Ben Hall and Dave Wilson

As with Ben Hall and Steven Hotze last week, a "butthole buddies" joke right about now would just be too easy.

On Tuesday HOUequality posted a photo of Ben Hall's signature on the anti-HERO petition. "If someone is running to represent all Houstonians (in fact Mr.Hall's campaign slogan has been 'Ben Hall for All') how can they add their name to a petition designed to divide and denigrate transgender Houstonians?" the post asked. (We called over to Hall's campaign headquarters and a Hall volunteer confirmed that Hall definitely signed it.) HOUequality has promised that there will be more of these disclosures coming this week. 

Ben Hall is NOT for all.  I thought that was conspicuous two years ago when he challenged Annise Parker and got drubbed, and was insincere about his homophobia on numerous occasions.

He doesn't really give a shit what you think if you're homosexual, or if you support the civil rights of homosexual people in all of society.  That's a fairly large constituency to write off in Houston.  Worse yet, it is the wrong side of history now, and a definite regression from his last run, where he either couched or concealed his antipathy better.  At this point Hall has probably stolen the anti-HERO vote away from Bill King, who kinda needed it in order to make the runoff.

You have a pastor running on a campaign of hate, with several other pastors lined up behind him.  I just don't think that's what Jesus would do... but I'm an atheist, so what  do I know?

I suppose there are enough Christian conservative gay-bashing men and women, of all creeds and colors, in both the Democratic and Republican parties, that Hall can get to his polled three percent.  But at this point, if Ben Hall gets more votes than Marty McVey, it will be an embarrassment.  Not to McVey, but to the entire city of Houston.

Updates to posts on Sandra Bland, Bernie Sanders, etc.

-- The dashcam video of Bland's arrest, released yesterday by the DPS, appears to have been edited.  There's also this, about good ol' Waller County.

In 2008 the Houston Chronicle detailed how local cemeteries were still segregated. There were black cemeteries and white cemeteries and those were the rules. When one Waller County justice of the peace, DeWayne Charleston, attempted to bury the body of a brutally slain white woman in a black cemetery, his plea was overturned by Waller County Judge Owen Ralston. Ralston said it cost too much, saving taxpayers more than $400. The Jane Doe, whose body was never claimed after a year, was eventually buried in a privately owned and operated white cemetery.

According to the Chronicle, a county resident of Hempstead sued the city for failing to maintain its black cemeteries. That lawsuit was successful. In 2007 the city of Hempstead’s police chief, Glenn Smith, was suspended after being accused of racism.

A little further back, in 2004, black residents rejoiced when District Attorney Oliver Kitzman stepped down after an alleged “reign of terror” centered around discrimination, the Los Angeles Times reported. Black leaders reportedly accused Kitzman and other white officials of targeting and harassing residents based on race, a claim that was denied. Black leaders in Waller in 2004 claimed that they were subject to crude intimidation, such as rocks being thrown through house windows and police cars often passing slowly by the homes of black “troublemakers.” Black residents also complained about alleged plots to suppress the black vote.

According to the 2013 census data, Waller County’s population of 45,484 was 70.5 percent white and a mere 25.8 percent black.

Segregated cemeteries.

I think what has really changed over the last couple of years, and perhaps starting with Michael Brown's murder-by-cop in Ferguson, Missouri, is that black people in America just aren't going to put up with being treated like this by the police any longer.  Certainly America's police haven't changed any over that time.

-- What I said three weeks ago about Bernie Sanders needing to work for African American and Latino votes?  Attendees at his Houston event last Sunday said it was as diverse an audience as they had seen at any Obama event from eight years ago.  That may be accurate (I was unable to attend, and it's just not apparent from the hundreds of photos I have seen), but it's not being reflected in his polling.

"I haven't seen him engaging the black community. Nor am I hearing any chatter about him," said Rick Wade, Obama for America's African-American vote director. "Black voters don't know him."

A June CNN/ORC poll showed just 2% of black Democrats supporting Sanders, a figure that has remained unchanged since February. Among non-white voters overall, Sanders polls at 9% compared to Hillary Clinton's 61%.

That's no path to the White House, no matter how correct he is, has been, or speaks.

"Black lives, of course, matter. I spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity," Sanders said. "But if you don't want me to be here, that's OK. I don't want to out-scream people."

[...]

