Thumbs up, down
Compassion is shown by the governor, while political party infighting takes center stage.
This week you’ll find our thumb placed firmly on the “cast ballot” button of the nearest electronic voting machine. It’s primary season, so go out and take part in the electoral process and decide which candidates the Democrats and Republicans will send to the November general election — and don’t forget to read the full editorial board endorsement slate at HoustonChronicle.com/opinion.
You can find more information about where and how to vote at HoustonChronicle.com/election.
It’s a politics-themed thumbs this week. We’ll start with a well-earned thumbs up to Gov. Greg Abbott, who demonstrated real strength and compassion by commuting a death sentence to life in prison on Thursday. Thomas “Bart” Whitaker had been sentenced to execution after taking part in a murder-for-hire scheme that ended in the death of his mother and brother and left his father, Kent, wounded.
Kent and his whole family begged the governor to spare his son’s life, and Abbott answered.
“I am not a member of any organized party,” cowboy columnist Will Rogers once wrote. “I am a Democrat.” We’re thinking of that line after watching the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attack one of its own — Laura Moser — in the primary for the 7th Congressional District. Apparently Moser once wrote that she would rather “have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia” than move to Paris, Texas, and they’re throwing that back in her face.
What’s worse than attacks from D.C. Democrats? Praise from them. This week, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer endorsed Tahir Javed in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Gene Green in the 29th Congressional District. By the way, he’s the same New York senator who said that Houston shouldn’t have a space shuttle because we don’t get enough tourists from Buenos Aires and tried to block federal funds for Hurricane Harvey recovery.
Javed might as well try to tout his skills as a pitmaster at the Rodeo’s World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest by proclaiming that vegans love his brisket.
Salute the flag, stand for the national anthem and respect the troops — all that goes out the window during Republican primary season. Direct mail slate The Link Letter aimed its ire at candidate Dan Crenshaw, who’s running in the GOP primary to follow in the retiring U.S. Rep. Ted Poe’s footsteps, by stating “he shared that he does not have a job, that he and his wife live with his parents, and he wants to become a congressman.”
For those checking, Crenshaw is a disabled former Navy SEAL who was nearly blinded when an improvised explosive device went off in Afghanistan. According to his campaign manager, Crenshaw turned down a lucrative job offer to run for public office and moved in with his parents while looking for the apartment where he now lives.
But hey, at least nobody kneeled at a football game.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz gave a truly cartoonish speech at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference, declaring that “the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson” and “Republicans are happily the party of Homer…”
If you’ve never watched the show, Lisa is the eight-year-old voice of reason and Homer once drove the city of Springfield into fiscal disaster when he spent the municipal solid waste budget on amphibious garbage trucks.
To quote The Simpsons: “Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns.”
What has the world come to when you can’t trust what you read on Russian T-shirts? Russian bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva was spotted wearing a shirt under her training suit that read, “I Don’t Do Doping.” And now she’s been caught doing just that. Sergeeva is the second athlete to fail a doping test at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang — the other is Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky. Which raises the important question: Doping for curling?! Really?!