IJReview celebrated with an inside look at Ted Cruz’s Senate office, and all its Texas-themed decorations. My personal favorite was the last letter from the Alamo:

A tip of the cowboy hat to DRJ.

[guest post by Dana]

By a vote of 861-300, California Republicans at the state GOP convention officially recognized the Log Cabin Republicans by granting the group a charter. It is one of the nation’s first gay groups to be officially sanctioned:

Shawn Steel, the Republican National committeeman from California, said in a floor speech that the group’s members have “supported Republican candidates though good years and bad years.”

“They have been solid soldiers in their fight against leftist tyranny in California,” Steel said. “I would welcome them in our organization. … I am proud to have them in the California Republican Party.”

State Party Chairman Jim Brulte supported the move.

However, not everyone was on board with the decision due to the “Family” section of the state’s Republican party platform which they believed to be at odds with the decision:

“We support the two-parent family as the best environment for raising children, and therefore believe that it is important to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. We believe public policy and education should not be exploited to present or teach homosexuality as an acceptable ‘alternative’ lifestyle. We oppose same-sex partner benefits, child custody, and adoption.”

Objections were voiced:

Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, said the group did not meet the criteria, arguing that it advocates for a “certain lifestyle preference.”

Also opposed was Sen. Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, who said the debate brought to mind a quote from Ronald Reagan amid calls to move to the political center. He said, “We must not compromise our political principles for political expediency.

“What we do here today, ladies and gentleman, matters,” he said. “Because as California goes, so goes the nation.”

There is also the question of whether this will lead to the party changing its platform on marriage in the future. However, nothing in the state party’s historical definition of marriage changed due to the decision.

–Dana

What a tool:

“Will the president watch the speech tomorrow?” Jansing asked.

“I haven’t looked at the president’s schedule for tomorrow,” Earnest said. “I doubt that he will spend his whole time watching the speech.”

OK. I guess sometimes we don’t watch speeches of people we don’t like.

For example: I don’t watch Obama speeches.

It’s caught on video, ensuring that it will be big news:

I am not going to comment on this specific case — other than to note that, on the video, police are heard yelling “Drop it!” and “Drop the gun!” several times before the shooting.

I have two very generic and general comments, about Skid Row, and about video of police/civilian interactions.

First: having done cases from Skid Row, I can tell you that the population walking around in that area on any given day has a large and vocal contingent that is strongly anti-police. If you walk through the area with police officers, as I have, you should not be surprised to hear people yelling “Five-O” and similar phrases, to warn others that police are coming.

Second: more video may exist. Ed Morrissey:

Interestingly, the LA Times reports that at least one of the officers wore a body camera during the incident. The use of body cameras came under considerable debate after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, with some suggesting that it will take a lot of the guesswork out of unpacking these kinds of incidents. We’ll see what the body cam(s) depict eventually, as well as some surveillance cameras that were in the area and might have more context than the one Facebook video.

Video cameras may shed more light on the incident — or they may not. Back in 2006 I blogged an incident of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed man. I noted that what looked like an execution in this video:

Looked somewhat different in this one:

That’s a cell phone he’s brandishing in that second video.