Y’all, Jeb Bush claimed he’s of Hispanic heritage on his voter registration form.

He’s not.

Unless Barbara wants to fess up to something.

By Primo Encarnación

One day into the new season, at the almost-like-New Wrigley Field, the Cardinals are in first place and my beloved Cubs are in last. So we see that you can new-up a stadium as much as you want, but it’s still the same old Cubs, and have been since their last Series championship in 1908. Roosevelt was President – the first Roosevelt! – and William Howard Taft was 3 weeks from being elected his successor. During his Presidency, Taft supposedly invented the 7^th inning stretch, threw out the first Opening Day Presidential First Pitch, and attended three Cub games, where they garnered a losing 1-2 record. He skipped Opening Day 1912 because of the Titanic tragedy. Besides setting these precedents, he didn’t do much else important as President.

But there is one post-Presidential precedent he did set that I want to discuss. In 1910, he had appointed Supreme Court Justice Edward Douglass White to be Chief Justice. In 1921, that former Confederate soldier, Louisiana Senator, Southern Democrat and supporter of the Plessy decision went to his eternal reward not a moment too soon. In a fit of lucidity, Warren Harding appointed Taft to succeed the Chief Justice he himself had nominated. Taft sailed through a secret Senate confirmation, 60-4. The yeas and nays have never been made public.

Why is this important today? Well, President Hillary is going to have to appoint at least one Justice. As spry as the Notorious RBG is, not one of us can outrun Anno Domini forever. Hers is only the most likely seat to come open soon, there are others for various reasons which may as well, including Kennedy’s swing seat.

Barack Obama is a Constitutional scholar (and officer), was a lecturer on ConLaw at the prestigious University of Chicago Law School, has won the Nobel Peace Prize, has served as the most powerful man in the free world, has appointed Justices, has been a party to several Supreme Court cases, winning a few (!) and will be a relatively young 55 when he leaves office.

Although he is a White Sox fan, wouldn’t he otherwise make a fantastic choice for President Clinton II to name to the Court in an historic echo of Taft? I know there are still almost two full years left in his Presidency, but just remember… you heard it here first.

Well, it kinda seems to me that falling off the straight and narrow road is the easiest thing to do.  Republicans just won’t learn that lesson.

Pro-life and anti gay marriage advocate New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte got a lesson in that this weekend.

A top aide for Sen. Kelly Ayotte has resigned after being arrested and charged with solicitation of prostitution.

He also serves on the Manchester, New Hampshire school board.

Ya know, one day they will have to admit it.  We’re all sinners – including them.

Thanks to chloe bear for the heads up.

I live down the road a piece from Victoria, Texas.  I have lots of friends in Victoria, including the one who sent me this warning from the front page of her local newspaper, The Victoria Advocate.

It is stunning news.

The fears swirl around the release of an unclassified document that outlines a realistic military training set to take place this summer in Goliad, Victoria and other places across the country.

Some have speculated the exercise is the first step toward martial law, an extreme and rare measure used to control society during war and periods of unrest.

Martial law!  Good Lord, people, there are about 2,000 brave souls living in Goliad and they can’t do this on their own.

According to the training map, Texas is marked in red.  According to the newspaper, there’s a reason for that.

Because Texas – one of seven states involved – was marked red and labeled hostile in the document, theorists have postulated it was targeted because of its stigma of being friendly to guns, among other reasons.

“Texas has been talking for the last couple years of seceding from the nation,” said Tiffany Goehring, 35, of DeWitt County. “And now we have this military operation that’s about to happen, and we are considered hostile.”

And that, my friends, is how you get from a military training announced in a press release to being terrified in one easy step.

Operation Jade Helm’s press release with Texas in red.

Apparently this is a thing because if you go to Google and search “Jade Helm 15” the crazies will crawl all over your computer screen.

Thanks to Victoria Linn for the heads up.

Easter Sunday morning in Altoona where the risen Jesus was welcomed with a KA-BAM.

Police say a gun went off at about 11 p.m. Saturday at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Altoona, Blair County.

Police say a man had a gun in his pocket and it discharged when he stood up. The bullet grazed the man’s hand.

An Altoona newspaper reported the trigger caught on the man’s pants and the gun’s safety was not on.

A parishioner reacted quickly to the sound of gunfire in his church by returning fire with his camera.

“I noticed the gun was handed to another gentleman. He immediately concealed it in a white program, so I took pictures of the gun inside this program,” Wagler said.

Quick thinking!  The hole in the pew and the blood from the self-inflicted wound might have been interpreted as a stigmata.

AlanInAustin came up with a helluva idea.

First, here’s a story you’ll chuckle at.  In Florida, anti-gat cakes are apparently all the rage.

When a caller asked Sharon Haller to make a sheet cake with an anti-gay-marriage message, the Longwood baker thought it was a prank and hung up.

But a day later, Haller was still dealing with threats and other fallout after a video of the conversation was posted online.

“People said we should go kill ourselves,” said Haller, owner of Cut the Cake bakery. “They are being very threatening.”

And here is where Alan’s idea blooms.  He emails me —

A party calls a bakery asking for a cake with an anti-gay message on it and the bakery refuses. An “evangelist” then goes nuts claiming the bakery is anti-Christian (this despite the fact that the caller didn’t reveal his religion and that the refusal was based on the message, not anything about the caller).

In honor of this occasion, I’m moved to create a new word:

fictim (n): a mashup of the words “faux” and “victim”, this describes a person desperate for attention who claims serious personal offense when not being given their own way regardless of how justifiable the reason.

Nailed it.

Thanks to AlaninAustin for the heads up and the new word.