Sanders re-emerged later that evening for a short speech at a private fundraiser for the Latino Victory Project, an advocacy group led by major Democratic donors that focuses on Latino outreach, where he, again, took questions about race.

But instead of adopting the defensive stance from that morning, Sanders' tone changed. He appeared humble, and asked questions of the activists gathered about how he could better pursue and talk about policies to combat racial injustice.

"I want some help on this. I'm being very honest," Sanders said. "I want some ideas, as somebody who was arrested 50 years ago fighting for civil rights trying to desegregate schools in Chicago, who spent his whole life fighting against racism, I want your ideas. What do you think we can do? What can we do?"

[...]

"I wish I could tell you I had a magical formula for how to end racism. It's gone on in this country for before it was America," Sanders said. "Let me just say this, because I'm older than you: You're impatient, and you should be impatient. But if we were standing here 30 years ago and somebody said, 'You know, I think in 2008, the United States of America will elect an African-American president,' you know what people in this room would've said? They would've said, 'You are crazy. That will never happen because America has too much racist baggage.' But it happened. So, I guess you're right to be impatient, but we have made progress in this country. Not enough."

'Not enough' progress.  By all of us.  But specific to this blog post, probably not enough progress for Sanders to capture enough black votes to win the Democratic nomination over the course of the next 6-9 months.

I'll ask again: what are (mostly) white progressives going to do when the reality finally settles in?  Fall in line behind Hillary Clinton, fall out (as in 'not vote'), or take a third path?

The Houston controller candidates forum

It's been five long months since I blogged about the city's head beancounter race.  A few of the wannabes got together for a debate in my neck of the woods at the end of last week.

Perpetually overshadowed in Houston's strong-mayor form of government that affords the controller no policy-making power, many past city controllers were known for using the post as a bully pulpit to criticize mayoral policy, and later a launching pad for higher office.

Earlier this year, the five declared controller candidates indicated they would depart from this mold.

However, that tone shifted at a forum in Sunnyside, where three of the candidates addressed a predominantly African-American crowd gathered at a neighborhood community center.

"It's the second-highest elected official in city government, and it needs to be independent to provide a check and balance on the office in power," said former City Councilman Jew Don Boney, who went on to say the controller must not be an ally or lapdog to the mayor.

I like JD Boney because he tells it like it is.

Still, Boney stressed the controller ought not approach the role bureaucratically.

"This is not an election for the chief bookkeeper of Houston," Boney said. "We hire CPAs."

Bill Frazer, 2013 controller runner-up, who touts himself as the only certified public accountant in the race, was not in attendance. Former Houston Community College board member Carroll Robinson also missed the bulk of the forum, walking in during closing remarks.

Meanwhile, deputy controller Chris Brown edged closer to the idea of a controller at odds with the mayor, albeit more gingerly.

Brown said the relationship between mayor and controller should depend on the state of the city's fiscal affairs.

"In times of great surplus, where there's a lot of money, I think the mayor and the controller should be adversaries, because that's the time when the mayor's gonna say, 'Hey, we've got tons of money. Let's just go spend it,' " Brown said.

"But," he added, "I think in the times when we have difficult financial problems, there needs to be more of a concerted effort to work together to solve the financial problems in the city."

With the city facing a $126 million deficit, Brown's remarks suggest his approach to the job would likely be similar to that of Controller Ron Green, who has not had a combative relationship with Mayor Annise Parker.

Let's set the table before moving forward: Brown is both one of the city's #2 men in the controller's office, and the son of former city councilman and mayoral candidate Peter Brown, aka Mr. Anne Sclumberger.  So you can safely assume without even looking at one of the far-too-many blog posts about campaign finance reports that Brown the Younger will have the 'resources to compete'.  Said resources did not help Brown the Elder in 2009 attain a runoff with Annise Parker, for the record.

Robinson is part of the Bethel Nathan/Hector Carreno mafia, whose players have consistently disgraced themselves in local politics for way too long.

Frazer, the only Republican in the race, forced the corrupted incumbent controller Green into a runoff two years ago.  He didn't show up at this forum because -- as the first excerpt above pointed out -- it was held in Sunnyside, almost in my own backyard and a predominantly African American and Democratic neighborhood.  Frazer's not counting on any votes from this side of town.  It's possible that if Democrats turn out at their usual low-to-mid-teen percentages in the fall, he could win without a runoff.  Finally...

