Hooks on Politics

If you’re a politician who has taken a public position against gay marriage, as Greg Abbott has, there’s a tricky thing you have to do to keep your position cogent. You need an argument for a same-sex marriage ban that doesn’t contradict or aim to invalidate the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, which struck prohibitions against interracial marriage, including in Texas, and established marriage as one of the core, basic rights enshrined in the Constitution.

That’s proven tough for many anti-gay marriage politicians. When the Supreme Court declined to consider lower court rulings earlier this month, effectively making same-sex marriage legal in a number of states, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who used to argue cases before the high court and so should know better, released a statement asserting that “marriage is a question for the States.”

Yet in Loving, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion that marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” and that the “freedom to marry … cannot be infringed by the State.” When the GOP candidate for attorney general in Wisconsin responded to a question about Loving by saying that he would have defended a ban on interracial marriage in court, too, he was at least being consistent.

When Abbott met with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board recently, reporter Peggy Fikac asked him about Loving. He had defended the state’s gay marriage ban in court recently—would he have defended a ban on interracial marriage? Abbott took a different tack:

“Right now, if there was a ban on interracial marriage, that’s already been ruled unconstitutional,” Abbott pointed out. “And all I can do is deal with the issues that are before me … The job of an attorney general is to represent and defend in court the laws of their client, which is the state Legislature, unless and until a court strikes it down.”

When I said I wasn’t clear if he was saying he would have defended a ban on interracial marriage, he said, “Actually, the reason why you’re uncertain about it is because I didn’t answer the question. And I can’t go back and answer some hypothetical question like that.”

Some hypotheticals are difficult to answer. What if the South had won the Civil War? Is it nobler for a Danish prince to suffer the slings of outrageous fortune or take arms against them? How many roads must a man walk down? This one shouldn’t be particularly difficult. It’s especially odd because Abbott is himself married to a Hispanic woman—though the anti-miscegenation laws struck by Loving were particularly targeted to black-white relationships.

But perhaps Abbott was wise to have dodged the question, because he likely would have defended a ban on interracial marriage, according to his own principles and record. He wouldn’t have known how not to. Abbott hasn’t shown a whole lot of independent spirit during his tenure as AG—he’s bound, he says, to defend whatever the Legislature vomits up:

“Believe me, I would love it,” he added, “The state would look a whole lot more like me right now if I did abandon my role and exercised my magic wand and decided what cases I would defend and which I didn’t, and therefore allowed me to dictate policy in this state.

“But I think that by doing what I do, I am maintaining the policy that I think is appropriate, and that is for each elected official to fulfill their constitutional obligations,” he said.

But while the Attorney General may have to mount some kind of defense of the state, he has “a tremendous amount of discretion” over how aggressively to prosecute those cases, how “effectively” to prosecute cases, and which cases to bring to court. Abbott has been using his stint as AG to campaign for governor for years—he’s brought failed case after failed case against the federal government, costing Texas taxpayers millions. But his hands are tied when it comes to gay marriage and school finance, he insists. He has to aggressively defend bad laws to the last.

Abbott’s tenure has included a number of instances in which he pursued comically bizarre legal arguments in cases for which he could have no reasonable hope of victory—seemingly forfeiting his powers of discretion. In 2008, Abbott chose to defend the state’s ban on the sale of sex toys, a case that emerged from the fallout of Lawrence v. Texas. Over the years, Abbott has deployed novel legal arguments against gay marriage. But this wasn’t a case about gay marriage, a subject that still animates sincere moral disagreements. This was a case about every American’s god-given right to buy dildos.

At the time, anti-sex toy laws were widely understood to be unconstitutional, but Abbott suited up for battle. The state, his lieutenants argued with straight faces before the 5th Circuit, had an interest in “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation.” The state of Texas has a pressing interest, Abbott said, in discouraging you from masturbating or blowing your boyfriend. That was just six years ago.

As The Dallas Morning News notes, several past attorneys general, including Abbott’s predecessor John Cornyn, have refused to take part in cases when they felt they’d be in the wrong. But it seems there’s no law so bad Abbott won’t defend it.

