Showing posts sorted by date for query kinky. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query kinky. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, November 22, 2021

Remembering JFK Wrangle


On the 58th year marking the loss of the nation's 35th president, let's tip our hats in the general direction of conspiracy theorists everywhere for altering the minds of Americans for the worse.


Follow both threads for historical -- and entertaining -- reading.  Oliver Stone wants the assassination history's archives opened (they were supposed to be last year).


Okay then; on to the present.  A new goobernatorial poll dropped yesterday.


I don't think Wooderson is going to make a go of it, but I said the same about Beto, so there you go.  Speaking of repeating myself, it's 2006 all over again if he does.  You decide if McConaghey will be playing Kinky or Grandma.  This post will be long enough without opining more about this race today, so I'll save most of the rest for later.


Same old same old.  Another point, via Hector Mendez:

“There is no real long-term investment in cultivating generations of voters because it takes time and money,” Navarro said. “It isn’t enough to just simply register voters and expect them to vote Democrat.”

This is the reason why polling separates registered voters from likely voters.  All of this makes Kuffner's parlor musing a running joke.  It's also why one of the country's A+ pollsters wants to (listen) get out (read) of the game/charade.

Of course that would make people like political consultants mostly obsolete, and if we could do that, Gawd forbid, we might even be able to ban corporate money in elections.  Perish the thought.  Maybe we could start by outlawing Congress critters from trading in the stock market.  Is that too much also?

Alas, we won't have EBJ to kick around any more.  Her announcement on Saturday, with "Re-Elect" in the graphic, was a head fake.


Read down Svitek's other thread for a few of the would-be replacements.  He fails to mention the progressive Democrat who's been in the race for several months, Jessica Mason.  Typical.

The criminal and social justice headlines, after a weekend of national news that was as tragic as one could imagine.


Invoking budget authority when the Lege is not in session, Greg Abbott et. al. took $4 million allocated to the state's prisons and gave it to the Texas secretary of state for county "election integrity" audits, as mandated by state law (SB1).  Trump has been whining about an audit of 2020, and belittled the 4-county audit which the SoS announced on September 23 as 'weak.'


Still with me?  Thank you.  Let's do some environmental news.


I've seen that look on Mayor Sylvester Turner's face before.  It's his "Gosh that's terrible, I wish there was something I could do" face.


It's a good thing that Beto and others plan on running next year on keeping the lights on.  That's an issue they can win on, especially if there's another hard freeze.


More politics in the next Wrangle, before Turkey Day.  The soothers:

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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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Thursday, February 27, 2020

The state of the #TXSen Democratic Primary

It's a crine-ass shame that our corporate media not only picks their favorite candidates, to the exclusion (read: blackout) of all others, but then refuses to perform the due diligence to learn, and disclose, that one of their favorites is laden with heavy, reeking baggage.

I'll get to that in just a moment.  Let me open with the premise (you're welcome to disagree) that Bernie Sanders is going to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.  There is, unsurprisingly, major fuckery afoot to stop that from happening.  Again, whether efforts to subvert democracy by the Democratic Party establishment succeed or fail is -- or for now, will be -- a conversation for another day.

Today we'll start with the postulate above.  And if you buy that, then ...


Despite my longtime denigration of polls and polling, I tend to place more faith in the pseudo-science as Election Day draws closer ... despite the outcome of the presidential election in 2016 defying even the prognostications of the once-mighty Nate Silver.  (Hey, I believed him and them too.)

So Bernie's on a roll; he'll emerge next Wednesday morning with a bushel full of delegates; his various challengers are in assorted stages of disarray, and only some treachery is going to stop his nomination.  And with those circumstances, and with the Senate in desperate need of flipping blue so as to enact his sweeping reforms ... why is a Libertarian who voted in the GOP primary in 2016 and a self-confessed gun nut -- she stands for everything Beto O'Rourke fought against ...


... leading a dozen candidates by a mile in the race to replace John Cornyn?  The strength of her campaign seems to be, as it was in 2018 when she ran for Congress against John Carter, based on her military service.  Oh, and she also rides a motorcycle.

If you believe what the so-called smart people in Texas politics say, MJ Hegar will be followed into the runoff by a man or a person of color, and that sounds a lot like Royce West, the Dallas state senator with a long service history, many endorsements from his peers in the Lege, and a proud record of Democratic conservatism that Texas Donks are renowned for.  (Once upon a time, before they were called Blue Dogs, they were Boll Weevils, Reagan Democrats, Goldwater Democrats, Shivercrats, and other less-flattering monikers, but back then they were also all Kluckers.  Far be it from me to suggest that an African American conservaDem be classified with white racists.)

