Reuters, the NY Times, and Axios are all reporting that 100 prominent Republicans, sick of Trumpism, are threatening to form a new party.  In a letter titled “A Call For American Renewal,” which may come out as soon as today, outlines the positions of these Republicans, who are alarmed at the iron grip Trump continues to exert on the once great party.  The as yet unnamed Republicans are threatening to start a new party if the GOP does not break with Trump and his lies.  Clearly the situation is seen as dire, and the group, said to include prominent figures such as Tom Ridge, is ready to break with the GOP, saying “The Republican Party is broken. It’s time for a resistance of the ‘rationals’ against the ‘radicals.'”

This move, if undertaken, will be a seismic shift from our status quo two party system, and hopefully will restore a loyal opposition and isolate the insurrectionists and screwballs who now control the GOP.

About an hour ago, House Republicans, on a chickenshit voice vote chose to oust Liz Cheney from leadership for her failure to embrace The Big Lie.  In doing so, they have chosen fealty to a criminal former president over the people they represent. In a fiery speech yesterday, and apparently again this morning, Cheney is unrepentant and continues to blast Republicans for their embrace of Trump and his lies.  As you would expect, the caucus actually booed her.  That’s right, on the House side of the US Capitol, Republicans actually loudly booed one of their own as she chose to speak truth to lies.

When she came out of the meeting, Cheny told reporters that she was going to do “everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets near the Oval Office.” She went on to say, “We must go forward based on truth.  We cannot both embrace the big lie and embrace the Constitution.”

I’ve never liked Liz Cheney or her war criminal father; but in this particular case, I admire her strength and steadfast principles.  I don’t agree with most of her principles, but in this case she’s done the right thing, and I personally applaud her for it.

In what truly portends as a sign that the end is nigh, reports are coming out that Greg Abbott is seriously considering a run for the presidency. I’m not kidding about this. I really wish I were.

In some respects, I guess a presidential run from the governor’s chair is just inevitable. Obviously, George W. Bush successfully made the jump. He at least won the job. How successful he was I guess depends on the eye of the beholder. Rick Perry tried a couple of times and failed miserably. There was an issue with counting that I recall that may have had an impact.

What both of them had in common is that they could at least point to signs of success. Sure, we know Bush wasn’t the brightest bulb in the batch and Perry is not much beyond the great hair, but they were savvy enough to stay out of the way and let Texans do their own thing. At least that is how many people will remember it.

As usual, when you pair down the flim flam and really look at things you would see a different picture, but most people are not accustomed to moving beyond the flim flam. They didn’t have a horribly mismanaged virus or a once in a century energy grid crisis. Most people would hide away in a broom closet after the last 14 months, but not Abbott. He is proudly considering bringing his clown show to Washington.

If it weren’t so real it would be comical. In order to appeal to the base, you have to be more flamboyant in your stupidity than the next guy or gal. If Jewish lasers only keep you in the news for a solid week you need to find something else to do.

Maybe throw out an old racist phrase while coming up with a new way to suppress the vote. Maybe count ballots with companies that don’t have a clue and hire people that would make my parents look like spring chickens. Maybe pass another bathroom bill or ban transgender kids from the lunchroom. Maybe remove background checks before a 9 year old can carry a bazooka into his STAAR test. Yup, the apocalypse is coming and it ain’t a pretty sight.

Try to act shocked, now, as I tell you another tale of corruption in Texas politics. Meet Todd Smith, good ole’ boy and political aide to Sid Miller. He was indicted Thursday of last week on felony theft charges. He allegedly used his credentials to tell prospective Hemp licensees that they had to pay him up to $150,000 for required surveys and paperwork and such in order to get Hemp Licenses. By spending approximately 6 hours in jail Thursday night before being released on his own “personal recognizance” he has already been punished more than any corrupt Texas Republican likely ever has. At least we have that.

Miller immediately threw him under the bus saying:

“That was Todd, between him and his clients,” Miller said, adding that he would reserve judgment until he could learn more about the situation.

Miller noted, however, that hemp licenses are not particularly expensive for those who want them, with farmers having to pay $100 for a one-year license. Texas Tribune, 5/7/2021

According to the indictment, Smith acquired clients looking for Hemp licenses that cost $100 a year and milked them for $25,000 in “required surveys’ and up to $150,000 each for “campaign contributions” and cash.

According to the Tribune: “The affidavit includes the account of one man who wanted to get involved in the hemp industry and met the middle man at a social gathering in August 2019. The affidavit says the middle man told the license-seeker that he was “working directly with senior leadership at the TDA” and that he “needed $150,000.00 in cash, with some of the money going toward campaign contributions, in order to receive the ‘guaranteed’ hemp license.”

If they aren’t cheating, they aren’t breathing. These crooks spend lots of time bloviating about small business and agriculture and how important it is to the Texas economy and so we can never raise minimum wages for employees while extorting six figures from small businesses trying to get their foot in on the ground floor of a new billion-dollar industry.

This is not the first time Todd Smith has been in trouble for selling access to Sid Miller for campaign contributions. In 2018, the Austin American Statesman reported that Todd Smith solicited a $1,000 campaign contribution from a man named Richard Branson, a physician’s assistant from San Antonio (not the other Richard Branson) in exchange for a position in Miller’s rural Texas health program.