Here’s the thing: We’re just two weeks away from Election Day, and we still don’t know much about what kind of governor Greg Abbott would be. Apart from the fishing ads and vague policy proposals, and even given his lengthy record as attorney general, we don’t necessarily know much about what drives him, or his leadership style.

Next session, if the GOP sweeps important races, Abbott will face a divided Legislature, with House Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick representing very different policy preferences and styles. Which will Abbott rely more on? How forceful will he be in asserting his own will over the Legislature? Perry used his longevity to turn a relatively weak office into a powerful one: Under Abbott, would the position revert to its former status, or would Abbott seize Perry’s reins?

From time to time, we get little glimpses of Abbott and how he thinks about government. At the second debate, we caught one when Abbott, flustered, said he wouldn’t prevent the Legislature from repealing the Texas DREAM Act. Miscegenation-gate is another interesting episode. Abbott seems more like a follower than a leader, which isn’t a very good sign when you consider the forceful personalities he’ll be clashing with next year.

Over the last few weeks, the editorial boards of the state’s newspapers have been rolling out their endorsements. On Thursday night, the first major newspaper endorsement in the governor’s race dropped—The Dallas Morning News is backing Greg Abbott.

That’s not particularly surprising. Unlike other statewide races, both Abbott and Wendy Davis are relatively serious, thoughtful people, capable of approximating the kind of serious, thoughtful figure editorial boards like. Texas newspapers have turned heavily against more tarnished GOP figures like Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton, but Abbott’s not really one of them. There’s the added factor that newspapers may aspire to endorse candidates from both parties, and they frankly don’t have many Republican options who meet the low bar of being able to appear serious and thoughtful.

There are plenty of perfectly reasonable arguments in favor of Abbott, and the Morning News gives some of them. But one of their reasons for endorsing Abbott is fascinating. Here it is:

Where Davis would be likely to encounter ideological battles at every turn, Abbott has the best chance to inspire legislative progress.

Davis has fought valiantly. But for all her progressive promise, and alignment with this newspaper on many issues, Texas cannot afford to provoke the kind of partisan stalemate her victory would probably bring, much like the gridlock that has paralyzed Washington. As much as Texas needs to counterbalance its GOP hard-liners, we fear Davis would only invigorate them.

Elect Davis, and GOPers will be so mad they won’t cooperate on anything, just like what happened when Barack Obama took office. This is a really beautiful encapsulation of some of the most depressing features of American politics right now—a reminder that we do government primarily these days by hostage-taking, in contravention of the ostensible norms of representative government. It’s also an assertion that the hostage-takers should win, and a demonstration of why they will keep winning. It’s monumentally demoralizing. But applied to the Texas context, is it right?

What would a Gov. Davis look like? Well, she would probably have little influence over the Legislature. Assume Davis wins and so does Patrick—Davis would be able to get hardly any of her legislative priorities through. Patrick would be preparing to run against her in 2018, and his Senate would kill or mangle almost anything that bore her personal stamp. But Davis would have a veto which would prevent Patrick’s worst bills and initiatives from getting through.

But the Morning News endorsement anticipates something worse—that the conservative Legislature seizes the levers of state government and goes to war against Davis, refuses to budge on any issue, refuses to put together a budget, refuses to consider new and important legislation, until its demands are met and Davis effectively surrenders. In effect, if the people of the state elect Davis to lead them, conservatives in the Legislature—probably led by Patrick—will take Texas hostage.

So the Morning News’ instinct is to reward the hostage-taker, pay the ransom, and keep the state safely gripped by one-party rule. On the one hand, it feels like a pretty bleak misperception of how small-r republican government is supposed to work. It’s especially odd because the endorsement urges Abbott to be “a moderating influence” for his party—a bit like a liberal urging his radical-left friends to “work inside the system.”

It seems probable that Patrick will be the dominant figure of the 2015 legislative session, not Abbott. It would be very difficult to make the case that a Gov. Abbott will be better at containing Patrick than a Gov. Davis, with a veto stamp and a reason to oppose him openly. It seems like extraordinarily wishful thinking to hope Abbott will turn out to be the state’s version of a Rockefeller Republican. On Friday, the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman issued strong endorsements for Davis, in part because of the belief that putting Davis in the governor’s mansion would provide a check on the state GOP’s worst impulses.

