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Thursday, September 16, 2021

The Calm After (Nicholas) and Before (87-3) the Storm Wrangle From Far Left Texas


Past storms first.


“10-20 inches of rainfall came offshore”.  “A track even 40 or 50 miles inland would have set up those heaviest rains directly across the Houston metro area”.  *shudder*

An Ike Dike isn't going to stop the wind, which causes the power outages.  Louisiana is still suffering from those two weeks after Ida.

Imagine it’s 90 degrees outside, your wall-to-wall carpet is fully soaked in flood water and it’s starting to mold. Your power is out so you have no air conditioning, not even a fan, and your phone has been dead for days. Everything in your fridge is rotten, but the grocery store doesn’t have power so they’re cash only, but you don’t have any cash. You don’t have a car, so your options are to keep your family inside the house, breathing in spores, or stay outside in flooded streets and unlivable heat.

This is the basic state of existence for millions of people in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida tore through the Gulf Coast. Sadly, the misery and desperation was not contained. 1,300 miles away, 44 people died from the very same storm as it pummeled New York and New Jersey.

Of the 14 deaths attributable to Ida, nine are estimated to have been caused by electricity outage-related heat exhaustion.  Yeah, we got lucky here in Texas, if you want to call it that.


Though this report seems hyperbolic after reading Centerpoint Energy's account on power restoration from last night.


We can all remember things being worse.


We'd just rather not relive them for a barely-Cat 1 storm.

Let me catch up on the latest regarding the court battles getting under way on the womens' rights law and the voting rights law.


Democrats are encouraged by the most recent development in Washington; the Freedom to Vote Act revises the For The People Act just enough to get President Manchin on board.


And that's my segue to the redistricting battle gearing up for the start of next week's special session of the Texas Lege.


This piece from Slate provides a good summary of the strategy of the TXGOP regarding voting rights, womens' rights, and redistricting.


Here's a bit of the latest in election news.


Until the Donks get a gubernatorial candidate that suits the establishment, this is the most important race on the ballot.  And with the latest entry in the GOP primary, the Repubes are publicly acknowledging it; getting rid of Ken Paxton themselves makes all of the reasons for replacing him go away for the Blues.  And they have the usual headwinds, plus a few new ones.  For one example:


Dems still see hopeful signs that they can turn back the red tide.


A local update: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo has had a bumpy ride of late.  She was forced to cave on that contract to Felicity Pereyra, the Democratic consultant I used to know well who almost hit the big time before the commissioners made a stink about it.  The Chron's op-ed board piled on.  (Another story I don't recall reading on Off the Kuff.  Maybe I just missed it.)  Now this.


Hidalgo has a Green challenger named Joe McElligott, who's run for various offices a few times before.  Flies mostly under the radar.


I don't really want to register a protest vote against Hidalgo next year, but I'm still bothered by her -- and her team's -- ignoring my repeated questions about the county's new voting machines back in March.  So I'd like to see more and better out of both Hidalgo and McElligott before choosing between them.  Moving on to criminal and social justice headlines ...


They were met by armed counter-protesters, a new wrinkle of the state's relaxed gun laws.


It seems like good news that Miami has sniffed out Art Acevedo early.


And to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, LareDOS reports that Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) has a full offering of engaging lectures, presentations, and activities.
The month-long celebration will launch with a traditional El Grito, Thursday, Sept. 16, from 7-9 p.m. in the Student Center Green at an event organized by the student organization Campus Activities Board.

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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

The Environmental Round-Up, Part 2


As I mentioned a few weeks ago in Part One, this post will have more Texas-related news.  First, a few aggregations.

Desi Doyen compiles an exhaustive list twice a week in her Green News Report for the Brad Blog, which is really the collation you want to read in order to keep up with this topic.  Here's her latest.


Corporate media is waking up to the issue at last, but they still have to tread carefully around their Big Oil and Gas sponsors.  No such smidge of conscience from our elected leaders, however.


Honestly however, the criminals are literally everywhere you look.


  This woman is NOT one of them.


"Energy Transfer Partners".  Haven't we heard of them?  Why, yes we have; just a moment ago.


The corruption is so vast and varicose that its tentacles rival the capillary nature of the Texas power grid.  Speaking of:


The deeper you dig, the worse the stench gets.


Who was president ten years ago?


Had enough yet?


It's not all bad news.  Some people are actually trying to do something.


But some suggestions have failed, and others are too little, too late.


And we still have the deniers of facts, logic, science, and truth to overcome.


I'll add a few more as a thread when this post gets Tweeted shortly.  If I missed anything, mention it here in the comments or post it there.
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Thursday, April 22, 2021

Earth Day and the Greens



Today's Climate Summit is being well-attended by global leaders and well-received in the corporate media, but like so many of Joe Biden's other initiatives, what he's offering is half a loaf.