Hegar and West don't support Medicare for All, don't support the Green New Deal, but do support a host of middling half-measures and corporate centrist views that have been demonstrable failures in the Senate by Democrats of their stripe for many, many years.  A new generation of Texans needs new blood and fresh thinking.  These two ain't it.

Chris Bell, as I have blogged and Tweeted a thousand times, is a horse's ass of a different color.  He boasts of being progressive, but endorsed Bill King over Sylvester Turner in the 2015 mayor's race in which he failed to make the runoff.  That's not progressive (though to be fair, he might have told the truth if he'd simply amended his declaration of being "the most progressive in the race" to "the most progressive between King and Turner", although that's not much better).

And we know that Bell couldn't beat Rick Perry in 2006 in a four-person race for governor, losing votes to Kinky Friedman (not progressive) and Carole "Grandma" Keeton Rylander Strayhorn (also not progressive).  This is supposed to tell us, inexorably, that progressives can't win in Texas.  So sayeth the paid political class, pundits, and what have you.  We also know ad nauseum that Lone Star Dems have run nearly no one but conservaDems -- there have been a couple of exceptions -- and lost every statewide race since the mid-90's.

And then along came Beto O'Rourke in 2018.  Without digressing too much, Beto's shooting star has turned into a small meteor falling in the barren West Texas desert.  His close loss to Ted Cruz 1.5 years ago, his flameout in the White House sweepstakes last November, and his heavy bet on a longshot bid to flip a statehouse seat in Fort Bend County last month give him the look of a flash in the pan, in fact.  He's avoided making an endorsement here, though one candidate has staffed her campaign full of Beto alumni.

Amanda Edwards, the former at-large Houston city council member who is the fourth "favorite" in the race, has the solid pedigree and the consultant-speak down pat.  She's gotten some late media assistance, probably too late, but maybe the Black woman vote is undersampled in the polls and she sneaks into the runoff.  Does "Moderate Millennial" bang anybody's shutters?

That brings us to Cubic Zirconia "More Mexican/Good Stock", aka Christine Costello, aka Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez.  As the nickname I've given her implies, she has considerably less worth than what you might see at first glance.  Not for lack of promotion by the Texas Tribune and their CEO and co-founder Evan A. Smith, that's for sure.

So in the absence of any good journalism, you should read all the way through John's thread.


It's ten Tweets, with a few links and some video and audio.   CTzR has not responded, as best as I can determine, to any of the allegations above.  She and Hegar have recently squabbled over a few things, so it's not like Ms. Tzintzún Ramirez plays the "lalala I can't hear you" game.

John G and me are biased, of course.  He works on Sema Hernandez's campaign and I've been a supporter, financial and social media and otherwise, since her run against Beto in 2018, where she got a fourth of the primary vote, winning several counties.


Despite that, she was dismissed by Smith at the TexTrib (according to Hernandez.  Smith has not responded to the allegation below).


The voters in the Texas Democratic primary are currently in the process of rendering a verdict on the viability of Hernandez's candidacy, but I do not think the seriousness of it has ever been -- or should have been -- in question.  And in any case, Evan Smith would not be the judge of who is or isn't a serious candidate, no matter how deep our democracy has sunk into oligarchy.

So if any of this is something you'd like to have a say in, at the ballot box, between now and next Tuesday evening, please go to it.  As a reminder:


See you at the polling place.
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Saturday, February 20, 2016

Scattershooting while we wait for Nevada caucus and SC primary results

More on that if you need it here.

Update, 5:15 p.m. CST: About an hour ago the networks called it for Clinton, who at this posting leads 52-48 with 80% reporting.  She's currently giving her victory speech.  She's still scheduled to be speaking in Houston in a few hours.

Update, 7:40 p.m.: Jeb Bush brings an end to his White House campaign after finishing fourth in South Carolina, well behind Trump, Rubio, and Cruz.

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

-- Bad news for Hillary Clinton: Chris Bell has endorsed her.

So as Democrats, can we maybe try to take advantage of the situation — even here in Texas? We have become the mainstream party, and it’s time to start acting like it. If we nominate Bernie Sanders, we will forfeit any advantage we might have gained. While he has certainly struck a populist nerve and I appreciate many of the positions he has taken, the American people are not going to elect a socialist as president. It’s that simple.

