that conservatives had. As the second-largest state in the country, in terms of both size and population, it was a reasonable proxy for a socially, racially, and economically heterogeneous nation. Perhaps, more importantly, the state’s outsized economic growth and diversification since the beginning of the millennium, in particular, was not just notable but meaningful. Texas created jobs in every income quartile, and almost every industry; outcomes weren’t ideal, but they were improving…

But then 2014 happened. Perry decided to retire, and Dewhurst was unseated in the Republican primary by the current incumbent, Dan Patrick. Since then, Texas’ newly elected leaders have struggled to govern — and the blistering margins Republicans posted in 2014 point to the reason why. After 20 years in power, Texas Republicans had no real need to compete in the general election. The real contest was for the Republican nomination.

As a result, Texas ended up with some true buffoons in high office. Among the officials elected in 2014 was, for example, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Six months after he was sworn in as the state’s top law enforcement official, he was charged with three felonies. One of them was related to a violation that he had already admitted to, of a law he had voted to create years earlier as a member of the Texas legislature.

Making matters worse is that competent Republicans leaders are either in thrall to the party’s oddly entitled grassroots activists, like Gov. Greg Abbott, or trying to fly below their radar, like Land Commissioner George P. Bush…

Today’s Republicans are essentially parasites on the body politic, and it seems like they may be due to discover the disadvantage of the parasitic livestyle: If you bleed the host too much too fast, either they’ll find a way to expel you, or you’ll die right along with your victim. Here’s hoping Texas is able to fight back hard enough to make it the first option!

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  2. 2.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    There just aren’t any Republicans left who aren’t deranged lunatics or brain dead zeroes or outright grifters and criminals. I don’t really know why they thought they could keep this con going forever, but they seemed to think they could. I mean, shit. They thought they could trash the country and fob a loser like Czar Manbaby off on us and nobody would notice? That’s some turbo-charged stupid right there, that is

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    I get emails, part (n):

    After laughing scornfully at those Physicists before him who failed to even question the origin of the force of Gravity, that which Sir Isaac Newton discovered but couldn’t quite explain, F.I.TWINKLE embarked on his journey through the applied sciences to bring you this TWINKLE Theory, and thus, this hypothetical machine. It is rumored that it was while working on the basics of this very machine, that he was enlightened on how to construct the TWINKLE Spin Theory. The science of this machine is not an advanced theory, however the accurate and complete motion of it, would require previous knowledge of engineering systems.

    F.I. TWINKLE is a Jamaican born, California native, private researcher and Mechanical/Aerospace Engineer who retired to a career in Rap Music as an urban Music Producer. He is still recognized as Santa Barbara’s greatest rapper.

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    Texas can only go Blue if they decide to count the Hispanic vote. Which they wont. Also, voter suppression and vote tally massaging.

    No chance in my lifetime.

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    Wife has a sudden interest in visiting Texas, specifically San Antonio and Fredericksburg. Our next door neighbors are going there in October, I think, for a relative’s wedding. I believe they said it was in McAllen, which they said is quite a shithole. Need to mull that over.

  7. 7.

    Davebo

    While it’s true that Patrick is bucking to replace Loui Gohmert as the goofiest Texas public official the article doesn’t offer much hope.

    Taking the Mayor’s office in San Antonio isn’t exactly earth shattering for Democrats. Both Houston and Dallas have Democrats for Mayors so one would expect the 3rd largest city in the state with a huge hispanic population to be a Dem.

  8. 8.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    Texas is a great place- if you are a straight white Christian dude. Everybody else, not so much.

    Good luck to Texas liberals. I’ll be cheering for you!

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    @Punchy: While the GOP is doing their absolute best to make sure Hispanics are not allowed to vote, Hispanics are also doing their absolute best to not show up at the ballot box.
    I got two middle fingers and they’re pointed at you!

  11. 11.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mike in NC:

    which they said is quite a shithole.

    Well, it is in Texas. San Antonio is actually nice, thought the airport is the ugliest I’ve ever seen. The kid was forced* to live in San Antonio and hates the place.

    *She was in the Air Force and stationed at Lackland for 4 years.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @Mike in NC: Woah. Fredricksburg is fucking gorgeous. San Antonio is largely super nice as well.
    McAllen is in the valley down South by the border and is very different. I happen to love McAllen, but it’s not for everyone.
    You’re talking about multiple hours of travel by car of a difference.

  16. 16.

    Timurid

    I’m sorry, but I have to say this:

    Fuck Steve Scalise.
    Scalise is a bad guy. Full stop. Nothing that happened yesterday changed that.
    He should not have been shot. Nobody should have been shot. The shooter, if he’d survived, should have been thrown under the jail.
    Yesterday was a disaster. Political violence and vigilante justice are objectively bad and should never be encouraged.
    I hope Scalise survives, recovers and lives a long, healthy life (preferably spent at home after somebody takes his seat).
    But STEVE FUCKING SCALISE IS NOT A HERO. He’s just a bad guy who got unlucky,
    He’ll get as much sympathy from me as I have for the thousands of other anonymous people who face serious injury and illness every day.
    He will never have my respect.