But on the other hand, the Morning News might just be conceding to reality. Certain features of the American system of government simply aren’t working as well as they used to. One fundamental cause of that is that the two parties have become ideologically purified—no longer is there much overlap between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and they have little reason to work together. But the way that problem manifests itself most severely is within the Republican Party, and its willingness to throw gum in the system’s gears.

Consider Texas’ extraordinarily polarized politics. As the state inevitably moves toward a two-party system, it’s easy to anticipate Texas GOPers picking up the tactics of John Boehner and Ted Cruz. Patrick’s probable victory may be one sign that’s already happening.

That’s also a pretty big problem for Democrats. As long as the economy is going OK here—without a prolonged drop in oil prices, or the bursting of a regional real estate bubble—a lot of people will be a little frightened of the implications of a competitive two-party system. It’s not unlike the way a lot of people feel in a truly one-party system—be it the PRI in Mexico, Augusto Pinochet’s Chile during the 1988 plebiscite, or China today. Why mess with (relative) success? Why leave the devil you know for the devil you don’t?

In Texas that feeling is shared, apparently, by the editorial board of the state’s second-largest newspaper.

Here’s a hypothetical on a lot of people’s minds during election season: Exactly how fringe, how whacked-out, how seemingly unbalanced does a Republican candidate in Texas have to be to risk losing a GOP-leaning district to a presentable, modest Democrat? A lot of Dems, aghast at how far right the state GOP has moved, go into their campaigns thinking they’re going to come out on the fortunate side of that divide. But they’re usually disappointed.

But after Nov. 4, there’s a small chance that we might be able to call that fulcrum the “Tinderholt point.” Up in Arlington’s House District 94, a conservative activist named Tony Tinderholt is helping us put the proposition to the test once again. The district is currently represented by Diane Patrick, a moderate-ish GOPer who earned the ire of conservative purity groups like Empower Texans before losing her primary to Tinderholt, a virtually unknown conservative activist.

His Democratic opponent in the general election is a fellow named Cole Ballweg, a friendly guy who exemplifies the kind of moderate Democrat who runs in Texas suburbs these days. He emphasizes his history as a small business owner, preaches moderation on guns, health care, abortion, and other issues, and wants to help make “smart investments” in Texas’ future.

House District 94 is pretty conservative—Diane Patrick was mostly unopposed through her four-term tenure, and in 2012 Barack Obama won only 38 percent of the district’s votes—so normally this would be pretty easy. The guy with the ‘R’ next to his name wins, and it barely matters what the Democrat says. Except: Tinderholt might be the weirdest GOP state House candidate this cycle. He’s one of the most off-the-rails politicians you’ll find in the country right now. He’s the closest Texas voters are going to get to achieving their long-held dream of electing a gun.

In September, a video of Tinderholt addressing a 9/12 group in the Metroplex emerged. It featured a lengthy, hallucinogenic screed from Tinderholt about this summer’s border crisis, in which Tinderholt, seeming to channel Travis Bickle, wandered in and out of lucidity as he prophesied that “people were going to die” on the border and that’s “the only thing that’s going to stop the invasion of our country.” He called for sending American troops into Mexico to stop border-crossers.

He told the crowd: “Our border will be secure when we arm it and stop the people from coming across.” The whole speech, including a disturbing section in which Tinderholt mentions the “disgusting” and “gross” things the “cute children” coming across the border are going to be forced to do, lasts some 20 minutes, and it never really gets any better.

It was the first of many pieces of Tinderholt-related weirdness to come down the pipeline. Recently, Ballweg’s campaign released more footage of the GOP candidate addressing members of Open Carry Tarrant County, the fringe gun group that has been terrifying random groups of people around Fort Worth and has been repudiated by both its ostensible parent group, Open Carry Texas, and the NRA.

Before an Open Carry Tarrant County demonstration, Tinderholt speaks to the group, promising that his election to the House will get them what they want and warning them about police interference. “I will author legislation that’s what you want, that’s what you want passed,” Tinderholt says. “If they act foolish, smile and come find Kory [Watkins, Tinderholt's friend and an Open Carry activist]. If I’m not here, he’ll call me.” In another video, an open carry protester tells another about the hopeful state rep: “This guy’s got our back 100 percent,” he says. “Tony Tinderholt has said, if the police ever harass you, call me immediately.”

