Thanks to John for the art.

Poor Ole Ted.

First he has to go back to the Senate where nobody likes him.

Then he’s going to have to return a helluva lot of campaign contributions.  The FEC caught him taking more than the allowable contributions.  Click right here to see ten pages of names.  And since some people maxed out for both the primary and the general election, he has to return all the general election money because he ain’t gonna be in the general election, and I thank God for that.

And if that’s not enough, he’s getting sued for stealing music.

SEATTLE (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz’s now-defunct presidential campaign is being sued over the background music it used in two videos.

Audiosocket, a music licensing company based in Seattle and New Orleans, filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle against Cruz for President and the advertising firm Madison McQueen. It says an agreement between Audiosocket and Madison McQueen expressly barred the use of the songs for political purposes.

The suit is for “several hundreds of thousand dollars.”  Dude, steal something cheaper next time, you know, like a haul of diamonds.

And then today, his name is so damn sullied that he had to announce that he will run for re-election to the senate in 2018.  Because people were having their doubts over whether or not he would or even should.

Bless his heart.  His cup just runneth over with real bad karma.

Only for scientific reason, I hope something else bad happens to him today because I hate that bad news comes in threes.  Now I’m not wishing something else bad on him – this is just scientific research.

You’ve heard me discuss “the pendulum” – that sweeping arc of history which describes the Conservative-Liberal dichotomy. Like a pendulum, it moves in one direction, gathering speed until sociological gravity says “whoa” and its momentum in that direction slows and pauses at its extreme.  Then it starts to go back in the other direction.  We have just recently passed a rightward peak, and are gathering speed going back in the other direction.

I have taken a look at the last 9 elections, going back to 1980, in order to gauge how the electorate is swinging. I broke them up into three elections from 1980-1988, four from 1992-2004, and the two since 2008.  Here are some statistics:

1980-1988 – “The Pits” aka The Reagan Years, by which I mean that George HW Bush ran as a third Regan term. In the 3 Reagan elections, the furthest swing of the electoral pendulum:

• Democrats lost by an average margin of 10 MILLION votes,
• Turnout was below 100 million and averaged 52% of the voting age population (VAP),
• From a low of 48% of the electorate in 1980, women rose to 52 then 53% of the electorate
• African Americans and Hispanics comprised 12-13% of the electorate.

1992-2004 – The Clinton/Bush Years indicated a sea-change, the flipping of the pendulum.   During these 4 elections:

• Democrats won the popular vote by an average of 3 million
• Turnout was around 100m and averaged 53% of the VAP
• Women’s participation remained steady at 52-54%
• AfAm/Hispanic participation rose steadily to 19% by 2004

2008-2012 The Obama Years indicate the first full run of a blue-shifted electorate as the pendulum gathers momentum going the other way.  In these two elections:

• Obama won by an average of 7 million votes
• Turnout was around 110m and has risen to 56.5% of the VAP
• Women stayed steady at 53%
• AfAm/Hispanic participation continues to rise to 23%

So during this shift, turnout is rising, women stayed steady in the majority and minority participation has almost doubled.

But while the electoral pendulum is shifted in one direction, the forces in power try to push its extremity further, or slow momentum in the other direction. This is what we see Republicans doing today.  But as the electorate shifts away beneath them, those in power tend to trim their sails to suit the prevailing winds, so the Courts will become more liberal, and the Congress will become more liberal, as the White House becomes more liberal.  There’s just a bit of a lag.  It worked the other way, too.

Republicans were storming into power in Congress just as Clinton got the White House. Within that context, within those times, he could not have won the White House by being anything OTHER than a centrist, and he could not have gotten any legislation through other than by working with a Congress dominated by Republicans and centrist Democrats.  Was Clinton as far left as we wanted him to be?  He wasn’t even as far left as he wanted to be.  He was only as far left as he could be.  Just as Nixon was only as far right as he could be.

This election will be a blue blowout; I only hope that we can overcome the political pitfalls the retreating republicans have left in our path and regain the House. Maybe not yet, but in time, as the next Supreme Court will start to undo some of the damage.  Speaking of, chew on this and think about the fall:

SCOTUS Appointments Swing back Dem 

• Nixon/Ford – 5 justices appointed
• Carter – 0
• Reagan/Bush – 5
• Clinton – 2
• Bush – 2
• Obama – 2 (+1?)

See the pendulum? Then avoid the pitfalls!