Former Metro board member Dwight Jefferson was of a similar mind.

"I think that the mayor and the controller should work as equals," said Jefferson, who previously described the controller's job as ministerial. He said city leadership should work together to "ensure the best outcome for the city."

Jefferson was appointed a state district court judge by then-Gov. George W. Bush in the mid-'90's, ran and won in 1996 as a Republican (scroll almost to the end), but since 2010 has a Democratic primary voting history (scroll all the way to the bottom and then back up just a little).  Also read this for some interesting coalitions and alliances from twenty years ago.  Despite Brown's 11-year tenure at City Hall, Jefferson might still be the best man for the job, but both men also could be too unfamiliar to voters; Brown's deputy controller post and Jefferson's Metro board job are appointed ones.

Boney likely has the strongest constituency; he needs good field work to make the runoff.  Frankly I don't see any advantage for Robinson here despite being an elected community college board official; as befits the usual tactics of his godfathers Nathan and Carreno (scroll down about halfway; fraud is this family's affair), he could be in the race only to split the black vote enough for Frazer to sneak in.  Brown is the only white Democrat in the race, and the only one who can spend whatever.

Depending on who you think the next mayor will be, and on what these men consider the relationship between the mayor's office and the controller's office is supposed to be -- amicable or adversarial -- your choices for both jobs might be influenced by that careful consideration.  For example, if you think Sylvester Turner or Adrian Garcia is most likely Houston's next mayor, then Frazer as controller will be a very predictable pain in their ass.  And if you like Republicans Stephen Costello or Bill King, then a Democrat in the controller's office with some heft behind him, like Boney, will create a similar dynamic.  Jefferson is the most likely to go along and get along with the next mayor no matter who it is.  You might prefer a check-and-balance, you might like it better if everybody plays nice.  Up to you.

As far as Houston's budgeting for the coming biennium is concerned, between the revenue cap and the price of oil, we're likely looking at some hard times and difficult decisions.  So, friends or not, the next mayor and controller have their work cut out for them.

Politically, all of these Democrats together have to hold Frazer under 50%, and then the chosen one must run hard as hell in the runoff.  No bets taken yet.

Sandra Bland's death, and Obama, Holder, and Lynch

Michael Wolfe, City of Hempstead Mayor, left, Frank Jackson, City of Prairie View Mayor, and Lois Kolkhorst, Texas State Senator, listen as Elton Mathis, Waller County District Attorney, right, speaks to the media at the Waller County Courthouse Friday, July 17, 2015, in Hempstead.

Frankly, the looks of disbelief on the faces of the two men on the left, and the look of concern on the woman's face (almost exclusively associated with her political career) tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this latest unconscionable death of a black person in police custody.

Waller County District Attorney, Elton Mathis, left, and Waller County Judge Trey Duhon, center, listen as Waller County Sheriff R. Glenn Smith speaks to the media Thursday, July 16, 2015, in Waller.

Waller County voted 58.33% for Mitt Romney in 2012, a little above the Republican's sweep of the state with 57.17%.  Perhaps the only thing holding it under 70% was the vote coming out of the precincts around Prairie View A&M, where Sandy Bland was about to start her new job at her alma mater.  Now that the official version of her arrest after being stopped for not signaling a lane change has been debunked by the DPS itself, it's imperative that a proper investigation determine exactly how she came to die in that jail cell.  It looks like even Waller County officials realize the importance of that.

If I were a black man in this country, especially after what has happened in Ferguson and Baltimore and Cleveland and Staten Island and everywhere else it has happened just over the past couple of years, I wouldn't be protesting with a sign outside the Waller County Courthouse or shouting down presidential contenders (admiringly peaceful but terribly unfocused and misdirected), I'd probably be rioting in the streets until some cop shot me down.

This shit has got to stop.  And the people best equipped to have stopped it, a long time ago, are the president, the former attorney general, and the current one.  Of course we know that Eric Holder has finally gone back from whence he came; the law firm that lobbied for the country's largest banks.  And that Loretta Lynch is opposed even to marijuana decriminalization, so I wouldn't expect to see much initiative from them despite being people of color, and especially since we haven't see much of anything to speak of to this point.

So that leaves Obama, for at least another year-and-one-half, to do something besides give a speech.  "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon" just isn't going to cut it any longer.