    The Scalise lovefest tonight makes me want to vomit. And also; Reason 749 Why Political Violence is Bad: It turns villains into martyrs.

    The game ball should have gone to the cops who saved his life.

  17. 17.

    SFAW

    I, for one, will be actively working against a Blue Nuevo Aztlan Tejas Texas. The principal reason:

    I have long been pushing for Texas to be renamed “Dumbfuckistan,” have it split off from Real America, have all the anti-American RWNJs and assorted Rethugs deported there, and THEN build that 100-foot-high wall between Dumbfuckistan and America.

    If Texas turns blue, then My Grand Scheme (which is mine, and I have come up with it, but it’s not a Theory) goes all to Hell.

    As a fallback, I guess I could settle for all those anti-American mofos being deported to Somalia. Yee-HAW!

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @MattF:

    Kevin Drum notes that seven percent of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

    Considering the current state of affairs in this country, I guess I’m amazed that it’s not about four times that number, plus or MINUS 1.

  23. 23.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @MattF:

    Kevin Drum notes that seven percent of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

    Well, the milk that chocolate is added to to make chocolate milk could have come from a cow that is brown.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, I got sent to Fort Hood for a few weeks in 2005 and as a Navy guy really wanted to see the USS Texas in Houston. Logistically impossible given my tight schedule, so the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg was Option B within driving distance. Nice town.

  27. 27.

    efgoldman

    Here’s hoping Texas is able to fight back hard enough to make it the first option!

    Nice, hopeful, optimistic.
    Might be nice if there were an actual statewide Democratic organization to take advantage.
    I’m not proverbially holding my breath.

  32. 32.

    Corner Stone

    @Mike in NC: If you actually go to the area(s) around San Antonio and Fredericksburg – with the wife – please be prepared to hire a U-Haul or other enclosed trailer to bring back all the antiques, furniture, and etc that women simply can’t get away from. I see you’re in NC so if you’re anywhere near Asheville then I suspect you know what you’re in for. But there are German and Spanish and Czech and Argentinian and every kind of culture you can think of waiting to sell your wife all the furniture their great-great-grandparents brought to the region.

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    @SFAW: Yes. 7% seems really low. I’ve heard people get upset that a teacher told their kid where milk or eggs came from. One time it was at the dairy demonstration at the LA County Fair.

  37. 37.

    Timurid

    @Timurid:

    And if I was lying in the hospital shot to pieces, Scalise and the rest of his caucus would be resentful of the money spent to put me back together.

  39. 39.

    efgoldman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Might be useful for Texas Dems to try to fix that.

    “Texas Dems”? Wott eez?
    The kindest thing I’ve heard the Texas Democratic party called is “moribund”

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Tonight’s strange communication not from Donald Trump. Speculation as to the reason for it abounds on Twitter. My own sense is that Trump insisted that a statement be made about THE LYING MSM WITH ITS ANONYMOUS SOURCES and this is how Ron Rosenstein toned it down.

    Not a good sign.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Um…… tick tick tick…. ?

    Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein urges Americans to be ‘skeptical’ about anonymous allegations
    10:53 p.m. ET
    Late Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued an unusual statement on anonymous sources, warning Americans to “exercise caution” when reading the news.
    People need to think before “accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated,” Rosenstein said. “Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.”

    to quote our co-belligerent

    David Frum‏Verified account @ davidfrum 35m35 minutes ago
    “So there’s a story soon to break sourced to foreign intelligence officials. Please pay no attention to it”

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @Walker: It varies. Some are to me by name, others have dozens of recipients in the To: header. This one was sent to about 30 or so people, most of whom are in my department so he was probably just scraping the directory.

  49. 49.

    efgoldman

    @Timurid:

    Reason 749 Why Political Violence is Bad: It turns villains into martyrs.

    I very rarely yell at my teevee (I understand that they can’t hear me and wouldn’t listen if they could).
    But I could have broken glass acoustically last night.
    Every fucking report – EVERY FUCKING ONE – had some senior reporter or other bleating both sideserism and false equivalence.
    Continued tonight.
    I was very happy to see Nancy SMASH! rip them all a new one about “harmful rhetoric.” Good on her.

    Fuckem.

  51. 51.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Uh guys I think Rosenstein is saying that it’s really the Russians who are investigating Trump!

    Can you go so far through the looking glass that you’re back in front of it again?

    Well of course you can, that’s pretty much how the story goes I guess.