After another demonstration, Tinderholt again urges protesters not to get too riled, because “Konni Burton, myself and a whole bunch of other people in the Senate and in the House plan on offering open carry legislation,” Tinderholt says, “that is gonna do away with restrictions like in hospitals and churches, all these places that are just like military bases,” presumably in that they currently ban personal firearms.

Tinderholt remains the probable victor, and he’s been personally backed by figures like Ted Cruz and Dan Patrick. But there’s been backlash against Tinderholt in the last couple of months. Ballweg has been endorsed by a number of Republicans, including two Arlington City Council members that Tinderholt has fought with in the past, and Dr. Ned Patrick, Diane Patrick’s husband. The Arlington police and firefighters associations have endorsed Ballweg, along with the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, which predominantly endorses Republicans. Ballweg’s campaign has publicized an internal poll that puts him two points behind Tinderholt.

In a strongly-worded editorial—headline: “Invading Mexico is Not a Good Plan”—the Fort Worth Star-Telegram endorsed Ballweg and urged Arlington voters to reject Tony Tinderholt’s views, for what it’s worth. Though it acknowledged that the Republican was favored to take the district, “just as it has for at least three decades,” the paper’s editorial board expressed a small glimmer of hope that he wouldn’t. “Maybe not this year—or at least, it shouldn’t.”

One potentially discouraging sign for Democrats is that no one really seems to be investing in the race right now. Ballweg only has about $12,000 in the bank as of late September—and Tinderholt only has $5,000. But who knows, maybe the “moderate Republicans” people talk so much about will finally make themselves manifest. Can you be this nutty and win? Let’s see.

We’re nearing the second half of October, which means one thing. Spooky specters and grave ghouls abound. Wizards and wraiths walk the land. Sinister “visitors” seeking power and riches appear, seemingly from nowhere, to darken the path of the normally blissfully unaware average Texan. Detritus from the paranormal forces, engaged in their never-ending battle, cloud storefront windows and residential lawns.

Suburban citizens, frightened half to death already by the proliferating clouds of contagion to our north, and the heathen zombie army to our south, steel themselves in their homes to face the army of doorbell-ringers arriving with the same terrifying query: “Are you planning to vote on November 4?”

1) Earlier this week, Dan Patrick, full-time biblical scholar and hobbyist candidate for lieutenant governor, posteth some wise words on Facebook. No, seriously, here they are:

But a couple days later, the pot and salvia smoke had ventilated out of Patrick’s campaign headquarters, and cooler heads prevailed. That hippie bullshit had to go, man. So on Wednesday, we got a peek of Patrick’s first TV ad of the general election, featuring a very high concentration of fear-of-man, practically weapons-grade. Turns out everyone’s favorite new jihadi militia, the Islamic State—personally backed by Sheikha Leticia al-Vande al-Putte—has already made short work of Arkansas and is coming across the border to exterminate whatever small portion of the state’s residents survive the Ebolapocalypse. (In fairness, Van de Putte’s disturbing and problematic new ad probably made this line of attack inevitable.)

Patrick got made fun of for his ad, which is understandable. But later: Vindication. GOPer Duncan Hunter, California’s first action-doll congressperson, went on Fox News with gasp-worthy news. The border patrol had caught “at least 10” ISIS fighters. Even Greta Van Susteren seemed to have a hard time swallowing it, but it was good enough for some. They’re coming. The dream is real. Patrick posted the story on his Facebook page. It’s been shared more than 2,500 times, and has more than 500 comments. Here’s a sprinkling:

Then, Hunter’s story fell apart. The Department of Homeland Security called it “categorically false.” Hunter’s spokesperson meekly offered that his office had “evidence from reliable sources” that “foreign nationals” who may “not technically be ISIS fighters” but were “suspected” of doing something naughty “had been captured.” OK. Patrick, ashamed to have accidentally sowed the seeds of panic and fear with bad information, holding himself to a continually high standard, took down the post imme—hahaha, no, sorry, I kid. I kid.

