Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Russians may be coming again ... but we've larger voting problems

Before we go to war with North Korea, before the unhinged Right starts killing CNN reporters, before acetamenophin destroys what's left of our empathy ...


When last we tuned in to RT while clicking on Sputnik News, we learned that our antagonists Boris and Natasha Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear (see here and here for the Wiki background) had been hard at work scaring the pants off moose and squirrel everybody from Jameses Comey and Clapper to your friendly neighborhood Dem precinct captain about what, precisely, they had been up to in the summer of 2016.  That is to say, beyond humiliating Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and the rest of the DNC hacks that got hacked.

We learned that they hacked into 39 states' voter databases -- or tried to, and succeeded in getting into perhaps just one, Illinois.  Alex Ward at Vox has it, with a link over to the original at Bloomberg, and previously and briefly referenced by yours truly in the second half of this aggrepost.

While this is indeed alarming, I still find voter suppression via photo ID and partisan gerrymandering to be greater threats to our republic.  Paper ballots with verifiable paper trails -- something like the Scantron-style electronic voting machines Denton County has just adopted -- would resolve the  Russian problem, but nothing short of a blue tsunami will fix the other two, and unless they can find something to run on besides "Trump is evil/Russia/Impeach",  2018 isn't going to be the cycle the Donkeys are looking for.


(*Ed note: let me pause here and acknowledge my friend Brad Friedman's lasting concerns about anything machine count-relatedExperts appear to disagree on the hackability, or at least the ease thereof, of scanned ballot counters.)

For the benefit of my conspiratorially-minded Democratic friends, let me point out -- as I have repeatedly in the past -- that the key to cracking the Russian code lies not in tracing election hacking attempts but in Trump's still-concealed tax returns.  Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Felix Sater, and the rest of that ilk are the threads special counsel Mueller should be -- and hopefully is -- pulling on.  And if Trump, or Jeff Sessions, or Devin Nunes, or any Republican in the administration or the Congress is found to be obstructing that investigation, then the walls will come tumbling down.


Focusing on the wrong Russiagate is starting to show up in polling as a loser for Democrats.  It's a winner for the corporate media and ratings, however, especially MSNBC.  Before Mika B's facelift became an atrocious but ultimately distracting Tweet -- even Tucker Carlson thinks so, by Jeebus -- Trump usually didn't give half of one solid shit about the other liberal media news channel; he's mobilized his base to destroy CNN, and now even Julian Assange is piling on.

I would like to also point out that the Democratic Party has bigger fish to fry than continuing to demonize Jill Stein, but I'm convinced that unhealthy obsession has become part of their DNA.

So with all that, plus 1) Kris Kobach, 2) a Texas Legislature poised to over-reach once more with a photo ID law that will require a couple of years for the courts to once again nullify, and 3) gerrymandered congressional and statehouse districts thanks to Tom DeLay almost fifteen years ago, as Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker reminded us in his comprehensive and compelling piece "America's Future is Texas"... why are you more worried about what Russian hackers may or may not be doing in the next election cycle?  Your vote barely counts for anything as it is.

On a more positive note, here's an easily attainable goal for those of us in Harris County: #FireStanStanart and replace him with Diane Trautman, and then push the mostly Republican county commissioners to approve and purchase paper ballots for 2020.  Because if Democrats can actually win some elections -- particularly this one -- in 2018, those GOPers will be forced to do so, due to the caterwauling from their base about Ill Eagles voting.

See how easy this is?  Just requires a little focus on the proper thing.

Monday, July 03, 2017

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone has a better Fourth of July than Mitch McConnell as it brings you this week's roundup.


Off the Kuff is outraged at the state Supreme Court trying to find a loophole in the Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

SocraticGadfly takes a look at Sy Hersh's latest investigative work: Trump's lies about an alleged but non-existent "Syrian gas attack", and thoroughly endorses it as well as Hersh and others responding to his critics, with a reminder that other alleged "Syrian gas attacks" also didn't ring true.

It was not a particularly good week for Russian conspiracy theorists.  Or Nancy Pelosi.  But Sylvester Turner's week got a little better at the very end of it, all of which was noted for the record by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

jobsanger disparages Trump's attacks on the media.