  52. 52.

    sdhays

    Making matters worse is that competent Republicans leaders are either in thrall to the party’s oddly entitled grassroots activists, like Gov. Greg Abbott

    So, Greg Abbott is one of the “competent” ones…

    @Timurid: Every single one of those blubbering fools shook their heads and clicked their tongues and rushed to fellate the NRA when Rep. Giffords was shot in the head and some of her constituents died for the crime of taking the time to meet their Congresswoman. I have nothing kind or positive to say about them, and that’s why I try to refrain from commenting. They didn’t care when the violence was only being directed by the right-wing, and I still don’t think they comprehend the fire they’re playing with when they’re planning to snatch away the health care of 23 million people, some of whom are already desperate even with the health care support Obamacare provides.

    This kind of violence is always bad and I condemn it, but only the police caught up in this doing their duty have my sympathy. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s stupid protege deserves none.

  58. 58.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Uh guys I think Rosenstein is saying that it’s really the Russians who are investigating Trump!

    Isn’t that pretty much what Old Man McCain argle-bargled at the Comey hearing last week?

    ETA: @Adam L Silverman: so it’s an ally who wants to hasten trump’s fall or the Russians who want to muddy the waters even more? Wheeeee!
    (both of which I’ve been waiting for since November)

  61. 61.

    Mike G

    Texas ended up with some true buffoons in high office

    So…Rick Perry and GW Bush are BEFORE things turned buffoonish?

  63. 63.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Sure.

    I think that was one of those rare instances of such actual pure gibberish that you could say “Isn’t that pretty much what McCain was saying?”, with “that” referring to pretty much anything you want, and the answer would be “Yes, yes it was”.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @SFAW: It’s like claiming to be the most honest member of the Trump administration. Even if true, it’s a very very low bar to clear.

  68. 68.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    that feels consistent with the White House’s recent war on leaks

    Except, as Rosenstein knows goddamned well, the Leaker-in-Chief is in fact the leaker in chief.
    Although I wonder if the dimwit four year old even sort of begins to understand that.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Challenger, as in primary challenger (redux), Tim Canova

    Jennifer Epstein‏Verified account @ jeneps 4m4 minutes ago
    DWS challenger on Seth Rich death: “I wondered what the DNC under Wasserman Schultz was capable of but I don’t know”

  70. 70.

    Timurid

    @sdhays:

    This kind of violence is always bad and I condemn it, but only the police caught up in this doing their duty have my sympathy. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s stupid protege deserves none.

    This.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: Doesn’t have to be Five Eyes. Could be one of the Eastern European countries intel services. Or Germany’s. Or Israel.

  72. 72.

    Corner Stone

    @Peale: Nobody actually thinks we can handle our business anymore. What is coming is not from RU. It’s going to be from our fucking allies.

  75. 75.

    Shalimar

    @Mike G: G.W. Bush and Rick Perry were there when the economy was great, so no one cared about the buffoonishness. It is well known that the Texas governor has less power than the governors of any other state, so changes at the top don’t make that much difference. All the power brokers other than Perry are the same between 2014 and now, but the economy has crapped out so now they are all buffoons.

  79. 79.

    BBA

    I say reverse the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and give the whole Southwest back to Mexico. But then I’m an incorrigible contrarian.

  80. 80.

    joel hanes

    @efgoldman:

    efg, with respect: you should be reading Juanita Jean’s
    http://juanitajean.com/

    There are Democrats in Texas outside Austin and Houston — the proprietor of Juanita Jean’s lives in Sugarland, which she decribes as “nuttier than squirrel poop”. She and her husband are D activists, and pretty effective ones on a small scale in a hostile environment, which (oddly) seems to energize them. Her prose is … her own. There will neve be another Molly Ivins, but Ms. Bankston carries on the tradition of irreverence (her original Texas liberal blog, from the W years, was named “Kiss My Big Blue Butt”.

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Who are the great rappers of Scarsdale?

    You mean other than Triple-J?

    But point taken. Sort of what I expected it to be.

    And, by the way, there used to be a game where one would try to come up with a search term where Google would return exactly one hit. “Rappers from Scarsdale” meets that criterion.

  84. 84.

    David Anderson

    @Adam L Silverman: the relevant question is which intelligence service does not want either Trump hobbled OR American political chaos? That is a much smaller list

  85. 85.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Peale: I see it as a sign of Trump’s deteriorating mental state. Of course he’s the one leaning on Rosenstein. He also tweeted two attacks on Clinton at around 4 this afternoon. He hardly ever tweets in the afternoon. A number of people I respect are upping the odds that he’ll fire Mueller. That might bring things to a head, but we are on unknown ground. I just hope the commanding officer for the football, and their superiors have done a lot of thinking about possible scenarios.

  86. 86.