But that little flap aside, he’s doggedly working on the real issues:

Dan Patrick
October 4 · Edited
I had a lot of comments on what did fried sweet tea taste like, how is it made, & why did I try it.

1. I tried it because my grandson wanted me to try it. All grandparents
understand.
2. It tasted like a warm fried donut with a cool liquid inside that taste just like sweet tea.
3. I have no idea how to make it but one of our commenters, Brenda, supplied the answer. By the way it was actually very tasty.

Deep Fried Sweet Tea – The South’s #1 beverage has been deep fried! Home brewed sweet tea is blended into a custard filling. The custard is given a graham cracker crust, deep fried, & topped off with homemade sweet tea syrup. The crispy, golden graham cracker crust gives way to a warm & gooey center that’s packed with sweet tea flavor.

Dan Patrick 2014—Crispy, golden graham cracker crust; warm & gooey center; sweet tea flavor. (No Mexicans.)

2) Up in Senate District 10, GOP candidate and tea party organizer Konni Burton has a new ad out this week. It’s a little weird. Normally in these things, the goal is to make a candidate seem warm and friendly—no matter how cold, robotic, tired, angry, hungry and unwittingly alienated from his or her true self by late capitalism they might be. But Burton never speaks, even to say “I’m Konni Burton, and I approve this message.” No one shown in the ad speaks, unlike her opponent Libby Willis’ more lively ad, which features, at least, a character of sorts. Is Burton trapped in there?

The entire thing consists of B-roll, dental office music, and a slightly off-putting voiceover that issues proclamations, like “Active in her church,” and “Konni Burton will eliminate wasteful spending.” It’s like a video stock photo. It’s a tea party lullaby.

But in its unadulterated banality, it somehow gives the impression that something terrible—something grim and unknowable and vast—lurks just below the surface. I took a stab at pairing the video with a more fitting soundtrack.

Here’s Konni Burton looking at things:

Fortunately for Burton, she’s running on more than being an attentive listener. Old people vote a lot, and Burton wants them to vote for her, a lot. What’s something old people don’t like? Being murdered.

Are you a grandmother in the Fort Worth area? Do you remember how that family doctor you go to sometimes jokes about how much he’d love to buy your house? He’s coming for you. You’re in his goddamn sights and you probably won’t win in a footrace. Only Konni Burton can make sure you’re still drawing breath for Kaitlyn’s bat mitzvah.

It’s fear-mongering on a level that’s kind of awe-inspiring. It makes other GOP pols seem lazy. ISIS? Sharia law? Muslims in general? Black people? Ebola? Benghazi? The cartels? Screw all that noise—Konni Burton has identified the real threat. It’s doctors. You will never feel safe again.

Vote or die.

3) Ken Paxton is going to make Greg Abbott look like Clarence Darrow.

Don’t worry, Texans. These frightening folk are gonna go back in the closet just after Halloween—but the sequel, which starts in January, is going to be a positively defrightful thing. By which I mean to say…

THE END?

The next lt. governor is going to have a lot of serious problems. The public education system has been weakened and tarnished by years of cuts and legislative meddling, and the transportation system is running out of money, even while the property tax-heavy tax structure in Texas has reached a breaking point. We might be on the verge of a taxpayer revolt—but without the strong government services to show for it.

Hospitals are clamoring for Medicaid expansion, while many doctors are dead-set against it, and the poor are left to suffer. At some point, the lt. governor is probably going to have to help broker a new model for public education financing, thanks to the courts—one of the most difficult things the Legislature ever has to do, a task Solomon himself would have trouble with. And he or she is going to have to tackle all of that at a time when every statewide official is new, and with a lot of new senators besides.

So naturally, Dan Patrick’s first general election ad opens with the Islamic State:

There was a fun period of time after the primary runoff where people hoped Patrick might be moderating his public profile. The debate was one datapoint, but I think we can safely dispose of that dream now.

Crisis, that old broad, brings out the best in people. It also brings out the worst in people. Consider the single Ebola case that’s caused so much panic in Dallas. On the one hand, you’ve got Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. On the other, you’ve got Breitbart Texas.

