The NY Times is reporting that Bloomberg just dropped out of the race.  Super Tuesday proved to be anything but super, and apparently he paid something like $11 million for each of his votes and for bragging rights in American Samoa.  NOW we have a race.

In Harris County yesterday, lines of voters were long and the wait was up to 5 hours.  Why?  There are two primary reasons:

• Since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act Texas has closed 542 polling places, most in historically black and Latino areas.  If you include 2012 closings, that number rises to 750.
• In Harris County at least, the Republican party refused to allow a joint primary with Dems.  What that meant was that the voting machines were divided in 2, half for Repubs, half for Dems.  Since Trump essentially had no opponent, turnout in the GOP primary was very low so HALF of voting machines remained essentially unused.

Both of these moves by Republicans made it harder for Texans to vote, which has been their goal for over 20 years as demographics started moving against them.  I got to experience their strategy yesterday since my polling place was one of those closed.  It took me three attempts at two different polling places to finally cast my vote, and I had to drive 15 minutes from one polling place to another to accomplish that.  After discovering my polling place was closed, I drove to my old polling place only to find the line out the door and down the block. I went to have some lunch and returned about an hour later to find the line almost as long.  A nice young poll worker for Ben Rose had information on other polling places, so I drove all the way out to Buffalo Speedway to vote at a church there.  The line there was about half an hour (and it was air-conditioned) so I waited it out.  When I got into the polling place, HALF of the voting machines were being unused while Republican poll workers twiddled their thumbs.  On the other side, Dems were forced to wait in multiple lines to access the other half.  Total time not including lunch was about two hours of waiting and a lot of driving just to vote in a goddam primary.

It’s shameful that the Republican party has been allowed to continuously and increasingly restrict access to the Constitutional right to vote.  Their rationale, of course, is based on lies since their actual goal is voter suppression not “election integrity” which is one of their standard lies.  Texas Republicans are perfectly happy to make the lives of their fellow Texans miserable simply for political gain.  This reason alone should be enough to vote the bastards out.

Sources are saying that Bloomberg is rethinking his run after his poor showing tonight.  I also expect Warren to finally throw in the towel.  About time.

Tonight there will be an open thread.

If you live in one of the Super Tuesday states, you are now the official foreign correspondent in that state.  When you report in please say what state you’re in and what the hell is happening.

If you don’t live in one of those states but if a good thought jumps into your head, please type it.

Well, Trump’s make over of the defense and intelligence operations of the United States has made a few more changes.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has urged American military commanders overseas not to make any decisions related to the coronavirus that might surprise the White House or run afoul of President Trump’s messaging on the growing health challenge, American officials said.

Mr. Esper told commanders deployed overseas that they should check in before making decisions related to protecting their troops.

Yeah, well, don’t surprise the president. He’s a slow thinker and he’s got a stock market to manage.

In fact, it might be better that before you say anything at all to anybody at all, check it out with the president.  He’s got a lot of Executive Time on his hands.

Donald Trump, Jr. wrote a book. Well, actually someone else wrote it but listed Jr’s name as the author in exchange for money.  In all fairness, the original author probably also kicked in reading the book to Jr.

But tying money to book sales means that other people would pay money to read it. Come on now, people who can read wouldn’t read Jr.’s book, and people who can’t read real good don’t buy books at all.  So Jr. is kinda screwed.  Unless, of course, the Trump family name is always for sale.

And debuting his book at #1 on the Best Seller list is important to the family name.

Let’s start with the Republican National Committee.  Last month they bought $94,800 worth of Jr.’s book and gave them away at some damn Republican reception.  I’m betting that most of those are still in the backseat of people’s cars.

Now tracking the other sales was kinda difficult because they are scattered in different places.  Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen spent the better part of the weekend hunting these down.

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE      BOOKENDS BOOKSTORE               NJ           DONOR MEMENTOS                                                                       11/08/2019         $30,843.18

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE      POSMAN BOOKS              NY          DONOR MEMENTOS                                                                                       12/18/2019         $24,490.00

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE      BOOKSAMILLION.COM  AL           DONOR MEMENTOS                                                                                       11/08/2019         $66,360.00

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE      BOOKSAMILLION.COM  AL           DONOR MEMENTOS                                                                                       10/29/2019         $94,800.00

NRSC                                                     BOOKS A MILLION           AL           PUBLICATIONS/BOOKS                                                                                                  01/15/2020         $57,510.00

AMERICA FIRST ACTION, INC.      BOOKS-A-MILLION          AL           1ST BANKCARD PMT [SB21B.71646]: CONTRIBUTOR COLLATERAL       11/25/2019         $3,290.10

NRCC                                                     BOOKS A MILLION INC.  AL           DONOR MEMENTOS – BOOKS                                                                                     11/25/2019         $47,400.00

AMERICA FIRST ACTION, INC.      BOOKS-A-MILLION          AL           1ST BANKCARD PMT [SB21B.71643]: CONTRIBUTOR COLLATERAL       11/13/2019         $9,970.00

ZELDIN FOR CONGRESS                 BOOKS-A-MILLION          AL           BOOKS FOR EVENT                                                                                                          11/06/2019         $6,281.00

FRIENDS OF MATT GAETZ             BOOKS A MILLION           AL           SUPPORTER GIFTS                                                                                                           10/22/2019         $9,970.00

AMERICAN VICTORY PAC              BOOKS A MILLION           AL           PRINTING                                                                                                                            09/05/2019         $231.81

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS     BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSELLERS TX           PARTY FUNDRAISING EXPENSE -BOOKS                                                  11/30/2019         $2,005.33

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS     BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSELLERS TX           PARTY FUNDRAISING EXPENSE – BOOKS                                                 11/06/2019         $10,554.38

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS     BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSELLERS TX           PARTY FUNDRAISING EXPENSE – BOOKS                                                 11/06/2019         $10,554.38

But, we’re just getting started …

NRSC     POLITICS & PROSE            DC          PUBLICATIONS/BOOKS  01/15/2020         $38,147.28

NRSC     GIVINGTON’S    AR          PUBLICATIONS/BOOKS  01/15/2020         $25,106.25

NRSC     POLITICS & PROSE            DC          PUBLICATIONS/BOOKS  12/17/2019         $76,277.60

NRCC     POLITICS & PROSE            DC          DONOR MEMENTOS – BOOKS     12/06/2019         $9,536.82

NRCC     GIVINGTONS LLC              AR          DONOR MEMENTOS – BOOKS     11/25/2019         $27,375.00

This one is a cute way to avoid disclosure:

NRCC     THE LUKENS COMPANY VA          DONOR MEMENTOS – BOOKS     11/01/2019         $58,792.50

Back to boosting the Trump family name.

NRSC     POLITICS & PROSE            DC          PUBLICATIONS/BOOKS  01/15/2020         $38,147.28

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE      POLITICS AND PROSE      DC          DONOR MEMENTOS       12/18/2019                $17,994.00

There’s more, bunches more.  So, yeah, his book debuted at #1 on the New York Times best seller list, and maybe all of half a dozen people have already read it. And I can bet you that his Dad was not one of them.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen.