The city of Houston, Texas, took a clean sweep of local elections in November with Democrats winning almost everydamnthing.  Since elections have consequences, something we’re all learning the hard way, there will be changes in Houston.

Kim Ogg

The new District Attorney, Kim Ogg, is having a press conference today — mind you, she hasn’t even had it yet — but boy howdy the super-red county to our north is already screaming and hollering.

Ogg is going to have a press conference about how her office will handle misdemeanor marijuana cases.

Ogg, who took office Jan. 1, is expected to announce her plan Thursday at a press conference with Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

Ogg’s plan will save taxpayers about $10 million a year, free up police to go after real criminals, divert 12,000 people from jail, and alleviate the backlog in our courts.

Her action – not even announced yet – will be about misdemeanor marijuana possession, not major dealers.  It is a plan endorsed by the mayor, the police chief, and the sheriff.

But, the DA in Montgomery County, which is officially East Texas, is pitching a snot nosed hissy fit.

Brett Ligon

Even before her plan was officially rolled out, however, news of the change prompted Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon to attack Ogg, saying was trying to legalize marijuana.

“Unlike Harris County, Montgomery County will not become a sanctuary for dope smokers,” Ligon said in a press release. “I swore an oath to follow the law – all the laws, as written by the Texas Legislature. I don’t get to pick and choose which laws I enforce.”

A sanctuary city for dope smokers.  Hell, Honey, we need to put that in the Chamber of Commerce Guide!  That should be the city motto.

Montgomery County has a population of half a million.  Harris County has a population of four and half million.  We could all just exhale toward Montgomery County and drive Ligon nuts.

But, to give you an idea of how butt ignorant this Ligon guy is, he says, “Despite a rise in violent crime rates in Harris County, Ms. Ogg chooses to focus her attention on the issue of legalization of marijuana.”  Putting aside that Ogg has only been in office for 6 weeks and probably isn’t responsible for the rise in crime, you gotta admit that she’s not legalizing marijuana, she’s simply putting resources where they belong –  which will. help. lower. violent. crime. rates.

I’ll let you know what happens at the press conference but unless she her plan involves growing weed at city parks, I suspect I’ll probably like it.

Fair caveat:  at one of my paying jobs, I endorsed Kim Ogg for DA.  And I am damn proud of it.

Last night, Jake Tapper of CNN finally got enough of SCROTUS’s insults and “fake news” twitter attacks on the media.  He let loose with a comparison of conspiracy theories and actual facts.  It’s pretty entertaining.

Okay, the news just said that we might send ground forces to Syria, because, you know, it worked so well in Afghanistan and Viet Nam.

But I gotta tell you that’s totally unnecessary because Donald Trump said he could defeat Isis the world over in his first 30 days in office.

He’s got 4 days left, y’all. He can do it. I know he can!

That can be arranged.  It certainly can.

People ask me why I keep watching Spicer’s press conferences if they upset me so much.

Here is my answer.

One day, he’s going to be saying something like this and then he’ll spontaneously combust.  It can happen.  I want to see it.

Thanks to VL for the graphic.

History has been kind

Jason Chaffetz just was handed a golden opportunity to go down in history as a principled American statesman, putting justice and country ahead of partisan political concerns, and gilding his so-far petty, small-minded career with a patina of patriotism.

We’ve seen this before.  Sam Ervin, of North Carolina, was a retrograde Dixiecrat senator who spent most of his career on the wrong side of history as a strict constructionist, fighting against Brown and civil rights legislation, fighting against the ERA, fighting against immigration reform – I’m sure you’re familiar with the type.

But late in life, this old “country lawyer” who had passed the bar immediately after serving in the Big Red One – the First Division – during WWI, achieved historical prominence and affection among true Americans for his work as the chair of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices.  You may know it better as “The Watergate Committee.”

They put him on a damn WRISTWATCH

With the resignation of Lt.Gen. Michael T Flynn as NSA, following revelations that he was coordinating with the Russians before the election and during the transition, coupled with the multitude of manifest ties between Dat Guy’s campaign and inner circle with Vladimir Putin, there is now more than enough data to begin a large-scale investigation into the Treason of Donald J Trump.

But, with Flynn now gone, Chaffetz has already said, in effect: well, that’s that, nothing to see here, move along.  The GOP Congressvolk are falling in line – still! – despite the ever-mounting evidence that the Hair Drumpfenfuhrer and his merry bund have deep, wide and continual ties to Russia’s dictator, despite Dat Guy’s obsession with becoming a dicTator-Tot, and despite the clear and present danger that Scrotus is completely unhinged.  Instead of hiring an independent prosecutor (Sally Yates is available, I hear) and proceeding to investigate articles of impeachment, the Reich Wing is instead investigating the leaks to find out which patriotic Americans are putting country in front of politics, the bastards.

No wristwatch for YOU
(Thanks, Salt Lake Tribune)

In case one should wonder why, the answer is painfully clear: these maleficent morons have been hoist by their own petard.  For 50 years they have been fostering the cognitive dissonance of the mouth breathers on the Right so that they have a permanent base from which to control legislatures, state houses, courts and Congress.  And in Dat Guy, the Drumpfen proletariat have found their hero, their king, their god.

…their whatever THIS is.

So all of the fake news, disinformation, propaganda, and plain old bullshit that’s been pumped into the ears of their base, obfuscating reality in order to foster Republican power-mongering, has hardened into concrete inside the heads of their base.  If the GOP now turned on Dat Guy, they would be committing political suicide back home in Gerrymandia, where the primary IS the general, and reality is vastly overrated.

Shelter in place.  Hunker and hope. Duck and cover. Don’t be a hero.

Sam Ervin would have slapped their faces.