People are losing their minds about this Ebola thing, and a lot of fear and anger has been directed toward the family Thomas Eric Duncan was staying with when he got sick. The terribly unlucky people, quarantined in their own apartment, have been isolated and stigmatized by the world even though they haven’t shown any symptoms of Ebola—and in fact, helped identify the reason for Duncan’s illness after the hospital failed to do so, possibly saving lives.

To reassure the people of Dallas, and as a gesture of compassion, Jenkins paid the family a visit at their apartment last Thursday, and then came back the next day to personally drive them to new donated lodging away from the public’s glare. On the advice of experts, he didn’t wear protective clothing. Christine Gorman, the health and medicine editor of Scientific American, called Jenkins and Dallas County HHS head Zachary Thompson “heroes.”

Jenkins and Thompson (and others like them whose names I don’t know) are heroes to me because they took compassionate action based on facts and not unfounded fears. Ebola is scary enough without trying to make things worse than they are.

Gorman’s right. Misinformation in the face of a possible health crisis is a terrible thing, and dangerous. Straight talk and straight deeds should be lauded. As Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. David Lakey said, the “fear of this could be more damaging to this community than the virus itself.”

But in fairness, there’s another take on what Jenkins did—a very hot take. That take is: Clay Jenkins has Ebola now, and we’re all going to die, and not just at the end of our natural lives, but probably pretty soon. Because Clay Jenkins is going to give you Ebola.

The fun started on Friday, when Breitbart Texas ran a story with a charming title: “NAIVE LIBERAL TEXAS JUDGE ENTERS EBOLA APARTMENT WITHOUT PROTECTION.” Resident Breitbart virologist Bob Price knew the truth, and saw through the science-man lies: Jenkins was in great danger, and so was the public. Price implies that Jenkins can now spread Ebola to anyone he touches, even without showing the sickness himself.

No explanation was given Thursday night for the Judge’s appearance at the apartment. It is not known at this time if the Judge will cancel any public appearances where he would normally be shaking a lot of hands after being inside the still contaminated apartment without protection.

This is bad information for a couple of reasons. We should keep Duncan in our thoughts, but his illness poses very little danger to the rest of us—even if more people who were around Duncan eventually get sick. Ebola is difficult to transmit, and not contagious until a person shows symptoms. In a rich country with a good public health system, isolated cases are relatively easy to contain, unlike really deadly diseases such as the flu. That’s according to the people who have dedicated their lives to studying infectious disease.

As far as that apartment goes: According to the Centers for Disease Control, Ebola can stay alive on dry surfaces for a couple hours, and in expelled body fluids for several days, but the family has gotten past that point. No one has gotten sick. They could still get sick, but they won’t be contagious until they show symptoms. And they’re being checked twice a day to ensure they’re not.

After his first trip, Jenkins returned to drive the family to the house where they’ll wait out the quarantine, then showed up to a press conference at “the same building from where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot President John F. Kennedy,” Price writes helpfully. He again implies Jenkins is an idiot, reeking of disease:

Jenkins bragged to the reporters that he was “wearing the same shirt” he wore while he was in the apartment that had been exposed to the Ebola virus and while he was driving the family who had slept for days on the same mattresses the Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, had been sleeping. He slept on all three mattresses in the apartment for at least two days while he was symptomatic. Jenkins then very proudly stated he was going home to his wife and nine-year-old daughter.

A day later, the cheerful conclusion. One of Breitbart’s loyal readers saw the bit about the 9-year-old daughter, decided she could die soon, and clamored to take action. He or she filed a report with Child Protective Services. No, really. This person was so proud that they took pictures of the report, and sent them to Breitbart, which dutifully wrote it up. “EXCLUSIVE: CPS COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST TEXAS JUDGE OVER DAUGHTER AND POTENTIAL EBOLA EXPOSURE,” reads the story’s headline.

The concerned citizen said he felt Jenkins’ conduct was inappropriate when he unnecessarily exposed his child to potential danger. “I am doing this because I am concerned about the child,” the complainant said, “and I am concerned for the children in her school who might become exposed if the virus were to spread.”

Again—that’s not how Ebola works. The courageous anonymous complainant keeps digging:

“There seems to be a lot of dispute about how the disease is transmitted,” he continued. “I was very concerned that he would take this unnecessary risk with his own daughter for what appears to be his own political purposes.”