And with respect to the climate crisis, we need everything in the bakery.


Platitudes R Them.  It's what Kamala brought to the ticket, it's what got Mayo Pete another job in government, and it's apparently what sustains the sycophants among the Donkey orthodoxy who are breathing easier, sleeping well, and brunching every weekend.  These compromises, like the $1400 stimmys, the still-not-enough $15 minimum wage killed by Joe Mansion and Kristen's Enema, the initiative to expand the Supreme Court that died at Nancy Pelosi's hand last week, and all the other things that would keep this sentence running on to infinity and beyond are leaving me with a very sour taste in my mouth again.

So I really didn't need to hear that Biden hasn't canceled the Enbridge #3 pipeline yet to know that there's a lot he'll give lip service to, but only so much he's willing to do.

Ed Markey and AOC have introduced Bernie Sanders' watered-down Green New Deal once more, to the expected huzzahs and hosannas.  They'll have to fight not only Pelosi and Schumer but MTG and Ted Cruz every step of the way, so it's performative, an art the Queen of Queens (and the Bronx) is burnishing of late.  Their highest hopes are by aiming low, maybe they can slip under the bar, much like old Joe himself.


I'm gonna take a hard pass on all of that.

Twenty twenty-two is the statewide cycle, which means that a whole bunch of Blue Dogs will try to show that they're not as bad as the TXGOP.  And our state media will focus on the Republican primary, because their self-fulfilling prophecy for about 30 years now has been that's the only election that matters.  Meanwhile the Permian farts methane like a small gaseous planet -- from fracking flares to uncapped, abandoned wells; the Amazon burns, our oceans are full of plastic and our air is full of carcinogens.  Does that sound like something we ought to keep doing?

If it is then you must be on the waiting list to buy a ticket on the first Elon Musk rocket flight outta here.  Good luck with that.

The pandemic, and the resulting economic slowdown, demonstrated that reducing our consumption of fossil fuels could heal the Earth.  But we're getting back to business now.  That's a death sentence.  Now a very wise man once said that repeating the same action and expecting a different result is a symptom of insanity.  So now you know why I will be voting for NO Democrats who don't indicate that they understand this simple logic.

In the case of Governor of Texas, the choice is easy.


David Collins interviewed her some time back, and she's got an active and engaged Tweet feed, so direct your questions there if you have any.

Don't expect her to get much publicity.  That's up to you and me, unless you think voting for a conservative Democrat again -- or Dishrag forbid, Matthew McConaghey -- and anticipating that person to defeat Greg Abbott is a smart idea.  (Hint: Abbott isn't going to lose a November election, no matter what that recent poll says.  If he gets upset in his primary, that Republican will win.  Which means Texas will have a farther-right-wing freak than him calling the shots.)

Even Rick Perry got re-elected running against another Republican and Kinky Friedman not so long ago.  And the other Republican, in this case, wasn't Chris Bell.  So you might as well vote for someone with some principles you believe in, as opposed to 'lesser evil', 'harm reduction', etc.  And maybe the Democrats will catch a clue and stop running GOP-Lite.

Maybe that last is too much of a stretch ...?
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Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Leftist Wrangling every day until Election Day


And beyond!



A few words in Tweets about the polls that broke yesterday.


DfProg being a Democrat-funded poll, both the result and Collins' observation reveal its bias compared to the other two. I am more inclined, as I have been for a few weeks now, that Biden and Hegar cannot pull off a win here. I could be wrong, natch, and the money pouring in to both top-ticket races will at least make it close. Maybe not as close as Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rurke two years ago.

As for Greens ... yes, they have suffered the predictable slights this cycle. Once again this morning, "Jill Stein" is a trending Twitter topic.


A couple of weeks ago Bill Maher set off the Stein Derangement Syndromers. It was just yesterday that I read Digby, who put the blame back on James Comey. Once more, since this 2016 parlor game is like fucking Groundhog Day: Bernie would have beaten Trump four years ago, his Justices would be on the Supreme Court, and he would be running for re-election. Probably against Ted Cruz.


Yes, the 'what if'/alternate timeline fantasy can be fun, if you're not forced to play it with the dumbest mfers on Earth. Couple more things about the Texas polls, and then the TX Greens.

Ben Wermund, noting that these tightly contested races up and down the ballot are uncharted waters for Texas pollsters operating in a difficult environment on their best day, asks: how much trust should we place in their conclusions?


Probably just a coincidence. In other news ...

Jim Henson and Joshua Blank at the Texas Politics Project examined the shift of independent voters away from Republicans in recent statewide elections. Matt Mohn marvels at the extreme variance in polling preferences of Texas Latino/as in this cycle. Kuff tried to make sense of some recent polls that show Biden with a slight lead. (He failed. Dude has made multiple mistakes in trying to keep up this year. It's understandable, but his blogging needs to evolve to something more relevant. Discussions aimed at Lone Star Donkey political consultants -- budding, over the hill, and whatever detritus lies in-between -- is a gossamer-thin market.)

Here's some environmental news, agua being the focal point (some places have too much, some not enough): the Texas Living Waters Project tries to imagine what our state would be like without water. Schaefer Edwards at the Houston Press looks at a Bayou City plan to fight flooding and climate change by planting a ton of trees.


Now for some social justice posts.


Jacob Vaughn at the Dallas Observer writes about Fort Worth city council's approval of the new name for a stretch of road between I-35W and US 287: the Atatiana Jefferson Memorial Parkway. And Grits for Breakfast collates four stories that lets us gaze into the soul of the Houston/Harris County criminal justice system, as well as a round-up of cops behaving badly in Waco, Nacogdoches, on social media, and several other Lone Star jurisdictions.

To wind this up today, here's some funny.

Reform Texas is amused by John Cornyn's delicate ears. Jen Rice categorizes Harris County drive-through voting locations by their fast food counterpart.

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Monday, October 19, 2020

The Election 2020 Wrangle from Far Left Texas


I'm throwing in some centrist viewpoints for balance.


TXElects has a great deal of analysis based on their internal models and posted outside its paywall. Excerpting liberally:

Trump is currently projected to win the state by 2 points over Biden, 50.5%-48.5%. He carried the state by 9 points, 52%-43%, in 2016. The projected 2020 margin is slightly tighter than Ted Cruz’s 50.9%-48.3% victory over then-U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso) in 2018.

A total of 20 races’ ratings moved one column toward the Democrats:

  • President to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • CD2 (Crenshaw) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • CD3 (Taylor) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • CD31 (Carter) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD64 (Stucky) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD92 open to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD93 (Krause) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD121 (Allison) to Toss Up from Lean Republican
  • HD66 (Shaheen) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up
  • HD67 (Leach) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up
  • HD112 (Button) to Lean Democratic from Toss Up
  • HD45 (Zwiener) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD47 (Goodwin) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD52 (Talarico) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD102 (Ramos) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD113 (Bowers) to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic
  • HD129 (Paul) to Lean Republican from Likely Republican
  • HD150 (Swanson) to Lean Republican from Likely Republican
  • HD33 (Holland) to Likely Republican from Safe Republican; and
  • HD91 (Klick) to Likely Republican from Safe Republican.

The U.S. Senate inches closer to the Toss Up line but remains rated as Lean Republican along with the other statewide races.

The nine Republican-held House seats projected to flip to the Democrats are HD26 open (Miller), HD64, HD66, HD67, HD96 open (Zedler), HD108 (Meyer), HD112, HD134 (S. Davis) and HD138 open (Bohac). The four within a point of flipping are HD92 open, HD93, HD94 (Tinderholt) and HD121. The Senate seat projected to flip to the Democrats is SD19 (Flores).

The four Congressional seats projected to flip to the Democrats are CD10 (McCaul), CD21 (Roy), CD22 open (Olson), CD23 open (Hurd) and CD24 open (Marchant). The three additional seats within 1.2 points of flipping are CD2, CD3 and CD31.

Read on there, and don't miss "Echoes of 2010" at the end.  My personal O of Jeff Blaylock's news and views is that his bias leans toward establishment conservatism, but he is very fair and accurate.  A less partisan Joe Straus Republican, as I might best classify.  Or the reverse of Mustafa Tameez, if that helps.  So this is a very rose-colored snapshot for Texas Democrats coming from him, and very much in line with my own prognostications.  For you data nerds, Derek Ryan has his pie charts and bar graphs posted (.pdf) for last week's partisan and demgraphic EV analysis.

Turnout remained wowza through the weekend, which is where all this optimism is coming from, and if it holds, it's going to be a big blue wipeout for Team Elephant.


All of the state's counties are blowing the roof off, but Harris County ...


Guess who's complaining about long lines at their EV polling places?


Another guess what: Harris County's boffo vote turnout may STILL not be enough to get it done for Joe Biden and MJ Hegar (as both TXElects and I have already said).


So for all you Democrats still hoping for a clean sweep, it's time for you to get on your phones and text/call/email/browbeat/cajole/guilt your registered voter friends and family.


As of 7pm on Sunday October 18, 2020, according to GitHub’s U.S. Elections Project, only 3.8 million people in Texas have voted so far. 3,881,004, to be precise. This is no good. We have 16.9 million voters in Texas, so that means 13.1 of y’all still haven’t made it out.