Bell -- like almost all Americans -- is a card-carrying socialist himself.



I am certain he does not realize it.  There's a lot of things Chris Bell doesn't get, though, much like his fellow traveler, Ted at jobsanger.  In 2006 Ted spent a lot of time and effort promoting Kinky Friedman for governor and attacking both Bell, the Dems' nominee and the Democratic Party ... the same party he vigorously defends today from the evil, Not-A-Democrat Bernie Sanders.

You cannot plumb the depths of this hypocrisy with a nuclear submarine.  Like Clinton herself, both men have "always tried to" tell the truth, at least in their own minds.  (I thought Hillary was a Stars Wars fan.  Did she miss Yoda's exhortation to Luke Skywalker during his Jedi training on Dagobah?)


The only question I have left is: why didn't the Houston Chronicle run Bell's op-ed?

-- I'm not sure I understand how Bernie Sanders is going to be able to ask his support network to line up behind Hillary Clinton after this:

"I chose to run proudly in the Democratic primary and caucus and look forward to winning that process. But clearly, as a nation, I think we flourish when there are different ideas out there," Sanders said during MSNBC's Democratic presidential candidate forum in Nevada on Thursday.

"Sometimes the two-party system makes it very, very difficult to get on the ballot if you are a third party, and I think that's wrong. I think we should welcome competition."

That, as loyal readers know, is what I have been saying for some years now.  It's just not what the DNC or the TDP is willing to acknowledge.  They seem to be hoping that people won't remember their cyclical, abject, repeated failures to motivate their base to turn out.

Is Steve Mostyn still paying BGTX's bills, and if so ... why?

-- Donald Trump has to hold off a hard-charging Ted Cruz in the Palmetto State (just as Hillary is "trying to" do with Bernie in the Silver State).  Those apes have been throwing their feces at each other for a week now, since last Saturday night's debate.  Where Marco Ruboto and John Lobster Hands Kasich and Jeb Zombie Walker Bush finish will allegedly be a story.  Do you care?  I don't.
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Monday, August 17, 2015

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes former President Carter all the best for a speedy and complete recovery...


...and sends condolences to the friends and family of Julian Bond...


...as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff reports on another Voting Rights Act lawsuit, this one filed on behalf of low English proficiency voters who have been denied the ability to bring a translator of their choice to the ballot box with them.

For a time, many Houstonians considered it a point of pride that the city repealed the use of red light cameras in 2010. But as Texas Leftist has recently discovered, a Houston without camera accountability has become much more dangerous for all transit users... even deadly.

Not a trace of irony has been found to be present in the recent pronouncements of a certain Democratic so-called frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs -- with an assist from the biting cartoons of Ted Rall -- illustrates some of the things making Clintonites so nervous of late, none of which have anything to do with e-mail servers or sagging poll numbers.

Socratic Gadfly runs Kinky Friedman's old Five Mexican Generals border control plan through a Donald Trump filter, just for a bit of fun.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sorry to say Nueces County thinks a husband can kill his wife's lover with impunity. Stand your ground just the way a Republican likes it. Your wife is your property.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson knows there is so much Texas could do for those in need, but our GOP state leaders choose to do nothing. As a consequence, only Texas remains above the 20% uninsured rate.

Neil at All People Have Value asserted that the nine bikers shot dead in Waco this past May could have been wrongly killed. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

And in a notable reversal of the industry trend, the Lewisville Texan Journal goes from blog to weekly newspaper.  Don't worry; you can still find them online.

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

The Makeshift Academic reviews the landscape in Texas on the Affordable Care Act.

Nancy Sims considers the value of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus' mayoral endorsement.

The Houston Justice Coalition calls for an investigation into the actions of three sheriff’s deputies who forcibly conducted an illegal body cavity search publicly on a woman in Harris County.

Scott Braddock knows the real reason why Ken Paxton is still in office.

The Texas Living Waters Project reminds us that the best time to plan for a drought is when you're not in one.

TransGriot covers the first HERO grassroots activist training meeting over the weekend.

Grits for Breakfast catches us up on criminal justice reform news.

Texas Watch talks to a food safety attorney about Blue Bell's listeria problems and the long road back to the public's good graces.

Trail Blazers has the riveting story of former Dallas mayor and US trade ambassador Ron Kirk playing golf with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Vernon Jordan at Martha's Vineyard.