A lot of dispute! After quoting the anonymous person who thinks no one understands how Ebola travels—a wholly idiotic, wrong and dangerous idea—it would have been very easy to include information from experts about Ebola transmission.

This did not happen. Instead, the piece says the family members could still get sick—at which point they would be a transmission risk, though let me again emphasize that hasn’t happened yet—and raises the possibility that Jenkins faces, under the child endangerment statute, “termination of [his] parental rights.”

That seems as unlikely as the appearance of Black Death in Deep Ellum, but it’s still a nice demonstration of the consequences of a feedback loop of misinformation. What if—God forbid—there’s a more serious outbreak of Ebola somewhere in the United States down the road? Breitbart has helped spread damaging misinformation about the disease that does nothing but harm. “If people with the sniffles convinced they have Ebola start overfilling the Dallas-area’s already stressed emergency rooms,” Time magazine notes, in a piece about Jenkins and the consequences of wrong-headed disease panic, “perfectly treatable infirmities could become more lethal.”

One thing that’s necessary for good journalism is empathy. Without it, reporting can be a powerfully destructive activity, a terrible act of violence. It can rip people apart from each other, frighten and harm, and alienate whole communities. The best journalists know that and struggle with it. The worst are unaware, or don’t care, and it’s hard to say what’s worse. Imaging writing something that sics Child Protective Services on a father for no good reason while burdening a trauma-afflicted family with a greater stigma—or reducing the sacred, lost life of a border-crossing immigrant to the headline: “ANIMALS FEAST ON BODY OF DEAD MIGRANT.”

But the most basic, important element of journalism is a commitment to accuracy and a relative sense of fairness. Why spend so much time thinking about Breitbart Texas? Well, it’s not just a fringe publication. There’s an unbelievable amount of paranoia and fear floating around this state, looking for hosts. Breitbart feeds on that, multiplies it, and returns it to the ether. It’s the primary news source for a lot of people who don’t read news. It’s bad for us.

As of mid-day Tuesday, the three Ebola pieces cited above boast almost 1,600 comments, a swamp of contagion I will leave to you to explore.

We have just four weeks before Election Day, and realities are clicking into place. Monday was the last day new voters could register. And Tuesday served as one of the last checkpoints in the money race, as 30-day financial reports were released online.

The reports, which track fundraising and spending from July 1 to Sept. 25, show more similarities with the last round of reports than differences. In the marquee governor’s race, Greg Abbott continues to hold on to a massive war chest—he has more than $30.1 million in cash on hand, even though he’s spent more than $17.6 million and raised only $7.8 million in the last three months. It’s a superhuman sum. His report spans some 2,706 pages.

Davis’ finances are more complicated, in part because the campaign’s effort is split into three groups—but the campaign reports some $5.7 million in cash on hand split across four committees. That’s a little more than a fifth of Abbott’s sum. In spending, though, Davis has been keeping better pace with Abbott.

The campaign itself reports $6.8 million in contributions, plus another $1 million in in-kind donations, similar figures to Abbott’s haul. Battleground Texas, the campaign’s field arm, took in a little over $2.6 million, while spending $2.9 million. Battleground has only $473,000 remaining as of Sept. 25. Davis has never been able to compete with Abbott on a purely financial level, and the gap would seem to be growing. At the same time, as the race nears the finish line, opportunities for Abbott to spend that money diminish.

Together, it’s likely that Davis and Abbott will collectively raise more than $100 million this election. That’s a staggering sum, but it’s still likely to fall short of the $125 million raised and spent by Democrat Tony Sanchez and Rick Perry in 2002 but only because Sanchez spent out of his personal fortune.

In the lt. governor’s race, Republican Dan Patrick is better-positioned than Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, but his advantage is much less than Abbott’s. Patrick has $4.3 million in cash on hand compared to Van de Putte’s $2.2 million. He outraised Van de Putte $4.26 million to $3.1 million. But Van de Putte outspent Patrick more than 2-to-1 in the last three months—she spent $1.75 million, while he spent $804,000.

In the attorney general’s race, where Ken Paxton is biding his time till victory against Sam Houston, Paxton has almost 13 times as much money in the bank as Houston does, and raised more than 15 times as much money.

