Protesters call on Cornyn to "Do his job." Kelsey Bradshaw, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
About three dozen protesters demonstrating outside his Austin office Monday called on U.S. Sen. John Cornyn to "do his job" and at least meet with Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland.
Houston NAACP: No Supreme Court Justice, No Peace. Florian Martin, HoustonPublicMedia
Most of the about 20 protesters were with the Houston branch of the NAACP, which organized the rally. Also there were Harris County AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Shaw and HISD board member Jolanda Jones.
Those participation numbers are just sad. And while I realize it's important, to the Democrats, to have Mr. Garland nominated (Note to the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board, it's Mr. Garland NOT Mr. Merrick, as you seem to have trouble figuring out) and flip the Supreme Court. As such, they're pretty much rounding up the advocates that have nothing else better to do and sending them out to dutifully protest. Credit to the Houston NAACP however, because 'No Justice, No Peace' is a better chant than 'do his job'.
Some of it, of course, is due to a relatively slow news cycle in Texas. The Lege is not in session, there's not a whole lot going on and this is forcing the TLSPM to fixate on progressive outrage over so-called Jesus shots and anyone ever known by Attorney General Ken Paxton and anything they might ever do wrong.
The hope, of course, is that a much more progressive candidate will win in the next election and take their place, ushering in a new, enlightened Texas that the cub reporters working for various Texas media outlets no-longer are ashamed of. In their eyes, Texas needs an Agricultural Commissioner whose main focus is combating climate-change, and restricting certain foods that they don't like to eat from the dinner table of others. Texas needs an Attorney General who will go after people making a profit, take it from them, and redistribute it to those who can't. If that new Attorney General would be willing to conveniently ignore the rule of law when it gets in the way of social progress that would be great as well.
Of course, none of this suggests that Mssrs. Miller and Paxton are particularly good at their respective jobs. Miller is a social-conservative operating a bureaucracy that has nothing to do with social issues, Paxton is a serving Attorney General under indictment for securities fraud. If the GOP had been paying attention, they would have put stronger candidates against them in the first place, not let them run against relatively weak competition. (Despite what the TLSPM tells you, neither Miller or Paxton were opposed by political heavyweights, although their opponents both would have been better than them.)
The job for what is the rapidly shrinking sane branch of what's left of the GOP is to put up strong primary contenders against both of them and then hit them hard on their record. Will this be enough to sway the social-issues, nativist, and somewhat sizable, Trump-faction of the Texas GOP*? I have my doubts.
Ironically, the TLSPM is aiding and abetting both Miller and Paxton by continuing to report on these issues, and they're probably hurting Mr. Garland's chances (not that he had many to begin with) by continuing to act like these tiny micro-protests matter.
If there's one thing that the social-GOP voter hates more than a RINO (An increasingly meaningless term which really is code for "any Republican who the conservative media complex tells me not to like) it's the "liberal media". Every hit on Miller and Paxton just endear them more to the social-GOP base. It's like Trumpism at the State level. Every attack is verification that the candidate is onto something that the so-called establishment (Another meaningless political term, many anyone who is not just like me) doesn't like and therefore is something that should be supported.
At the National level this gives us Trump, who has parlayed some anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and (to be honest) misogynist talk into a National lead for the GOP Presidential nomination. At the State level it's given us Paxton and Miller, two elected officials currently serving in positions that they should be allowed nowhere near. To the detriment of not only intelligent political discourse but the GOP Party as a viable movement going forward.
In our two-party system if you don't think that having one party become dysfunctional is a bad thing then you haven't been paying attention to either California or Texas the past few years. Whatever it is that ultimately replaces the GOP, or (more likely) reforms it, had better be a movement rooted in limited Government or rule of law or we're going to be looking down the barrel of more elected officials such as Trump, Paxton, Miller, Jackson-Lee, Rahm Emmanuel and Al Franken. Our political system is going to become nothing more than a bloated, corrupt, comedy act.
If it's not already.
*I've a feeling that, minus Cruz, Trump would have won Texas pretty much going away and would be the undisputed presumptive nominee by now.