And people of color shouldn't expect Martin O'Malley or Bernie Sanders to be able to solve this dilemma in a two-minute answer on a Saturday afternoon in a forum (though their words and deeds are important to get on the record) and they absolutely shouldn't consider Hillary Clinton's response sufficient, having had 48 hours and several staff members prepare her Facebook comment.  That's the equivalent of the two boys in the class getting a pop quiz, and the star female pupil getting the test to take home over the weekend.

If anybody thinks any of these people can do much besides be a bully from the pulpit until late January of 2017, that person needs a bucket of ice water over their head... and then again in the face.

The best place to start is with your own city's police chief, county prosecutor, and on up from there: mayor, state representative, state senator.  Before someone dies in your neighborhood or community.  Even a Repuke like Lois Kolkhorst needs to to feel the heat.  She's got her game face on; somebody take her on (at the ballot box).

"Dismantling structural racism in this country" needs to be on the fast track, like now.

Update: More from Isiah Carey.  And from Kuff (7/22).

Berning down the house

Dallas and Houston both fell into a Berning ring of fire yesterday.

(Sanders) implored his supporters to ask their Republican friends, families and co-workers if it makes sense to grant huge tax breaks for the rich while cutting spending on health care programs and federal student aid.

"Our job is to reach out to our Republican brothers and sisters, working-class people and middle class people, and get their heads right," Sanders said to a boisterous crowd of 5,200 people at UH's Hofheinz Pavilion.

"Today this is a conservative Republican state, but that doesn't mean it will be tomorrow."

Sanders brought his progressive message to Texas and rallied supporters by attacking Wall Street greed and income inequality. "Politics should be about improving the lives of our people," he said.

The Vermont senator's biggest applause of the night came when he vowed to help make college tuition free.

"Taxpayers bailed out Wall Street when they needed it, now it's Wall Street's turn to help out the middle class."

"One of the problems that exists in American politics today, in my view, is that the Democratic Party has conceded half of the states in the country at the national level, and that's wrong," Sanders, a Vermont Independent running as a Democrat, said during a rally at a downtown Dallas hotel.

Several hours later at a similar event in Houston, he sharpened his advice for Democrats, saying the "simple truth is that you cannot be a national political party which claims to represent working families and low-income people and turn your back on some of the poorest states in America."

"If we are serious about change in America, we can't just do it in blue states," he declared earlier in Dallas, emphasizing the need for a "50-state strategy" that leaves no voter in the dark.

A live-blog from a Daily Kossack who was in attendance.

Feeling the Bern Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is still putting aloe vera on its Berns as we assemble the best progressive blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff looks at the lawsuit filed against the state for refusing to issue birth certificates to children of undocumented immigrant mothers.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos makes a compelling argument as to why the Democratic Party needs to sharpen its message in a way in which it resonates with and motivates the majority of D voters: Why we need a better Democratic story and how Sanders' candidacy underscores this point.

Socratic Gadfly says that if Obama is going to visit a federal prison and talk about commuting sentences, he ought to throw the long bomb by going to Florida and freeing Leonard Peltier.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know Greg Abbott screwed up the child support payment upgrade. Republicans don't really care about kids. You can tell by action after action.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson smells the rotting fruit of one-party rule in Williamson County: County GOP elected officials using courts for petty political battles.

The disruption at Netroots Nation's presidential town hall forum by activists associated with Black Lives Matter was a clash between the politics of the old-school Social Democrats and that of the New Democrats' identity politics. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs thinks there will a coming-together of the two movements or a cleaving of the Democratic Party as the dynamic unfolds.

Neil at All People Have Value discussed Obama's role in taking away our freedoms through the New Horizons mission to Pluto. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Egberto Willies went from the kerfuffle at Netroots Nation to the Bernie Sanders event in Houston, and even provided a live stream for online viewers of it.

===============

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

The Texas Election Law Blog celebrates its second anniversary, and reviews the case that led to its beginning.

Ken Janda asks how can Texas continue to ask for billions of dollars in uncompensated care payments to hospitals for uninsured patients coming to emergency rooms, when more than one million of those people could be put into Medicaid Managed Care?

The TSTA Blog warns of "dangerous anti-educator" Scott Walker.

Texas Vox cheers the forthcoming end of coal.