    Spaniel

    With Austin and San Antonio already bluer than the rest of the state, it will be the gains in Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth to make the state purple to even blue.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @SFAW:

    Also, speaking of California and the rappers therein, today is also the birthday of my exact birthday twin, Ice Cube. We were born on the same day 48 years ago, though in different states.

  92. 92.

    Shalimar

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Someone is going to have to explain to me, if Rich really were leaking to Wikileaks, how “all the things DWS is capable of” would have led to his hushed up murder rather than having him arrested and made an example of . Because the latter seems like what 99.9% of politicians would do.

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    @Spaniel: Nope. All change from Red to Purple to Blue is going to be in the valley. Well, at least for the next 20 years.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Fucking conspiracy theorist crybabies. There’s no way their preferred candidate could have lost fair and square to a — hack, spit — girl.

    Nope, there must have been a huge, murderous conspiracy that prevented their Great White Hope from winning his rightful office.

    No wonder their keep sneering about “Hillary wanting a coronation.” Projection, every fucking time.

  102. 102.

    Morzer

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil?utm_term=.ammgQ1LVge#.qjZpQBXmpy

    Lavish London mansions. A hand-painted Rolls-Royce. And eight dead friends. For the British fixer Scot Young, working for Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic meant stunning perks – but also constant danger. His gruesome death is one of 14 that US spy agencies have linked to Russia – but the UK police shut down every last case. A bombshell cache of documents today reveals the full story of a ring of death on British soil that the government has ignored.

    Putin.. Putin.. heard that name before somewhere…

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @amk: as Matt Yglesias said, he put a lampshade on whatever’s coming (assuming something is). And I think he meant “hung a lantern on it”, at least that’s the phrase I know.

  106. 106.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I think universities should offer courses or heck, degree programs, in “what John McCain might have been saying the other night studies”.

  108. 108.

    joel hanes

    @Mike G:

    Rick Perry and GW Bush are BEFORE things turned buffoonish?

    Yes, everything is relative.

    W may be one of the luckiest men in US history: his R successor as President, Donald Trump, makes W look statesmanlike by comparison, and all those “worst President ever” screeds are looking really dated.

    And Dan Patrick is even dumber than Perry — he may be dumber even than Louie Gohmert or Brent Farenthold, but that’s a really really tough competition. Again, W looks good by retrospective comparison.

  111. 111.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shalimar: Given how Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz has both functioned as a member of Congress and ran the DNC does anyone think she actually has the organizational ability to do arrange a hit?

  112. 112.

    mai naem mobile

    @Timurid: they initially lied about how Scalise was doing. They said he was in good spirits after the first hip surgery. I don’t even know why. Any fool knows he wasn’t awake after freaking hip surgery. I hope he survives and all but u wouldn’t be shocked if he passes away. Pelvis,internal organs,and his hip sounds serious. And he doesn’t look exactly blooming healthy to begin with.

  116. 116.

    efgoldman

    @Shalimar:

    if Rich really were leaking to Wikileaks, how “all the things DWS is capable of” would have led to his hushed up murder

    Isn’t this the same Bernie-endorsed klown who is a gold bug, and is giving conspiracy theorists a bad name?
    Another winner!

  121. 121.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Morzer: Now that scholars finally cracked the code and can understand texts written in Linear A, they’ve turned to the much more daunting and long term challenge of deciphering what John McCain was talking about in 2017.

  122. 122.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “Lampshaded” is what the kids say today. IIRC, it means drawing attention to something by ostentatiously pretending to disparage it.

    @efgoldman:

    If I was more familiar with Ice Cube’s oeuvre, I would have a pithy answer. Sadly, I am not. I mostly admire him for his film producing work, because he’s the guy who first proved to Hollywood that movies with all-black casts can make money. He found an underserved market and made a fortune by making movies they wanted to see.

  123. 123.

    Starfish

    Any place that becomes a one party state will suck in this way.

    Did we talk about the gerrymandering?

  124. 124.

    efgoldman

    @Morzer:

    A bombshell cache of documents today reveals the full story of a ring of death on British soil that the government has ignored.

    If Bondjamesbond were still alive, this shit would not be allowed to stand!

  125. 125.

    Shalimar

    @efgoldman: Yeah, true. I’m just so sick of this phenomenon of mountains of negative stories added together to create something horrible and nefarious without any real evidence underlying any of them. The only 3 negative things I can think of offhand about DWS: 1. payday loan industry owns her, 2. she supposedly did what she could to make sure her Cuban Republican Congressional friends didn’t face credible Democratic opposition, and 3. she tried to schedule 2016 primary debates on days no one would watch. None of those negative traits scream potential murderer.

  126. 126.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Morzer: That is quite a story. I thought about front-paging it, but plowing through it is a lot of work. Some of us have noted those deaths and thought they were, um, unusual. A veritable epidemic of heart failure among men in their 40s and 50s.

  129. 129.

