Monday, January 06, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle

With the holidays over and the primary election season fast approaching, this week's round-up of the best of the Texas Progressive Alliance's blogs, Tweets, and other lefty news sources has a bit more political focus and intensity.


Because we pick our presidents in the Electoral College and not by national popular vote, it's important to look at state polling for clues as to how the Democratic presidential candidates may begin to sort themselves out.  State polls also give us clues as to what's most important to their respective electorates.

(O)ne should not assume, like national polls often do, that social and political problems are national in scope and should be addressed by the national government. Many issues, like policing, school funding and mass transit, fall under the purview of the state and local authorities.

Additionally, social and political problems vary in their importance from national to state and from state to state.

For example, in October, Gallup found that 34% of Americans cited “the government/poor leadership” as the most important problem facing the country, 13% cited immigration and 11% said the economy.

In Texas, however, immigration and border security ranked as the most important problems, whereas “political corruption/leader” was of less concern.

In Ohio, a third of voters cited the economy as the most important issue, followed by health care, social issues and the environment.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posted his first presidential primary update of the new year, leading off with the possible effects of Trump's 'Wag the Dog' war.  Carlos Sanchez at Texas Monthly gives Julian Castro's presidential campaign a fond farewell.  Castro has, at the time of this posting, endorsed Elizabeth Warren.  And Andrew Schneider for HPM reports that despite some accounts indicating Trump's evangelical support is waning, here in Texas that's far from true.


The US Senate primary battle is heating up.


Gromer Jeffers and Robert Garrett at the Dallas News have been hard at work ...


... and one candidate has tripped herself up, twice, in the past week.



Cubic Tzirconia  Christina Costello  is NOT, contrary to her claim, the most progressive Democrat running for Senate.  And she is more than aware of this.


Elsewhere in our Great State, Iris Dimmick at The Rivard Report has seven Bexar County races worth knowing more about.  Kuff interviewed Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan and his Democratic primary opponents Ben Rose and Christian Menefee.  Nonsequiteuse makes the pro-choice case for defeating state Rep. Sarah Davis.  The Meyerland Democrats will host a forum for her Democratic challengers this Thursday evening.


And with 2020's first special election coming in just a few weeks, excitement in Fort Bend County is already at fever pitch.  Scattershooting a few more newsworthy items:


The Texas Signal laments our firearms-obsessed state government.  Newly re-elected Houston mayor Sylvester Turner picked Dave Martin, one of the most conservative members remaining on city council, to serve as mayor pro tem.


The Rio Grande Guardian considers the completion of the construction/expansion of Interstate 69 to be of essential importance in this new decade.





Closing out this first Wrangle of the Twenty Twenties with some soft news.

Paradise in Hell has ten reasons to be glad 2019 is over.  Mark Pitcavage remembers the New Year's Eve of Y2K.

Hitting the world of sports, SocraticGadfly, after laughing with schadenfreude over the Hatriots, offered his hot take on what Jethro Jerry Jones might do to replace Red Jesus Jason Garrett. Earlier, he tackled baseball, wondering why Cardinals top brass John Mozeliak isn't doing more to improve the rotation.  Gadfly's visit to Big Bend country, in last week's Wrangle, apparently encouraged the Texas Standard to recommend a west Texas road trip to Fort Davis, Alpine, Marfa, and Balmorhea.  (This blogger has made that trip a couple of times and highly recommends it, especially a stay at the newly-renovated Indian Lodge.)

Nightime at McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, TX.

The Great God Pan Is Dead lists the ten best comics of the past decade.
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Sunday, January 05, 2020

Sunday 'The End is Near' Funnies












Slanted Toilets and the Curse of Productivity (Rear-End Stage Capitalism)


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Friday, January 03, 2020

The 2020 Update: Wag the Dog

The United States is now at war with Iran.


This is the inescapable result of President Donald Trump’s order to assassinate Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Forces, arguably the most powerful military leader in the Middle East and the most important person in Iran, except for the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

You don’t deliberately kill someone like Soleimani unless you’re at war with his country; and even then, you want to think long and hard before you do, given the near-certainty of blowback. The blowback may soon be coming. Friday morning, Khamenei called for three days of national mourning and a “forceful revenge.”

That's going to ruin a lot of people's Monday morning.

There's plenty of opinion and analysis to go around; the AP has the most sober.