Grits for Breakfast is pleased to see that funding has been allotted for research into the underlying scientific bases for the forensic tools and methods currently used in the criminal justice system.

David Ortez gives a graphical representation of the Houston mayoral fundraising race.

Rachel Pearson explains why that video hit job on Planned Parenthood is "pure applesauce".

Texas Clean Air Matters documents the trend towards clean, affordable power.

Social Democratic class politics versus New Left identity politics

This Sanders/#NN15 event is a fascinating clash between social democratic class politics and new left identity politics.

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 18, 2015

Traditionally, the term "progressive" has connoted a social democratic, class-based politics. It was a political perspective rooted in the socialist tradition of the early 19th and 20th century labor unions across Western Europe, Canada, the U.S. (Eugene Debs), and elsewhere. Over time, "progressives" moved away from anti-capitalism and become social democrats, working to reform capitalism while melding markets with robust safety nets. Old-school progressives wanted to unite the working class as a whole, to push for policies including collective bargaining protections, minimum wage laws, fair-trade deals, single-payer healthcare, affordable college, progressive taxation, public funding of elections, and more. Class solidarity was the primary goal.

However, "progressive" has come to connote a new term definition, especially among young people. As leftist movements across the developed world adopted neoliberal and corporatist Third-Way policies, "progressives" moved away from center-left and toward the center, and even often to the center-right on class issues. However, they still portrayed themselves as "leftist" by having a unique focus on politics of identity. Gay rights. Women's rights. Reproductive rights. While all of these issues are important in their own right, focusing too heavily on them and prioritizing them created an environment in which societies made much social progress, but they moved backward on economics. No longer in the U.S. is it controversial to support gay marriage: heck, even large corporations and Wall Street are fully supportive of LGBT rights and issues. But it's far, far harder in the U.S. to say "let's also raise taxes on the rich above 50%" or "let's enact Medicare-for-all" or "let's make college tuition free" or "let's reign in on Wall Street." These issues are politically unpalatable, while social progressive stances are much more easier for our elected politicians to adopt, even on race-based issues.

What we're seeing now is a pretty ugly clash between the old school social democratic progressives and the new left identity politics progressives. True, identity politics and class solidarity aren't mutually exclusive, and it is important and necessary to reconcile them. No good modern leftist is a class reductionist who believes LGBT rights is a "minor" issue, or that criminal justice reform is "insignificant." However, the problem is that there are too many "identity politics reductionists" in the "progressive movement." People are judged and reduced to their tangible identities: their race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, visible disability status, religion, and so on. All that matters is whether someone is a white male, for example. That is enough to discount to what they are saying, even if they have a genuinely important agenda. Class issues are almost completely downplayed: poor or impoverished white people are often not viewed as needy of help. I've heard people say that "homeless white people don't need assistance because homeless PoC have it worse." In my view, that mentality is wrong. Oppression Olympics is wrong.

Extreme adherents of radical identity politics argue that the problems in society are inherently caused by white cisgender heterosexual males. Every single event and action by white men, even if they are progressive, is seen through the lens of power relationships or "privilege." These radical leftist ideologies are in fact very counter-productive because they divide people, and are hostile to whites joining social justice movements to show solidarity with PoC. Radical identity politics leftists say white progressive "allies" often "invade space," "derail conversations," and "aren't critical enough." They claim white people can't ever understand the struggle of PoC, or ever empathize, or ever be good. There is some truth to this, but radicals crank it up to the extreme. To say that Bernie as an old white male cannot want equality for someone else and offer his support and help in an active manner is... not anywhere close to equality. In believing that white people can't truly care about social justice, racial justice, or economic justice, these radical identity politics leftists are the ones being bigoted toward white people. And I'm saying this as a person of color who has been in progressive activist circles.

I'm not white. I'm South Asian: I immigrated from India to the U.S. as a child. I'm 22 years old, and was active in campus politics at UC Berkeley. And I've been around these radical identity politics leftists. They praise MLK and Malcolm X, but ignore how Malcolm X changed his views toward progressive whites after the Hajj. Many of them are voting for Hillary solely because she is a woman, and because they feel our society is characterized by systemic patriarchy. While it is important to break down glass ceilings and to effect gender equality, and I'd love to see the first female president, I think other issues and policy stances are important too. I think it's also demeaning to Hillary to vote for her simply due to her gender. I've met a lot of well-meaning, genuinely progressive white allies throughout my life, and I think it's horrible to portray them as the enemy when we all need to come together to make a more equal society.