Bay Area Houston issues a Yellow Alert for CD-36 Congressman Brian Babin.

Neil at All People Have Value attended a Service Workers International Union protest for fair wages for janitors in Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

The Lewisville Texan Journal reports that a local mall -- still hosting many tenants, including four anchor department stores and a movie theater complex -- will be auctioned online as part of its exit from the previous owner's receivership.

Rose Calahan at the Texas Observer has the news of the strange from far-flung towns around the state (like Dumas and Groves and Silsbee).

And Grits for Breakfast has an Equal Protection parable out of Commerce, Texas.

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More news and blog posts from around the state!

The Dallas Morning News has details about the three state homes for disabled Texans that have Flint-level amounts of lead in their drinking water.

The Texas Election Law Blog reminds you that the state government is legally prohibited from giving vote suppressor Kris Kobach your confidential voter information.

The McAllen Monitor sees the Ted Cruz re-election campaign strategy starting to come together in the RGV.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry took a star turn at a recent White House press briefing, and had the DC media begging for more, as PoliTex at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram told it.

That time the Rice MOB trolled Baylor over its Title IX scandals.

The Waco Tribune, in its latest account of the Title IX lawsuits against Baylor University, quoted emails from a former regent who referred to female students he suspected of drinking alcohol as “perverted little tarts,” “very bad apples,” “insidious and inbred” and “the vilest and most despicable of girls”.

The Texas Living Waters Project provides eight simple ways to protect rivers and wildlife.

Megan Smith at Spectrum South considers queer femme identity, and Alex Zielinski at the San Antonio Current celebrates having an LGBT ally in the San Antonio mayor's office again.

Lone Star Ma wonders why exposure is losing its effectiveness as a remedy for prejudice.

The WAWG Blog documents some of the Libertarians' stealth war on American democracy.

High Plains Blogger thinks that having too many people downtown (as in Amarillo, where he lives, and Nashville, where he recently visited) is both a good thing and a bad thing.


 And Michael Hardy at Texas Monthly said goodbye to Jimmy's, the soon-to-be-closed Houston Heights icehouse.

Saturday, July 01, 2017

Sylvester Turner's ups and downs

Maybe he hasn't had such a bad week after all, given late developments.  Yesterday's post mentioned an update on some of the latest of Mayor Sly's tribulations, one of which has already taken a turn in his favor.


A state district judge on Friday dismissed Houston firefighters' lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city's pension reform package, leaving the law to go into effect Saturday.

State District Judge Patricia Kerrigan granted the city's request to dismiss the case while denying firefighters' motion to temporarily block the law from being implemented.

Mayor Sylvester Turner said he was "pleased" with the decision. 

As well he should be.  The mayor has a pretty good track record defeating the public servants of the city at their attempts to be equitably compensated, during employment and in retirement, and the mayor's most important supporters -- not the HGLBT Caucus but the 1% of Houston, who can write him five-figure checks for whenever he may next stand for re-election -- appreciate the way he scrimps on city expenses that are not parks or incentives for corporations to do business here.  In other words, he performs just like every other mayor Houston has had for twenty years: bow and scrape to the powers that be, crush the poor, disadvantaged, and middle class while you do so.

All this bowing and scraping leads to the next big thing on his agenda: a half-billion dollar bond issue on the fall ballot for parks, etc.

Mayor Sylvester Turner is poised ask voters to approve bonds this fall to fund improvements to city parks, community centers, fire stations and health clinics, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to a crowded November ballot.

City officials say the size of the bond request has yet to be determined, but a political action committee formed to support the bonds, Lift Up Houston, lists the amount as $490 million on its website.

The referendum is part of the city's latest five-year Capital Improvement Plan, which was unveiled at a City Council committee meeting Tuesday.

The proposed plan calls for $538 million in improvements to city facilities, such as expanded police and fire stations, renovated libraries, miles of bike trails and repairs to city buildings, to be paid for with tax revenues and philanthropic donations.

The plan, known as the CIP, relies on a November bond vote as a key funding source.

This is on top of the billion-dollar bond vote Turner has already set forth for the city's pension obligations.  Anyway, Turner got his wish, though not without enduring some carping from a few CMs, mostly about the amount of pork on their respective plates.


Mayor Sylvester Turner weathered several hours of consternation from City Council members upset about delayed projects Wednesday before securing passage, by a 14-2 vote, of his first capital spending plan.

The five-year proposal calls for $7.1 billion in new airport and utility projects, to be funded by user fees, as well as $567 million in public improvements, such as expanded police and fire stations, renovated libraries, miles of bike trails and repairs to city buildings.

What follows in the next excerpt is some of the nastier exchanges that mayors and council members past (at least those of the same political persuasion) have tended to keep behind closed doors.

Councilman Larry Green, who represents southwestern District K, questioned how and why projects he thought were funded had disappeared or been left at the mercy of tenuous grant funding. His district, he said, had been "overtly screwed," a phrase Councilman Dave Martin quickly turned into the day's catchphrase.

Councilwoman Brenda Stardig, in northwestern District A, suggested she had been misled by city staff, and Councilman Greg Travis, in westside District G, said "Enron accounting" had been employed to suggest that his district is rich with projects when most of that work will occur only within city economic development zones.

"The process is I make the decision," Turner told Green at one point. "If you don't like something then hold me responsible. I make the call."

By the end of the meeting, which slogged into early afternoon, Turner had pronounced himself "fed up" with council members suggesting his staff had bamboozled them.

"I've followed city politics for a long time. The Acres Homes Multi-Service Center was 10 to 12 years in coming in the CIP," Turner said, referencing the main city facility in his northside neighborhood. "It has always been the practice around here at City Hall to put things in the CIP when there was not enough funding. Let's not act like this is something new. Let's not play this game. There will always be more projects than there is money."

It gets a little worse and certainly deeper in the weeds from there so I'll leave it to those of you who are into that.  But note this at the very end.

(Along with CM Michael Kubosh), Councilman Mike Laster also voted against the plan, having argued that his District J had been slighted. Councilman Jerry Davis had stepped out of the room at the time of vote.

So a 14-2 win shows solidarity, even with some of the whiners mentioned above, but Laster's 'no' and Davis' abstention follow on their objections to the new and still pending contract for the city's waste recycling and processing, which Turner summarily pulled off council's agenda because he suddenly realized it lacked their support.  We'll  pick that up about halfway through.

Councilman Jerry Davis, who represents the area around the proposed (recycling) plant, said the site is mostly industrial but he plans to hold town hall meetings to answer residents' questions and to try to connect job seekers with FCC Environmental officials.

"The information they've given is it's a recycling facility, it's not a transfer station, it's not any of that as a negative," Davis said. "That was the No. 1 thing some of the people in my district wanted to make sure of."

As for the merits of the proposal itself, Davis said he still is sifting through the terms.

Councilman Mike Laster, who was to chair the canceled committee hearing on the topic Tuesday, echoed his colleague.

"There's still a lot of a lot of questions to be answered," he said. "That gives me concern, and I look forward to doing all I can to get the best information."

Laster and Davis are Democrats representing minority-majority districts, and their butting heads with Turner twice in a row is kind of a big deal.  They don't serve the sort of neighborhoods that the Caucus is going to be blockwalking for the mayor next election.  Then again, maybe the Caucus is counting on not having to, like always.

This isn't the kind of background you're going to see anywhere at Off the Kuff, and I promise I'm not going to kill this blog's traffic by posting too much about Turner and and his beeves with city council members, especially those that he ought to have in his vest pocket, but it shows -- to me -- a continuing demonstration of his weak leadership.  If he can't get his way the first time, he'll browbeat his opponents until they are forced to submit.  That's not good for long-term relations, and unless the SCOTX comes to our rescue with a decree ordering municipal elections this year, Turner's adversarial way of managing will, over the next few years, come back to bite his ass, and by extension yours and mine.  As I always understood it, Bill White and Annise Parker were better at building consensus with CMs before votes, even if that meant giving away the farm to the Republicans on council.

Hard to say which management style is worse for progressive values, but perhaps my expectations for Turner to be better were simply too high, which is why his fall seems farther.

Still waiting for him to bust an aggressive move on the homeless, which seems to be in neutral at the moment but is surely coming down the pike.