    Kent

    Just got out of Texas last year. My wife’s career detoured us to that state a little over a decade ago and we finally got around to getting out. With 3 kids in school and two careers you build up some inertia but we are finally out.

    As for Texas turning blue? It was still blue to some extent at the local levels and in the legislature when we moved there in 2003. In Waco we had a Democratic mayor and a very decent Democratic Congressman. That’s all long gone after DeLay’s redistricting scams and such. If anything at this moment we are at peak Republican in TX. I honestly don’t know how the state could get any more Republican than it already is. Outsider dreams of turning the state blue are total pipe dreams at least for the time being. Problems?

    Hispanics barely vote, especially outside the Rio Grande Valley
    Native whites mostly vote on race. Not that they are necessarily all racist. It’s more tribal. The parties are perceived as being split on racial lines. Republicans are the party of suburban whites. Democrats are the party of urban minorities. That’s the way most perceive it throughout the south.
    Migrants whites barely vote. I’m talking about the millions who have moved into TX from other states. They just move out to their suburban master planned communities and barely get engaged in any party politics or voting.
    Mega-churches are almost universally Republican and there are a LOT of mega churches in TX. Much of the suburban social life swirls around churches.

    One hopes that the anti-migrant policies of the Trump administration will blow back in TX like they did two decades ago in CA but I don’t have my hopes up.

    Basically TX is part of the south and will remain solidly conservative. No state is an island. If TX ever gets competitive then it will be the result of national trends and at that point the whole country will have to have shifted so blue that it won’t make any difference anyway. Texas is like California. It’s just never going to be a swing state.

  130. 130.

    Mary G

    @Morzer: That Buzzfeed article on Russian murders ignored in the UK is some scary shit. I hope Adam or Cheryl can chime in at some point.

    Russian assassins have been able to kill in Britain with impunity over the past decade, 17 current and former British and American intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News. The reasons for Britain’s reticence, they said, include fear of retaliation, police incompetence, and a desire to preserve the billions of pounds of Russian money that pour into British banks and properties each year. As a result, Russia is making what one source called increasingly “bold moves” in the UK without fear of reprisals.

    ETA: Lol, Cheryl and I have a psychic link!

    ETA 2: I forget where I saw it on Twitter, but evidently the bipartisan Senate bill sanctioning Russia & Iran will not be taken up in the House.

  132. 132.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @Mike in NC: We’ve been pondering a relocation to TX to be closer to our elderly in-laws. A friend of mine actually tells me Houston is surprisingly liberal and diverse. So we watched an Anthony Bourdain episode on ot the other night and whaddaya know, tons of Indian, Vietnamese, African, Central American people and neighborhoods. It was a pretty impressive slice of the melting pot concept and very pro-Immigrant. AB sometimes irks me, but sometimes he does some very good, empathetic episodes.

  137. 137.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @joel hanes: I still think the Orange Fool has a long way to go before he’s worse than W or Nixon. Think how many people died because of those two…

  140. 140.

    randal sexton

    How to know when you should lawyer up:
    1. Your Big Big Boss(BBB) hires a Super Shady Lawyer (SSL)
    2. The Lying Fake News Media reports that the FBI is investigating your boss, and everyone who has ever come into contact with him, and his dog, but he hates dogs.
    3. Your BBB’s SSL lawyer tells YOU and all your co-workers that they do not need a Lawyer
    4. Your BBB’s SSL asks you if you like the underside of a BUS
    Note: 4. Won’t actually happen. You have to figure it out by 3. Good Luck.

  142. 142.

    efgoldman

    @Timurid:

    If he does, this is really going to turn into a shit show…

    As i said last night, depends how long it takes. Next few days? He’s a hero of the republic, and the worst tragedy since JFK. If he lingers for a while, and a month or so down the road his family decides to pull the plug. it will barely be a page 23 story.
    I know that’s hyper-cynical, and that’s me, but also realistic.

  143. 143.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mai naem mobile: I also haven’t seen anything on the type of cartridge used. If he used full metal jackets it’ll be bad, especially if it is razorcore. But if he was shooting something like a Barnes VOR TX TTSX hollow points the damage would be exponentially worse. Significantly high velocity for a 5.56/.223 round, significantly high foot pounds of force for a 5.56/.223 round, and very good expansion. Or Hornady TAP Personal Defense rounds. Or Hornady Super Performance, or Winchester Silvertip (Nosler), or PMC X-TAC.

  144. 144.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Not to be pedantic – oh, WHO the HELL am I kidding?

    To be completely and shamelessly pedantic:
    I always heard that, at any poker table, there s a SUCKER. Not (necessarily) a mark.

    The sucker is the person who just clearly isn’t as good as the other players, but likes playing poker and is an eternal optimist (or has enough money that the losses don’t sting). A *mark* is someone who is the target of an actual scam.