You can expect Mitch McConnell to say something akin to "We can't impeach the president in the middle of a war" very soon, which should come as a great relief to just about everybody involved in that charade.

So to say that what happens from here -- everything from a fusillade of nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles fired at Mar-a-Lago, or the White House, or the Pentagon, all the way down to cyber- and terrorist attacks on American military installations in the Mid-East -- shakes up the Democratic race a little bit ... is the understatement of the new decade.  To this point.

It almost makes irrelevant all of the fundraising spin that would have ordinarily dominated this week's Update.  The news is still the news, though, even if it has to move off the front page.

Oh, but we should mention the dropouts first.


Castro deserved a better fate, and perhaps he will still earn a consolation prize in the forthcoming Sanders administration.


Marianne has always been a pleasant person; a little flaky, too much so for many, particularly on her recent rebranding as a "safe-vaxxer".  She's not leaving the race yet according to her, but when she does, I feel certain she will suddenly shimmer and disappear, her robes falling to the ground, like Luke Skywalker's in 'The Last Jedi'.

Funds raised for Q4, 2019.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she raised $21.2 million from October through December, with more than $1.5 million coming on the last day of the year. The Massachusetts senator trailed three other rivals in fundraising and fell short of her total from the three previous months.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also said she took in $11.4 million for her White House bid to close out the year. It was the best fundraising quarter of her campaign.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the strongest progressive voice along with Warren, said he raised more than $34.5 million in the same quarter, proving that his heart attack in October hasn’t slowed his fundraising prowess. Sanders and Warren both rely heavily on small donations from donors that primarily come online.

Former Vice President Joe Biden rebounded from a summer slump to take in $22.7 million, his best quarterly haul as a presidential candidate, while Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised $24.7 million. Both typically use more traditional fundraising methods, including frequent gatherings with big donors that Warren and Sanders have shunned.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who has not met the polling requirement to qualify for an upcoming Democratic presidential debate scheduled for Jan. 14, announced receiving $16.5 million.

In the third quarter last year, Warren raised $24.6 million as months of strong, summer polling lifted her to front runner status along with Biden and Sanders. But lately, Warren’s support has plateaued as Buttigieg has vaulted among the front runners. Warren and Buttigieg have feuded for weeks about fundraising tactics, but Warren’s latest donations total further suggests her overall momentum is slowing.

It could have been worse. In an email to supporters last week, Warren’s campaign said it had raised only about $17 million with just a few days to go in the quarter.

Your long read for the weekend, from Ryan Grim of The Intercept: "Can Bernie Sanders alter the course of the Democratic Party?"  One more thing about the money.

Sanders’ campaign has seen a torrent of fundraising dollars from an army of individual donors. Earlier, it said it had received contributions from 5 million people during the election cycle.

Polling, and a few more numbers.


So why is Goofy Old Joe still considered the front-runner?  Mostly because of the establishment's bias toward national polling and against Bernie generally.  And the Iron Law of Oligarchy.  If you're having trouble with this, then explain why Liz Warren's support is leaking to Biden.

War with Iran, the planet on fire, a generation lost to depressed wages, lack of affordable healthcare, and crushing student debt and all of the rest of Republican and neoliberal plutocratic ills notwithstanding, the Sanders campaign represents the last hope, the very last chance, for many to turn things around.  Despair is not an option.

Still ... they persist.


"Michael Bloomberg revs up Texas campaign with big plans":

In an announcement first shared with The Texas Tribune, his campaign said it will open a Texas headquarters in Houston and 16 field offices throughout the rest of the state between now and the March 3 primary. The offices will be spread across the Houston area, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin, East Texas, the San Antonio area, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and the Killeen area.

The campaign also named its first Texas hires:

  • Carla Brailey, vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party, will serve as Bloomberg’s senior advisor.
  • Ashlea Turner, a government relations consultant who worked on Bill White’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, will serve as Bloomberg’s state director.
  • Kevin Lo, who worked on presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ Iowa campaign before she ended her campaign earlier this month, will serve as Bloomberg’s organizing director.
  • Lizzie Lewis, communications director for 2018 gubernatorial nominee Lupe Valdez, will be Bloomberg’s press secretary.

Bloomberg headed to Texas last Sunday for his second trip to the state since launching his campaign in late November. He visited increasingly competitive Fort Bend County to meet with community leaders and elected officials and attend a block walk for state House candidate Eliz Markowitz. She is in a Jan. 28 special election runoff for a seat that Democrats are aiming to flip as they enter 2020 with hopes of capturing the lower-chamber majority.