According to the AP, thus far, Democrats have been outvoting Republicans 2:1, but that could change at any minute. We aren’t safe until every one casts their vote.

(What I like about Michelle is that she doesn't tear down the Green Party in relentlessly boosting the Blues.  She's definitely a VBNMW kinda person, but she focuses her considerable ire and wit in the right direction and not the left.  Her blog is must-reading for you Democrats in North Texas.)

John Cornyn keeps shitting his own bed, and I am here for it.


He doesn't dare debate Hegar again. He can't afford another beating.


Progressives and liberals: share the wealth!


And with lots more non-election/turnout-related posts and Tweets to come later in the week, I'll wrap this Wrangle here.

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Monday, August 17, 2020

The TexProgBlog Wrangle (DNC Week)



The leftists in the Texas Progressive Alliance won't be tuning in to the DNC convention this week (not even to Bernie and AOC).  The DSA and progressive Democrats in the Alliance may or may not be, depending on how strenuously they define 'progressive'.  The Blue Dogs, shitlibs, Blue MAGAts, neoliberals, establishment Dems and their paid consultants, lobbyists, pollsters, and associated lickspittles -- and of course the RINOs and the Never-Trump Republicans -- will have their eyes glued to the screen every single night.


Lone Star Latinxs in particular seem a little put out about it ...

"I think that we could win the battle and lose the war," (Julian) Castro told "Axios on HBO" of Democrats' chances this fall. "We could win in November, but you could see a potential slide of Latino support for Democrats."

... even Stace, reverting to his milquetoasty form.  But the Texas Signal, your home away from Kuffner with all the insidery establishment goodness you can tolerate without any clues to what's actually going on with the Donkey Party's eroding youth base, is there for you.  Their opinion editor -- a Latina -- even managed an English-only interview with the "Spanish press secretary" for the TDP.  Somebody let me know if they get around to posting a transcript en Espanol.  At least they mentioned "the" chancla.

And all this time I thought Texas was a swing state ...

Updates:

-- Can Joe Biden win over the young Latinxs that flocked to Bernie Sanders?

Houston PD chief Art Acevedo apparently spoke last night.  Acevedo, who's welcoming furloughed cops from other cities to come to Houston, probably delivered a real puke-a-thon about law and order and Blue Lives Mattering and such.  I didn't look too hard to find anything about his talk.  If you did, hit me up.  Update: Stace, coming a little stronger.  Judge Hidalgo, by contrast, belonged at the top of this schedule.

Then there's Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, who resurrected his ten-year-old grievance with the Texas Green Party.


And sure enough:

Charles Waterbury, the Green Party candidate for Texas Supreme Court chief justice, has dropped out of the race after an opponent questioned his eligibility to run.

Waterbury’s withdrawal notice was submitted to the Texas secretary of state’s office Monday after being notarized Friday, the same day his Democratic opponent, Amy Clark Meachum, sought a court order declaring his candidacy invalid.

Meachum’s emergency petition to the Supreme Court, the same body she hopes to join, argued that Waterbury is prohibited from appearing on the ballot as the Green Party nominee because he voted in the March 3 Democratic primary.

State law prohibits candidates for state or county office from representing one political party in the general election if they voted in another party’s primary in the same election cycle.

I have three things to say about this.

1. If you search the archives of this blog hard enough (yesyes, I should have tagged posts long ago) you'll find one where I actually agreed with Angle on this point of his. Along about in 2009 when I became disillusioned with Obama's capitualtion on health care and began to look at the Green Party more seriously, I asked them about this business of having the TXGOP fund their ballot access. The response was quick and certain: "no permanent enemies, no permanent allies". That's kind of how it it with Donkeys and Elephants, too yes?  Isn't John Kasich demonstrating precisely that premise by speaking at the DNC, endorsing Joe Biden, but declaring he's not abandoning the GOP and has been assured that Biden "isn't moving left", toward AOC, as the Jackasses applaud?

2. Amy Clark Meachum just lost my vote in November.

3. If this affects any other Texas Green Party candidates' eligibility, then that's on them, too.  As a member of the Harris County Ballot Board in 2010, the presiding judge disqualified me for the exact same reason (voting in the D primary and serving as a Green judge).  It's a chickenshit play, and in that case, it did not withstand scrutiny; the County Clerk -- Stan Stanart at that time -- asserted that his office selected HCBB judges and that nobody other than him had authority to disqualify them.  (I chose to say off the Board anyway, FWIW, until a new presiding judge took over.)  I have not blogged about this until now for many reasons, as you might suspect.

We're still waiting for that court ruling.

Since I turned this post into a rant, I'll have an actual Wrangle in short order.


(Here's the original for a bigger view)

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