Up in Ft. Worth’s Senate District 10, things are more interesting. Democrat Libby Willis is fighting an uphill battle to save Wendy Davis’ soon-to-be-former seat for the Democratic Party against tea party organizer Konni Burton. This summer, Burton’s fundraising was kind of lackluster, but most people assumed money would pour into her campaign from the usual GOP donors at the last minute.

That hasn’t happened, and Willis has gotten a massive boost from Back to Basics PAC, a campaign finance vehicle heavily underwritten by Houston trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, the state’s biggest Dem donor. On Sept. 12, Back to Basics wrote Willis a $500,000 check—an enormous sum for a legislative race—bringing her contributions for the period to a little under $734,000. She spent just under $331,000, and has almost $475,000 remaining, with $88,000 in outstanding loans.

Burton’s numbers are comparatively anemic. She took in a little over $335,000, spent only $140,000, and has just over $200,000 left—plus $255,000 in outstanding loans. But there’s a strong possibility GOP donors will now race to match Mostyn’s money.

Money’s an important part of these campaigns, but it’s not everything. Battleground is talking up their success at building the Democratic volunteer base: According to its latest statement, 31,000 volunteers “have made 3.9 million phone calls to voters, and reached out to voters at the doors more than 1.2 million times.”

What effect will all that have? We’ll see in a couple weeks. But there’s some reason to think it’s made an impact. As the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday, the number of registered voters in the state’s five most populous counties has increased 2 percent since 2012—though that still doesn’t keep pace with population growth, at 2.6 percent. In majority Latino Bexar County, voter registration numbers is 3.6 percent higher than 2012. In 2010, during the last midterm election, the number of registered voters in the Texas’ five biggest counties actually declined from the previous cycle. Texas being what it is, higher voter registration numbers will almost inevitably help Democrats.

Recently, state Rep. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) got himself elected to a state Senate seat. He’s replacing Robert Duncan, who was well-regarded as a pragmatic dealmaker, and will be missed by the people who like to see the Legislature pass bills. (Some do not.) In the special election that Perry won, he was strongly backed by groups like Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Empower Texans. He didn’t seem like he’d be one of the most extreme new senators. Maybe Perry wouldn’t be that guy. When dealing with the Texas Legislature—a frequently demoralizing experience—it’s important to keep an open mind, lest our hearts calcify.

Yesterday, Perry got sworn into office, and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal was there.

After placing his hand on the Bible and taking the oath of office, state Sen. Charles Perry compared what he called the “spiritual battle” brewing across the nation to the Holocaust.

God has a place in the government, Perry explained in his inaugural speech as he vividly recalled a recent trip to a concentration camp in Berlin.

Well, that’s probably taken out of context. I bet that—

“There were 10,000 people that were paraded into a medical office under the guise of a physical. As they stood with their back against the wall, they were executed with a bullet through the throat. Before they left, 10,000 people met their fate that way,” Perry said.

“Is it not the same than when our government continues to perpetuate laws that lead citizens away from God? The only difference is that the fraud of the Germans was more immediate and whereas the fraud of today’s government will not be exposed until the final days and will have eternal-lasting effects.”

Hm. Well, sometimes politicians say extreme stuff like that, but when you get down to where the rubber meets the road they’re more thoughtful. I bet when we get to the start of the session that Perry will be more—

His biggest challenge will be the “spiritual battle for the spirit of this nation and the soul of its people,” he said.

When he gets to the capital, abortion and same-sex marriage will be at the forefront of discussion, Perry said.

“Roe v. Wade condemned 55 million innocent and defenseless souls that cried out for righteousness from a God who is just — we will answer for that as a nation,” Perry said, later noting that he has made clear his stance on gay marriage.

OK, but I bet Perry’s surrounding himself with thoughtful people that—

Also recalling a trip to a concentration camp, Pastor Jeff McCreight of Rock City Church compared abortion to the estimated 11 million people who died at the hands of the Nazis.

“The value of human life is continually being attacked by a 41-year-old Holocaust called abortion, which makes Hitler look like a humanitarian,” McCreight said.

That “attack” is why McCreight said Perry’s swearing in ceremony was so important.

If Dan Patrick wins the lt. governor’s race, can we call his Senate the “Salvation Army?”