Bloomer is skipping Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, aiming to strike it big in Texas and California and the rest on Super Tuesday, March 3rd, after more candidates have fallen by the wayside.  His strategy is to present himself as the only establishment option to Bernie, as Old Uncle Joe and the rest will be wheezing by then.

Let's mention those stragglers just for kicks.

Bill Maher's favorite progressive, Klobuchar, is chasing Iowa Trump voters.  Tulsi Gabbard is doing the same in New Hampshire.  Yang is a con man.


Gonna wrap it here with a message from indy candidate Mark Charles.

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Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Š” ŠŠ¾Š²Ń‹Š¼ Š“Š¾Š“Š¾Š¼ (pronounced "S novim godom"; Happy New Year in Russian)






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Monday, December 30, 2019

2019's Final Wrangle

The aggregation of the best of the left of, about, and from around Texas for the year -- and the decade -- is coming your way.


The latest Texas church shooting (there's a phrase that didn't exist ten years ago) occurred in the west Tarrant County community of White Settlement, where a gunman opened fire and was quickly dispatched by armed Sunday morning service attendants, but not before killing two parishioners of the West Freeway Church of Christ.


The Texas Tribune assembled some of its 2019 analysis on Texas shootings, the 2nd Amendment, and our good old Lege in action inaction.

Via Milt Policzer at Courthouse News:

Those of you who enjoy surrealism as much as I do may want to look at a somewhat frightening ruling by a Texas appeals court the other day. It seems that 13-year-olds and younger are now free to commit sexual assaults in Texas without punishment. They know not what they do.

If you’re in Texas or have to travel there, I strongly recommend avoiding anyone who looks young. The appeals court says because state legislators decided that kids can’t legally consent to sex, they also can’t consent to sex they force on someone else.

I’m guessing Texas legislators might have been surprised by this interpretation.

The result was that a case against a 13-year-old who molested a 12-year-old was dismissed with prejudice. There was a crime but no criminal.

Note to Texas prosecutors: Just charge kids with assault. They can probably consent to that.

The Texas House is heavily targeted by both Democrats and Republicans in a Census/redistricting election year.  Reform Austin runs down fifteen PACs -- ten Rs and 5 Ds -- focusing on the task of getting their tribe to a majority.  Not on their list is Beto O'Rourke's 'Powered by People', a new venture designed to do the same thing.  And the TexTrib projects the seats that may be in play.


Off the Kuff analyzes a poll released by the Eliz Markowitz campaign.  Reform Austin wants to remind HD28 constituents that healthcare is on their special election ballot.


Texas legislators have done an underwhelming job improving healthcare in the state. It’s time to elect officials that care enough about Texans to enact legitimate change. House District 28 has a runoff special election coming up January 28th. Residents of Fort Bend county will have the opportunity to vote for a representative they believe will advocate for vital healthcare reform in Texas.

In his last 2020 Democratic presidential primary update of 2019, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs takes note of the consensus of public opinion beginning to coalesce around the distinct possibility of a #PresidentSanders.  Bonddad has a road map to a Democratic supermajority next November.



It's that listicle time of the year; Dos Centavos has his top ten posts, Somervell County Salon has her top 100, and Houston Strategies highlights his 2019 blogging.



The Texas Observer lists five stories about rural Texas you may have missed, along with its ten best longform reads.  The Texas Tribune invites you to revisit some its best stories from the past year.


Houston's jobs market turns out not to have been as robust as earlier economic numbers were forecasting.  The Dallas Fed projects further weakness in the oilpatch for next year, slowing Greg Abbott's "Texas Miracle" bragging down and perhaps denting the political fortunes of Republicans from Trump all the way down the ballot.

Despite a wide variety of Lone Star ecological calamities in 2019, Environment Texas looks on the sunny side.  Grist posited about what ExxonMobil's win before the New York Supreme Court means for other climate lawsuits.

Grits for Breakfast posted his criminal justice round-up on Christmas Day, pointing out Governor Abbott's abdication of executive authority in issuing pardons.


All that Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, writing for Rewire News, wanted for Christmas was for Texans to be able to afford their abortions.


A range of emotional stories from the border merit inclusion.




Ending 2019's last Wrangle with a few lighter items ...

