Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is just plain goofy.

Like every other Republican state official in the whole damn country, he’s trying to restrict voting opportunities for people who generally vote Democratic.

In the last election, Harris County tried drive-through voting, citing COVID as the reason. It was wildly successful, with over 127,000 people using the centers.  And Dan Patrick is crying us a river over that.

Dan Patrick: “If they’re worried about people of color — on the Democrats side who came up with this drive-in voting — statistics show that more people of color don’t have cars than not. So how do (drive-thru voting centers) help those folks?”

Cringing grammar aside, statistics show no such thing.  Patrick is trying to contend that half of people of color in Harris County don’t have cars. The newspaper called his office to see those statistics but he’s not returning phone calls.  Because he just pulled those numbers out of his big wiggly butt.

Going to the Census Bureau —

Among the state’s 3.4 million African Americans, 88% own at least one vehicle, according to the 2019 American Community Survey, an aggregation of five years of data, the most recent available.

Quit pulling stuff outta your butt, Dan.  It stinks. And it’s generally racist.

Alaska state senator Lora Reinbold is one of those: loud-mouthed, science denier, and anti-vaxxer.  She steadfastly refuses to follow COVID protocols, even refusing to wear an appropriate mask at the state capitol in Juneau and railing about “mask tyranny”.  Being a falsehood-spouting Republican, Reinbold is an active member of the Stupid Caucus of the GOP.  Her behavior has been so egregious (even to her fellow Republicans) that she was removed as chair of the state senate judiciary committee and banned from certain parts of the capitol for her repeated violations of COVID protocols and berating other senators.  She was even fined for refusing to follow protocols.

Reinbold’s behavior has now come with really serious consequences, and it’s hilarious. Alaska Airlines is the only airline that flies between Reinhold’s home in Anchorage and the state capital of Juneau, and she has clashed with airline employees over federal mask mandates and COVID protocols in place to protect travelers, and publicly complained about the restrictions.  Exasperated, the airline finally banned her this weekend from flying on the airline, period.  Announcing the ban to the media, the airline’s spokesman said,

“We have notified Senator Lora Reinbold that she is not permitted to fly with us for her continued refusal to comply with employee instruction regarding the current mask policy.  This suspension is effective immediately, pending further review. Federal law requires all guests to wear a mask over their nose and mouth at all times during travel, including throughout the flight, during boarding and deplaning, and while traveling through an airport.”

She now has to take a 14 hour drive, complete with a ferry ride to get to Juneau for legislative sessions. Last night, in a Trump-like response to the ban on Facebook, Reinbold threatened the airline with an investigation into its “monopoly”, and complained that she was publicly named after the ban, despite her regular public ranting about the airline.   Seems to me that turnabout is fair play.

Alaska Airlines not only did the right thing here and were forced to do so.  Reinbold is a danger to the public especially since she is an elected official who has used her position to flout the law and common sense.  She got exactly what she deserved.

The irony of Conservatives complaining about “cancel culture” and “attacks on free speech” is thick.  They have been banning things other Americans do for decades – everything from being able to access healthcare to banning certain imagery from public grounds while promoting images of white supremacists, Bible verses, and crosses the size of sky scrapers. Ignoring all that, the inventors of bans and boycotts are now offended at measures to stop systemic GOP racism, racist dog whistles, brazen voter suppression, and just outright lying and are passing all kinds of laws outlawing everything from voter registration efforts to protesting police brutality.

So, the next time you are in a conversation with a conservative and they complain about “cancel culture” ask them if they agree with the 28 year ban on YOGA in Alabama schools.  That’s right, folks, since 1993, yoga and meditation have been banned in Alabama schools because The Hindu might rub off on students while exercising.  The effort to lift that ban has been tried the last legislative session and gained traction this session until it was killed by religious conservatives scaredy cat bigots in the Senate judiciary committee.  The blocked bill had even prohibited using the word “namaste” and forbade chanting and mantras, and required all yoga poses be named in English, but that wasn’t good enough.  In testimony, Christian activist religious zealot Becky Gerritson said, “Yoga is a very big part of the Hindu religion.  If this bill passes, then instructors will be able to come into classrooms as young as kindergarten and bring these children through guided imagery, which is a spiritual exercise, and it’s outside their parents’ view. And we just believe that this is not appropriate.”  Hilariously, representatives of Roy Moore’s Foundation for Moral Law, claimed yoga would lead to proselytizing in public schools by followers of Hinduism.  Recall that the weirdo and failed US Senate candidate likes little girls and was banned from the local shopping mall for harassing them.  Connecting the name Roy Moore with the word “moral” can cause whiplash in normal people.

So, when you get “Cancel Culture” from a conservative, just reply “Yoga ban.”  They’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, so you’ll enjoy explaining it to them.

Last night Houston area Republican State Representative Dan Huberty was in what he is calling “a minor auto accident” but police say they arrived at the scene to find a Corvette “parked under a minivan.”

Huberty was arrested at the scene for DWI after failing a field sobriety test.

He says —

Okay, Danny, so you drink too much and that is surely a problem. But you are also a 52 year old chubby grown man who drives a souped-up black and red Corvette. That, my friend, means you have a whole mess of problems you need to deal with. There’s even a You Tube of them towing off your age-impropriate mode of transportation.

Thelma says that her vast experience in the area of these things has led her to state as a damn fact, “Men who drive small fast car usually are.”

Greta Thunberg, the 18 year old Swedish climate activist, had some recent thoughts for the United States congress …

Thunberg threats, however, won’t have much impact. Republicans in congress already have a tested plan for what to tell their children when climate change causes deadly weather. In unison, they will all simply yell, “Pack your bags kids, we’re going to Cancun!”

The Arizona State Senate is conducting a behind closed doors audit fishing expedition that targets only Maricopa County which Biden won in 2020.  The effort is backed by the Arizona GOP peddling the Big Lie to discredit Biden’s win.  As if that’s bad enough, HOW it’s being done will most certainly yield a predetermined result, and is being given cover by the State Senate and the courts, all Republican controlled.

The fishing expedition is being conducted by a firm called Cyber Ninjas, whose founder, Doug Logan, has repeated and supported the conspiracy theories of the Big Lie.  Worse, their is no oversight of the count by outside parties, the press is banned from observing, and the ballots are being housed in an unsecured room in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the Arizona State fairgrounds.  Some members of the press have been able to get into the room and observed that workers were using blue pens which could be used to tamper with the ballots to change the votes.  That’s against state law; all audits are mandated to be conducted with red pens to prevent tampering.

It gets worse: Yesterday, conservative judge Christopher Coury temporarily halted the count after Arizona Democratic party petitioned to halt the count.  He expressed doubts about the process, but, and it’s a big but, he ordered the party to post a $1 million bond to cover any costs of a delay.  That bond more than 5 times the amount budgeted by the State Senate for the audit.  Coury’s effort to appear non-partisan is belied by the excessive bond he required of the Dems and they declined to post the bond.  The judge is well known in Arizona for his conservative rulings and was the target of Dems in 2020 be removed for his ruling against an education reform measure on the ballot.

Arizona (along with Texas and other red states) shows the danger of extended single party rule including the courts.  The effort to discredit the Arizona presidential election is brazen, and so far the courts are aiding and abetting the effort.  There is no reason for this fishing expedition except to shore up the Big Lie to give the GOP more cover to pass voter suppression laws to tilt the balance in their direction.  The effort is dangerous and anti-democratic.