Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts -- SB5 Edition

• I stayed up until after midnight watching the filibuster and, I'm telling you, it was the most entertaining television I've seen in years. I'm serious. It was riveting. 
• Wendy Davis was allowed "three strikes" during her filibuster with David Dewhurst being the biased umpire  -- it was like the coach of the the other team calling balls and strikes. It was beyond ridiculous. The third strike occurred when he ruled that Davis, when comparing the pending abortion bill to a previous sonogram abortion bill, was speaking about a subject that was not "germane."
• At the moment he ruled the third strike occurred, the public gallery erupted in anger. And I do mean erupted. It was like a Duke/Carolina basketball game. Mrs. LL and every kid in the house stopped down wanting to know what just happened.
• I'll find a video of that. I can't do it justice in words. Whatever side of the issue you were on, it will send chills down your spine. And the look on Dewhurst's face was priceless.
• That crowd sent the Senate into one of the funniest panics you've ever seen. They truly didn't know what to think. And as they staggered around, the clock struck midnight and the session ended. Shockingly, Dewhurst continued the vote and, for a while, proclaimed the bill had passed. At 3:00 a.m., he finally conceded that it didn't. (Someone had to have gotten to him and convinced him he had a political disaster on his hands if he continued to break the rules. It might have been business as usual for him, but this time there were actually people watching. He couldn't get away with it.) 
• The "second strike", by the way, occurred when another senator handed Wendy Davis a back brace. 
• Dewhurst later called the crowd an "unruly mob." Sir, that was over a thousand citizens expressing their displeasure with what you were doing. They wasn't a protest. That was democracy. 
• Here's a picture of the crowd in the rotunda. Wow. 
• Here's DPS troopers after clearing the gallery. And some of those guys manhandled some women in a shameful way. 
• Last night was a cluster for Republicans.  Look, they could get that bill passed easily. First, let her filibuster until midnight and then call a special session and pass it then. Or use the "three strike rule" in a capricious manner and end the filibuster within the first hour of the filibuster. Instead, they made Wendy Davis a star -- an absolute star -- and, by calling the third strike on a silly point of order while the whole nation was watching in prime time, made the Republicans look like a bunch of middle aged white men bullying a woman.
• Then again, it actually was a bunch of middle aged white men bullying a woman. 
• Rick Perry will address the National Right To Life convention in Dallas tomorrow. The chance of him calling a special session during the speech? 99.99% Chance of the abortion bill then passing? 100%. That's why last night was so disastrous for the Republicans. You didn't have to give the Democrats that spotlight. 
• I always said I'd never run for public office again, but I sooooo wanted to be in the middle of that last night. 
• How Dewhurst has been successful in politics is beyond me. He's clueless. He actually handed the gavel over to someone else at about 11:00 p.m. last night when he realized that the whole scene was becoming a disaster. Then again, he couldn't even beat Ted Cruz despite the fact that Cruz represented "the Chinese."
• For those who watched it, you could not take your eyes off the female parliamentarian who was on stage. Every time a senator made a point of order about the rules, Dewhurst would lean down and she would whisper the answer in his ear.  This easily happened over 100 times. 
• Standing and speaking in one spot for 13 hours would be the equivalent of running a marathon. At least a half marathon.  Davis wasn't allowed to eat, drink, sit, lean on the podium, or leave the podium.  The very strong rumor was that she was equipped with a catheter. I bet that's true.
• Blue State Rising.