It's viewed as a deficiency of Bernie's that he's focusing his agenda on economic populism, that he's not talking enough about race, gender, or other topics. But that's missing the point. Sure Hillary Clinton gave speeches on mass incarceration, white privilege, immigration reform, and other important social justice topics. But she's not calling for reinstating Glass-Steagall, single-payer healthcare, raising the minimum wage to $15, or other important economic policies. She's not focusing on overturning Citizens United, tackling the top 1%, etc. That's because the billionaire class holds the true political power in the U.S., and the billionaires (Wall Street, the Koch Brothers, etc.) are the root of our evils.

It's much harder to advocate for economic populism than it is to call for social justice on other topics. Economic injustice also exacerbates systemic racism, sexism, etc., and we can't eliminate racism without economic reforms. No one in the Democratic Party establishment is talking about economic injustice, or eliminating poverty. Only Bernie.

Bernie's talking about the issues he's talking about because they have been ignored and dismissed as "fringe" for so long, ever since LBJ's "War on Poverty" since the 1960s. Economic justice is one the most important issues that have been neglected in the U.S., and of course it makes sense for Bernie to make it the center of his campaign. When rural, socially conservative states are backing higher minimum wages, support protecting entitlement programs, and support collective bargaining, that shows they aren't supporting the GOP due to an agreement over pro-business economic policies. Sanders is tapping into a nascent economic populism in the country, and in my view, it is important to make that the central topic of the 2016 presidential election. It is actually a deficiency that the rest of political establishment has ignored economics for far too long. And it happens to be the fact that Bernie's policies would mostly affect poor people of color given that minority communities have been hit the hardest by wealth and income inequality, poverty, unemployment, poor education, and low social mobility.

Like Bernie was saying in Iowa the other day, we can't divide ourselves by gender, sexuality, and race. But that's exactly what the hecklers earlier today in Arizona want to do, as they chanted "what side are you on," and spewed profanities. Sanders, in contrast, has the ideology that all poor and working class people, regardless of race, should unite in a broad movement. And he says the problems in society can be traced to the billionaire class' stranglehold on government. It is a populism based on economic class, rather than ethnic or racial identity, and I think it is a much more workable leftism and and has a better shot at building a genuine grassroots movement.

Bold and italic emphasis in the excerpt is mine.

I can't speak about or judge Martin O'Malley  -- I'll leave that to Egberto -- but Bernie Sanders has been a staunch advocate for African American civil rights for over 50 years.  He marched with MLK in 1963, and witnessed the "I Had a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  He was a student organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  He coordinated sit-ins against segregated housing at the University of Chicago, and got arrested for civil disobedience, protesting racially segregated schools in Chicago.  He has consistently denounced police brutality and the criminal injustice system in America as applied to people of color... as recently as yesterday in Phoenix, even as he was being shouted down.

Bernie Sanders backed Jesse Jackson's 1988 run for POTUS, opposed the "tuff-on-crime" policies of the 1990s, opposed the 1996 welfare reform -- a Bill Clinton initiative, mind you -- that marginalized poor women of color the most.  He continues to oppose mass incarceration, the war on drugs, police militarization, the death penalty, etc.

Bernie Sanders has come correct on the issues that matter to all black lives, all of his adult life.  So when protestors at Netroots Nation -- or anywhere else, such as perhaps in Dallas and Houston today -- chant "Whose side are you on", I just hope they'll check the facts.  And to Tia Oso's question, the answer is yes.

I would add that her question, slightly revised, would be an excellent one to ask Barack Obama:

"After nearly seven years as president, where is your racial justice agenda that will dismantle, not reform, not make progress, but will begin to dismantle the structural racism in the United States?"

Update: From Oliver Willis (a black man, for those who might be unaware, and so we can avoid the "whitesplaining" nonsense):

There is a fine and upstanding tradition in America of protest. At its most effective, protest is a great tool towards changing public attitudes about key issues (gender, race, sexual orientation, economic policies) and has actually been able to pass laws producing amazing change.

At its worst, protest can simply be an exercise in vanity, an almost childish temper tantrum with no goal or policy set in mind beyond the venal egos of the protesters.