    Even at an honest table, there’s always a sucker – someone who just isn’t quite up to the level of the other players, and if you can’t spot who that is in a few hands, then you’re playing out of your league, and thus, are the sucker. Leave. Even – no, especially – if you’re winning. Because that’s when you probably *are* the mark.

  145. 145.

    Greg in PDX

    I lived in Texas for three years. They did not “create” any jobs. What they did was poach jobs from other states by promising corporations zero taxes and the ability to hire new employees as temps or contractors at minimum wage. But Texas has no income tax, so those companies are basically contributing nothing to the state coffers. Texas is now spiralling downward, and there is no bottom in sight.

  146. 146.

    clay

    @Morzer: Good Lord:

    Prime minister Theresa May is facing growing calls to respond to claims that her government has concealed evidence relating to Russian assassinations in Britain. In her six years as home secretary, she spearheaded the British government’s response to national security threats and presided over cuts of £2.3 billion from the national law enforcement budget that several senior officers have blamed for a drastic reduction in police capabilities. May personally intervened to delay the public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death, citing the need to protect “international relations” with Russia. And in the Perepilichnyy case, her government has withheld sensitive evidence from the inquest on “national security” grounds. Downing Street, the Home Office and Scotland Yard did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

    May seems directly responsible for allowing Russia to act with impunity on British soil. At what point does she take some fookin’ pride in her nation?

  148. 148.

    efgoldman

    @Shalimar:

    None of those negative traits scream potential murderer.

    Ahh, those that are blind but cannot see, or something.
    Do you know her whereabouts when Vince Foster “committed suicide”?
    How about when Ted Kennedy put his Oldsmobile in the drink at Chappaquiddick?
    Have you SEEN those contrails?
    Oops. I’ve said too much….

  149. 149.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Omnes Omnibus: On the contrary, the damage both did to our institutions is, IMO, a big part of what made Trump possible. Remember, Nixon pretty much invented the Southern Strategy. And it was the W administration that came up with the idea of creating its own “reality”.

  151. 151.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shalimar: I’m guessing she does a good job at constituent services or they wouldn’t keep reelecting her. But I don’t think she has a very thick legislative record of accomplishment.

  155. 155.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Mary G: It’s nothing we need to be personally scared about unless we’ve been doing multimillion-dollar real estate deals with tough-looking Russian guys.

    It is scary in the sense of one country allowing another to carry out its Mob-like activities within its boundaries. That tends to undermine international standards of law and justice. It also gives Putin a sense that he can get away with a lot, so he will push further. Might be interesting to interweave a timeline of those deaths with a timeline of Russian actions like seizing Crimea.

    I have been thinking about a post on Russia listing some of the difficulties Putin is facing at home. Of course, one way to deal with those is to create distractions abroad or assassinate the people he thinks contribute to those difficulties.

  156. 156.

    efgoldman

    @Kent:

    Just got out of Texas last year. My wife’s career detoured us to that state a little over a decade ago and we finally got around to getting out.

    Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, from which I retired two years ago, offered HUGE, outrageous bonuses to move from New England to their new Dallas area operations center in the late 90s. They included maintaining their New England salaries at Texas living costs, housing down payment assistance, house sales assistance up here… really large, large financial incentives.
    Within three-four years, roughly two thirds of the people who went, came back to New England (I didn’t take the bait).
    Sends a message, doesn’t it?

  157. 157.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: I read it. I’ve also seen similar, but nowhere near as comprehensive coverage of some of these individually. This is what happens when you let the following happen:
    1) Law enforcement investigations being warped by political officials in order to protect economic interests.
    2) Counterintelligence investigations being warped by political officials in order to protect economic interests.

    That’s really the bottom line here. The British government, under both Labour and the Conservatives, didn’t want to do anything to kill the funding stream into real estate, and then the additional revenues that generated, from Russia. So they allowed the greater London area to become a playground for Russia’s intelligence services, Russian organized crime, and the overlap between the two.

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ridnik Chrome: We disagree. W and Nixon operated within the system. Trump is ignoring it and acting as though the Presidency is a way to promote his hotel businesses. It is unprecedented.

  163. 163.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Significantly high velocity for a 5.56/.223 round, significantly high foot pounds of force for a 5.56/.223 round

    I don’t know shit about firearms, but all the news stories I saw said 7.62 (the old NATO M-14 round that I shot in basic in the late 1960s).

  164. 164.

    Timurid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    In some ways, what’s going on in the UK is even scarier than the mess here.
    They’ve also been compromised by Russia, and they just replayed Triangle Shirtwaist in TwenyFreakingSeventeen…

  165. 165.

    efgoldman

    @amk:

    Mike Pence’s attorney’s law firm has 40 lawyers & consultants representing their Russian clientele

    Oops!!

  166. 166.