SocraticGadfly got out to Big Bend for the first time in more than eight years, and he shares photos and discusses changes; two additional parts will follow.

In Galveston, the state's official tall ship Elissa returns for limited day sailings for those who wish to experience the life of a 19th-century sailor.


Trainees will spend six hours aboard the 142-year-old ship learning how to navigate the vessel down the Galveston Channel. The $200 course provides hands-on and lecture learning throughout the trip, as well as a light lunch and refreshments.

Participants must be 10 years and older and participants ages 10-17 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Seven April 2020 dates are currently listed on the event website. Find all you need to know about the daysailing series here and find tickets here.

Find more information on the Galveston History Foundation and Texas Seaport Museum here.

Farewell to a pair of noteworthy artists.



And finally, two more compendiums from the year coming to a close.



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Sunday, December 29, 2019

Sunday New Decade Funnies









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Friday, December 27, 2019

The Last 2020 Update of 2019

Mainstream Democrats constantly argue that their party must move toward the center, the right, in order to win elections. Republicans never argue anything similar, yet win elections. Go figure.

The big news this week is that the corporate media has finally discovered something the rest of us have known all along.



Now begins the time when we will see the unhinged ad hominem smears and attacks on Sanders come into full fruition.  The comparisons of the UK's election, and Jeremy Corbyn's losing to Boris Johnson, was the early skirmishing.


"Hey, it worked over there; let's try those lies over here.  Oh wait, Bernie is Jewish?  Well, that'll be a bit of a heavier lift."

More to blog on this later.  Moving on for now.


For Democrats who believe money is the most important political variable, who don't know or don't care that the private prison industry is just indentured servitude, where the prisoners are paid slave wages ... Bloomer is your guy.  Congratulations.  Business as usual.


Like Trump, Mike Bloomberg can't be bought.  But for those Democrats looking for an after-Christmas bargain, you can still get Pete Buttigieg for a big discount.




You have to be pretty oblivious to his craven hypocrisy to still be supporting this little fellow after his overexposure the past couple of weeks.

Which may be why Andrew Yang has been easing up to fourth lately.  Where does he grow from here is his big question.  If Warren and Biden keep slipping, I suppose we will find out.


Old Joe seems to be acknowledging that he has a family problem.



If Biden is nominated, 2020 will be rerun of 2016.  It will be nothing but scandals and epithets and vitriol and venomous spew between the two factions.  And Trump will win.

But at least some Democrats want to focus on the primary issue.

A court ruling last week putting the Affordable Care Act further in jeopardy may provide the opening Democrats have been waiting for to regain the upper hand on health care against Republicans in 2020.

At the most recent Democratic presidential debate, candidates largely avoided discussing the lawsuit or Republicans’ years-long efforts to dismantle Obamacare, and instead continued their intra-party battle over Medicare for All.

But Senate Democrats, Democratic candidates and outside groups backing them immediately jumped on the news of the federal appeals court ruling -- blasting out ads and statements reminding voters of Republicans’ votes to repeal the 2010 health care law, support the lawsuit and confirm the judges who may bring about Obamacare’s demise.

“I think it’s an opportunity to reset with the new year to remind people that there’s a very real threat to tens of millions of Americans," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in an interview. "We Democrats are always striving to improve the system, but, at a minimum, the American people expect us to protect what they already have."

It's more than possible -- likely, IMO -- that the Democrats cannot do anything to prevent Obamacare from being dismantled by the SCOTUS.  Which is why every single Democrat running for Congress needs to be asked: "What will you fight for if Obamacare is struck down?"

Ask this question now, before you vote in the March primary.  Again, I believe the only acceptable answer is Medicare For All.  Anything less means that sick Americans will die because of the cost considerations of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals, medical collection agencies, and all of the rest of our glorious healthcare capitalists who value profits over people.  The politicians who are fine with that are the problem.

Robert Reich Paul Krugman talked with Ezra Klein at Vox recently, and while much of this interview is cringeworthy because of its intellectual investment in political calculus, Reich at least made a salient point about acting first on healthcare as opposed to climate change.  There's a smorgasbord for thought there, plenty to buy into and plenty to reject outright.

Closing this Update with more embedded Tweets and a Libertarian news item at the end.






And IPR passes along the holiday message from Vermin Supreme, who's running for the Libertarian nomination for president: "I dream of a world of holidays without cages" (it appears to be the same message he posted in 2018).
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