Knowing Miller, the rural texas health program is probably a slush fund for rural texas campaign contributors to be compensated for their political support. But that’s beside the point. The point is, Todd Smith took this guy’s $1,000 and then asked him for a personal bribe loan for $29,000. Branson didn’t get the job, however, nor did he get his bribe loan paid back. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Branson. He exacted his revenge by taking all of the e-mails and such to the authorities and the Austin American Statesman.

Instead, Miller appointed Rick Ray Redalin to his rural Texas Health Task Force. Redalin had contributed much more money to his campaign than Branson. Do we really want a man on our rural Texas health task force that married his 15-year-old stepdaughter? Did I forget to mention that? It’s buried way at the bottom of the Statesman article, like it’s the least slimy thing this guy has done.

Redalen’s appointment was also questioned by ethics watchers. Redalen is the owner of a health care consulting business that offers telemedicine services and said he has used his position on the rural health panel to advocate for wider use of that technology.

Another reason for scrutiny of Redalen is his history. Redalen has had his medical license suspended or revoked in three states, including once in Iowa for pleading guilty to perjury in a case centering on his 1988 marriage to his 15-year-old former stepdaughter. 

I can’t make this shit up, yall.

Ok, where were we? Rick Ray Redalin, who goes by three names and thus must be an alleged serial killer has married his 15 year old daughter and bought himself a seat on a rural Texas health care task force to make more money for his for-profit telehealth business and he is actually not even the guy this article is about, I just found out about him. We will call him an incidental finding, to use medical terminology.

This is exhausting, really.

Back to Todd Smith. Todd Smith, is the second-highest “paid” lobbyist in the nation, making 5.1 million dollars over the last two years. So, his fancy lawyers will talk his way out of court and he’ll pay them a tenth of what he took in bribes loans and nothing will happen. No worries, I’m certain that our Attorney General Ken Paxton will not stand for this and will absolutely send a harshly worded letter to Mr. Smith.

At least one Arizona state senator has awakened from his stupid coma and realized how the botched and completely unnecessary “audit” of Maricopa County election ballots has made his state a laughingstock.  In an interview with the NYTimes, state senator Paul Boyer said,

“It makes us look like idiots.  Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”

Well, no shit.  You’ve just now figured that out, Paul?  Just how ridiculous did you think it was going to be? What in ANY of your party’s efforts gave you the slightest impression that all of you wouldn’t look like idiots?  You approved an audit that hired an unqualified partisan company whose CEO buys into The Big Lie.  Then they didn’t hire anyone who’s ever audited an election.  Then you barred the press, and now keep the ballots in an insecure place.  No matter the result of this “audit” (and I know what the result will be), at least half of Americans won’t believe it because you made ZERO effort to make it even appear to be impartial. This “audit” is not about restoring faith in our elections, it’s about destroying faith in our elections so you and your other partisan pals around the country can justify passing voter suppression laws and even authorizing yourselves to TAKE OVER THE PROCESS if you don’t like the results.

So, FUCK YOU, Paul, and the partisan nag you rode in on.  You’re the problem and most certainly should have nothing to do with the solution.  Late repentance makes you yet another charter member of The Jeff Flake I’m a Coward Club.  You only speak out AFTER it matters.

That is all.

There’s been a lot to mourn about over the past several years. Obviously, the loss of 600,000+ Americans is on top of that list when it comes to COVID-19. Everyone has either lost someone close to them or knows someone who has. However, that’s not the type of mourning that has been on my mind. Instead, I’m mourning the loss of civility and intelligent debate that we used to have concerning complex issues.

The Texas Tribune released one of those stories that surprises no one. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, they basically said that resuming in person instruction in Texas accelerated the spread of the virus. Knock me over with a feather. That falls under the category of news that isn’t really news. It’s more the kind of common sense that seems to be a lot less common these days. When you deny science and deny logic like this you end up getting this kind of news story.

Yet, there has been something else going on this year in schools that is also impossible to deny. Failures are up. Frustration is up. It is much more difficult to teach students remotely and it is much more difficult for them to learn. Furthermore, it is also more difficult for students to enjoy school when many of their extracurricular activities have either been canceled or limited. They are not feeling the connection they need to succeed. I’m not sure how that can be replicated in a virtual environment and this is supposed to be what I’m an expert at.

This is where the mourning comes in. We used to be a people that could acknowledge both of these facts and then have a somewhat intelligent debate on how to move forward. The more heads we put together the better we usually do. We have made awesome innovations as a society so maybe someone can come up with a way to offer connection and keep people safe. Naturally, a part of that is getting as many people vaccinated as possible, but when you have people denying the jab just to own the libs it impossible to do that universally. Idiots have always been among us, but it seems we have more of them.

These are the same idiots that seem to think having more guns in society makes us safer. It seems that the police are drawing a chalk line around common sense and fewer and fewer people are able to identify the victim. It’s not that we have complex problems like those in our schools. It is that fewer and fewer people seem to want to try to tackle them. I know we are supposed to fight when the idiots try to fight culture wars instead of tackling real issues. Unfortunately, there is just an overwhelming sadness that this is where we are at.