    Morzer

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s nothing we need to be personally scared about unless we’ve been doing multimillion-dollar real estate deals with tough-looking Russian guys.

    I knew I had missed one item on the Not To Be Done list.

  167. 167.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh, I agree, it is unprecedented. But the system had already been hollowed out from within. And there is plenty of blame to go around for that: Gingrich and Murdoch and Reagan and Poppy Bush all deserve their shares as well.

    @efgoldman: Call me an optimist, but I don’t think he’ll be in power long enough.

  168. 168.

    efgoldman

    @Corner Stone:

    In the late 90’s?

    That’s when they opened the new, big campus. They’d had a smaller ops and sales group in the area going back to, I think, the mid-80s, and customer-facing retail branches well before that. I didn’t start working there until May of ’96.

  170. 170.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lyrebird: Yes. Expansion is a reference to what a hollow point does when it enters into a body. Here’s the details and specs on the Barnes:
    Offering double-diameter expansion, maximum weight retention and excellent accuracy, they provide maximum tissue and bone destruction, pass-through penetration and devastating energy transfer.

    Multiple grooves in the bullet’s shank reduce pressure and improve accuracy. Bullets open instantly on contact—no other bullet expands as quickly. Nose peels back into 4 sharp-edged copper petals destroying tissue, bone and vital organs for a quick, humane kill.

    Order this rifle ammo today!

    Key Specifications
    Item Number: 223784
    Mfg. Number: 21520
    UPC Number: 716876022359
    Caliber: .223 Rem.
    Bullet Weight: 55 grain
    Bullet Style: TSX
    Muzzle Velocity: 3,240 FPS
    Muzzle Energy: 1,282 ft.-lbs.
    Rounds: 20

    Here’s a video review:

  171. 171.

    EBT

    @Timurid: Political violence is bad for a lot of reasons, but no one remembers who george lincoln rockwell even was. And you might even be within living memory of that.

  172. 172.

    Morzer

    @Timurid:

    It’s worse than that, because neither of the major English parties can combine competence with credibility. Much of what Corbyn believes is no better than Trumpism (check his views on NATO, for one example) and his past record of associations and beliefs doesn’t withstand scrutiny, despite his recent attempts to pretend that none of it really meant what it meant. His cronies and advisers don’t meet the credibility test either. You have blustering idiots like Abbott, Stalinists like McDonnell (who has made clear his lack of belief in democracy), apologists for Putin, Stalin and Mao like Seumas Milne and an assortment of utterly undistinguished figures filling out the ranks of the Shadow cabinet. The Conservatives are a rabble of frauds, chancers, far right crazies and don’t have a single credible major figure in their ranks who could run a government worthy of the name. ironically, the party that probably has the best chance of providing something like competent government would be the Lib Dems – and they have no shot at a majority,

  173. 173.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid: Okay, I saw it reported yesterday as an AR pattern rifle. Put the point is the same. If he was using full metal jacket with a 7.62X39 it’s going to be very bad given where he was shot. But if Hodgkins was using high end hollow point ammo, like Federal Fusion or Winchester Super X or Winchester PDX 1 Defender Split Core it will be significantly worse.

    Here’s the PDX 1’s specs:

    The ultimate self-defense round! When the you-know-what hits the fan, reach for this Winchester® PDX1 Defender Split Core Ammo. Featuring Split Core Technology which provides the ideal balance between expansion, retained weight, and maximum penetration. The result is a devastating home-defense round that always has you covered.

    Features:

    7.62 x 39mm ammo
    120 grain bullet weight
    Protected hollow point bullet promotes sure feeding and initiates quick expansion
    Split core technology: Front core engineered to provide quick impact shock; Rear core is welded to the jacket to assure maximum retained weight and critical penetration
    Muzzle velocity: 2,365 F.P.S.
    Muzzle energy: 1,490 ft.-lbs.
    Brass cased
    Boxer primed
    Non-corrosive
    Reloadable
    Specifically designed for semi-automatic rifles
    20 rounds per box.

  176. 176.

    EBT

    @Adam L Silverman: Yup, he had a cheap SKS 7.62. He was living out of a duffle bag and using a low end soviet surplus rifle, so maybe he didn’t have money for higher end ammo?

  178. 178.

    Kent

    @efgoldman:

    @Kent:

    Just got out of Texas last year. My wife’s career detoured us to that state a little over a decade ago and we finally got around to getting out.

    Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, from which I retired two years ago, offered HUGE, outrageous bonuses to move from New England to their new Dallas area operations center in the late 90s. They included maintaining their New England salaries at Texas living costs, housing down payment assistance, house sales assistance up here… really large, large financial incentives.
    Within three-four years, roughly two thirds of the people who went, came back to New England (I didn’t take the bait).
    Sends a message, doesn’t it?