This event appears to be the latter.

[...]

...It isn’t that the issues of Black Lives Matter don’t exist, but what in God’s name can Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley do on a Saturday afternoon to fix them? It isn’t as if either man has given the issue a cold shoulder. The establishment front runner, Hillary Clinton, has made speeches and policy proposals on these issues as well.

And even while President Obama has been addressing these issues – just this week he visited a prison, the first time any president has done so — the protest would have been less impotent if it had targeted him or policy makers with the ability to do something over the next year.

But instead, they yelled at Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, which accomplishes nothing more than proving the case that there are elements of the left who would protest the Easter Bunny if it meant being able to yell some sort of slogan.

I bet they feel great about themselves, having done nothing to advance the issues they profess to care so dearly about. I bet they feel great.

Update: If you want to understand the complexity of the struggle between the two factions, the irony being used as leverage, and the power of Twitter employing it, just scroll through #BernieSoBlack, or read this for the short take.

Sunday Funnies

Plutocracy is not a planet.

Ben Hall and Steven Hotze

A person only casually interested in the Houston mayor's contest might ask oneself why a candidate who claims to be a Democrat would be accepting large donations from the Republican kingmaker of Harris County, especially when there are two Republicans in the race.  But municipal elections are non-partisan, so if you're a virulent homophobe in either one of those two parties, you probably won't be asking yourself anything.

Via Kris Banks (from Facebook)

Via Charles Kuffner (from Facebook)

Can't remember exactly who Hotze is?  Here you go.

A prominent Houston Republican activist is making some strong assertions about same-sex marriage. Among them: that anal sex will be pushed on kindergarteners following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage across the country.

Dr. Steven Hotze, president of Conservative Republicans of Texas and Houston talk radio host, articulated that thought yesterday in Dallas while speaking at a kick-off for a new anti-gay marriage organization, the Texas Observer reported. He was joining conservative allies in founding "Real Marriage: One Man/One Woman for Life," a group he said will campaign against the cultural influence of "homo-fascists" in Texas and beyond.

[...]

"They want to intimidate individuals, churches, schools and families to celebrate those that participate in anal sex. That's what they love and enjoy: anal sex. And that's bad, that's evil. It's a terrible thing to try to do and they want to try to teach it to kids in schools," he said. "Kids will be encouraged to practice sodomy in kindergarten."

Real Marriage, he said, will target and influences businesses that don't resist "the homosexual political movement."

Hall polled 3% in the KHOU/HPM survey three weeks ago, ahead of the two actual Republicans, Bill King and Steven Costello, who earned 3% and 2% respectively.  It's going to take a hell of a lot more gay bashing than accepting ten large from the Hotze family -- and loaning himself $850,000 -- for Hall to get some traction in this race.

Maybe he could hire James O'Keefe and heavily edit a clandestine video of someone posing as a transitioning person in a bathroom assaulting a child.  Or something.

Bernie Sanders schedules Texas stops this weekend

Dallas and Houston on Sunday, July 19.

-- The Big D details (Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the downtown Sheraton ballroom)

-- University of Houston's Cullen Performance Hall Hofheinz Pavilion (larger venue needed; see revised map) at 7 p.m. that evening.

(Reports here from the scene.)

And there are seventeen additional organizing meetings scheduled in a 100-mile radius around Houston -- including Beaumont, Katy, The Woodlands, Conroe, and even Edna (!) -- during the month of July.

Update: Sanders and Martin O'Malley will share the stage at Netroots Nation on Saturday morning, at the presidential town hall forum there.  Hillary Clinton, you may recall, had a scheduling conflict.

Texans get to #FeelTheBern first-hand.  I'm going to go see what the fuss is all about... as if I didn't know already.

Update: More from Culturemap, and from HuffPo.

"The other thing I want to do is to take these debates into the so-called red areas of the country," Sanders told The Nation's John Nichols. "I think it is insane that the Democrats do not have a 50-state strategy [along the lines championed by Howard Dean]. How is it that, if you are the party of working people, supposedly, you abdicate your responsibility in some of the poorest states of America? Where are you in Mississippi? Where are you in South Carolina? Where are you in Alabama? Where are you in other low-income states? If you don’t get started now, you will never advance. So I intend in this campaign to go to states that many Democratic candidates don’t usually visit."