Texas Republicans are a fun bunch.  Their state convention is scheduled for this weekend in Dallas.

Jared Woodfill

There’s a guy named Jarred Woodfill running against incumbent Republican State Party Chairman Tom Mechler.  Woodfill is the former chairman of the Harris County (think Houston) Republican Party.

And what’s the issue in this loudly contested race?  Taxing?  Spending? Climate change? Education?  Jobs? Equally pay?

Of damn course not.

The issue is The Ho.Mo.Sex.U.Als.

The race for chairman of the Texas Republican Party has spawned charges that the party’s current leader, Tom Mechler, supports a “disgusting homosexual agenda.”

He even sent out a mailer to all the delegates about it.  Woodfill claims that Mechler is disgusting because he (1) allowed the Log Cabin Republicans to have a booth at the convention, (2) did not get properly outraged about bathrooms in this time of bathroom outrage, and (3) did not move the convention from Dallas, a well-known ho.mo.sex.u.al haven.

Up until this minute, I did not know that Dallas was a gay prom date dream destination.  Let’s see, Houston has had a wildly popular gay mayor recently so that’s out.  San Antonio is where the Godless Democrats are meeting. Fort Worth has school superintendents who love all God’s children. Corpus Christi has way too many Mexicans.  You know, that doesn’t leave any cities with a convention center.  I mean, they could have their convention in Lufkin but I doubt that the Super 8 and the Day’s Inn have big enough meeting rooms to accommodate that much hate, although I am certain that they have No Gays Allowed signs preprinted and ready to go.

I suspect there will be a tent revival on the agenda and I’ll keep you informed best I can without actually going there or even looking straight at it.

Florida, y’all.

So this guy in Florida was cleaning his gun and he stood up, feeling a sharp pain in his back that threw him down against a glass coffee table.  He says he thought he’d thrown out his back because he felt a lot of pain.  He heard a gunshot but couldn’t find any bullets.  He took some “back medicine” and forgot all about it.

For two days, Blevins went about his business as normal.

It was on the third day that Blevins took off his shirt. The shirt was black, a long-sleeved one, the kind that hides blood stains from bullet wounds should one ever shoot one’s self by accident, the newspaper reported.

Then he put on a light brown shirt, noticed his own blood and found the injury: Blevins could see where the bullet entered his left arm and where it exited, according to the News-Journal. It had cauterized, deputies later recounted, and was barely bleeding.

Okay, first off, this is a lesson.  Please change your shirt more than once every three days.  And shower every now and then, even if you live in Florida where everything stinks.

(Blevins later told deputies that his back medicine possibly numbed him from feeling pain from the accident, even pain from a bullet wound, the News-Journal reported.)

Second off, where the hell can I get some of that back medicine?

Thanks to Paul for the heads up.

Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is so cocky and full of himself that he’s not sure you’re even real.

Dan Patrick

By the way, Patrick is his stage name from his days as a wanna-be Rush Limbaugh on Houston talk radio.  His real name is Daniel Scott Goeb.  Nobody has any idea where he got the Patrick unless it’s after St. Patrick, but that wouldn’t be right because Dan Patrick is responsible for more snakes in state government than St. Patrick ran out of Ireland.

Anyway, Dan is real upset.  He is sashaying himself to Fort Worth tonight to speak to the school board.  Do you think he’s going to speak about why he cut $5 billion from Texas schools?  No, siree, he’s not.

He’s gonna talk about peeing.

Fort Worth Independent School District [Superintendent] Kent Scribner is not backing down from putting in place new rules that accommodate transgender students, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he would not step down after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for his ouster.

“I’m proud of these guidelines,” Scribner told the paper on Tuesday. “I think they provide educators with the ability to make all students more comfortable and confident in a learning environment.

First, Patrick called on Scribner to resign because … well, hating people who are different is one of the things that Texas schools need to teach, obviously.  When Scribner refused to resign, Patrick is now calling for his ouster.

Secondly, you know all that talk from Patrick about local control being dandy?  Come to find out, local control means “only the Lt. Governor.”

The school board is standing behind the superintendent.  The school board president says —

“We have enormous confidence in Superintendent Kent P. Scribner, his team, and our Board,” he said. “We are focused on creating a strong, safe, and productive learning environment for all students.”

Well now there’s a unique idea.  So, we don’t have schools just so Lt. Governors can grandstand about where urine goes?

I hope they ask him what he did with the $5 billion he seized from education.  Or piss on him.  You know, either one would be fine with me.