    Yes it does. We got sent there through the medical residency match with the notion that we’d do our 3 years and get out. Once we got settled it took a bit longer to get back out. You get settled in careers and the kids get settled into schools and friends. We waited until the oldest graduated HS and were actually packing the moving van and signing the the papers to sell the house the day before her graduation! That was our last night in TX..heh.

  179. 179.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Apparently. The report I saw yesterday stated a semi-automatic assault rifle and they flashed a pic of an AR pattern rifle on the screen. Given that most reporters thing everything is a GLOCK, including revolvers, I’m not surprised they didn’t get it right right away. As Timurid has informed me, it was a larger caliber. But the same point still stands. If he was shooting full metal jacket it is going to be very bad given where he hit Congressman Scalise. If he was shooting a hollow point personal defense or hunting round it is going to be even worse.

  180. 180.

    frosty

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m heading off to In N Out for my annual birthday dinner in a few minutes.

    Lucky you! They catered a lunch at my college reunion last month with their “food truck” (an 18-wheeler). I begged them to drive it east but they said they haven’t gotten any farther than Nevada. Curses!

  181. 181.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lampshade hanging — the logo for TV Tropes — “the writers’ trick of dealing with any element of the story that threatens the audience’s Willing Suspension of Disbelief, whether a very implausible plot development, or a particularly blatant use of a trope, by calling attention to it and simply moving on.”

  184. 184.

    Adam L Silverman

    @EBT: Even FMJ in that caliber is going to do a lot of damage. Heavy bullet, lot of foot lbs of force. Lots of bones and blood vessels to get shattered and torn in the pelvic girdle. He’s lucky to be alive and doing as well as he is. He’s going to be in rehab for a very long time.

  185. 185.

    Morzer

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Remember that they won’t run a candidate as grotesque as May next time. The Tories don’t have much mercy for failed leaders – unlike Labour.

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anne Laurie: Sir Toby Belch: Is it possible?
    Fabian: If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
    — Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene IV

    but that’s… all of our lives now, as in @Adam L Silverman: .

    unless you’re telling me I’m trapped in some kind of Truman Show (or was it the other one?) and you are all, for some reason, playing an elaborate and cruel prank on me. Which would be a relief.

  187. 187.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    it was a larger caliber. But the same point still stands.

    Well, there’s no GOOD way to get shot and have the goddamned thing pinging around in your abdomen. Wouldn’t matter if it was a .22.

  191. 191.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I don’t want to be shot with any caliber. 22LR is nasty, especially up close if it is supersonic. Small, light bullet moving at very high speed. Likely to bounce around a lot and do a lot of damage. I’ve read of people being shot in the head with them at close range. The bullet just bounced around within the skull until it had dumped all its energy.

  192. 192.

    EBT

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh yeah, getting shot near that many arteries and veins is potentially life threatening. Hydraulic shock can fuck all that shit up real good, real fast.

  195. 195.

    EBT

    @Jim Parene: Out of ten people I have referenced him to, after being warned of the dangers of making martyrs, you are the only person to know who he was.

  198. 198.

    efgoldman

    @EBT:

    you are the only person to know who he was.

    I knew who he was, I just thought all the old farts hanging around here late at night, knew.
    Can I have a cookie?

  200. 200.

    Amir Khalid

    @EBT:
    I’ve heard of Gorge Lincoln Rockwell. Alex Haley interviewed him once, and so he appears in Roots the book and the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, where he was played by Marlon Brando.

  201. 201.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Morzer:

    The Tories did their polling and found that Boris is now “deeply divisive”

    I would have thought “universally despised”. Surprised to learn that he has supporters.

  202. 202.

    Morzer

    @sm*t cl*de:

    Leavers like Boris, Remainers don’t. I imagine that after the horrifying fire in London his popularity there is going to take a big dip, given that he cut fire services and was very arrogant in dismissing the concerns raised by a variety of people on that topic.

  203. 203.

    Wyatt Derp

    @Mnemosyne:

    He is still recognized as Santa Barbara’s greatest rapper

    Went to school in SB. He may be the worst rapper in town too.

  204. 204.

    sunny raines

    Texas republicans have been disgusting for decades – just look up the Texas republican party platform from by-gone decades – always a bucket of the most indecent, whacked-out craven filth lunacy ever documented. That the citizens of Texas have kept them in office for so long is an indictment of every republican voter’s moral and intellectual character. Should the republican voters of Texas ever see the light by rejecting their republican vermin poos, they would be welcomed back into the human race.

  205. 205.

    jonas

    @Punchy: Minority voter turnout in Texas is also abysmal. That may be a result of decades of being discouraged and/or gerrymandered out of even remotely competitive districts, but it’s there.

  207. 207.

    Shalimar

    @efgoldman: You don’t even have to be old. Anyone who left the History Channel on for a few weeks at a time in the ’90s saw documentaries about the history of American Nazis.

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