Finally, via Sayfie Texas Review, the Austin American Statesman reports on the district court ruling against the state's Medicaid regulators.
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Saturday, September 20, 2014

A rope-a-dope

It was good to finally be able to watch a governor's debate in Texas.  It wasn't all that good to watch this debate.

Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis came out swinging on issue after issue in Friday's debate against Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, the front-runner in their race for governor.

From fair pay to the right to abortion, from the Voter ID law to education funding, to Abbott's comments about the border, Davis sought to portray Abbott as an official who "will favor his insider friends" rather than working for everyday Texans.

Abbott fended off the attacks calmly, painting himself as a warrior against an overreaching federal government while seeking to tie his opponent to an unpopular president, at one point asking Davis whether she regretted having voted for Barack Obama.

As I recommended, she broke some eggs... but as the Chron noted, Abbott remained calm, even confident.  If you didn't listen to the words he was saying, you'd never have the slightest suspicion he was a deeply crazy person.

Davis' delivery, an unquavering monotone, is somewhat robotic; her dry, flat presentation belies her fierce heart and determination.  Her case against the Republican was firm, factual, and direct.  And by full contrast, Abbott's relaxed demeanor shows the experience of a man who has argued before the Supreme Court.  Even as he dogwhistles to the TeaBaggers and pushes every one of the most conservative buttons, he's speaking carefully and smiles slightly.  Just one of the many lies...

"I'm in favor of requiring voter IDs," said Abbott. "Voter fraud is real and the voter IDs is the only way to stop it."

It was disconcerting to watch Wendy Davis win the debate on its merits even as she lost because her opponent simply dodged all of her punches.

The moderator, Ryan Wolf, was truly awful.  He screamed over Davis as she rebutted in the candidates' Q&A, an exchange he was compelled to acknowledge afterward that he was wrong about for not understanding the ground rules.  It made Davis look as if she was hyper-aggressive.  Abbott's campaign has already turned the focus to 'hysterical woman'.

Oh, could we complain about this format.  The only thing worse than funereal table cloths, two candidates at separate tables twenty feet apart, and three Valley journalists who didn't seem all that knowledgeable about state issues was the fact that none of the TV stations in Houston who were listed as carrying the live event actually did so (with the exception of Univision).

Suffice it to say that Abbott made no unforced errors, avoided any direct response to either his challenger's or the moderators' questions, spoke in platitudes about his Latina wife and the wonderful Texas economy -- a conservative tale as tall and false as they come, for a long time now -- and was thus able to roll off the field and declare victory.

It felt a lot like 2006, as when Chris Bell mopped the floor with Rick Perry's hair while Kinky and Grandma kicked the governor while he was down, and yet still won re-election (39%) because the majority of the electorate in Texas doesn't really care about any of this.

They're off watching high school football on a Friday night.  Which is the most perfect analogy of the next generation's brain damage in regard to civic affairs that can be observed.

More from the Startle-Gram, the Chronic, the AP via Indiana, Reuters, and Houston's KPRC.  Update: And Kuff, more succinct and still spot-on even without watching it.

One more of these at the end of the month.  Hope it's more watchable.
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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Kenneth Kendrick: the best choice for Texas Agriculture Commissioner

To tell the truth, he's the only rational choice on your ballot in November.

So you might suspect that I am a little biased.  I have been getting to know Kenneth for some time now, and as the Republican and Democratic primaries produced two of the absolute worst candidates for statewide office in recent memory, now is a good time for considerate, thinking Texans to take stock of their options.

Kendrick has undergone some of the usual -- as well as unusual -- circumstances that befall public whistleblowers.  He's the fellow who revealed the salmonella charades going on at Peanut Corporation of America's facilities in Plainview, Texas and Blakely, Georgia.  As that case finally went to trial this week, here's the latest from Lubbock's KAMC (video at link).

The trial is a relief to people like Kenneth Kendrick, who feel wronged by PCA's actions. Kendrick was a former employee turned whistleblower who tried to expose the company in 2006.

"I had worked there as production planner and assistant manager." He said. " I only stayed four months for obvious reasons. Was asked to falsify documents and do things I was not comfortable with and I blocked it."

Kendrick described the horrible conditions of the Plainview plant saying that there were "holes in the wall that let mice in" and "leaky roofs -- (they) don't want to spend the money to fix it -- bird droppings were being washed in.

Kenneth and I spoke recently about his campaign for Commissioner of Texas Agriculture.

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

What motivated you to run for this office?

After getting some notoriety as a whistleblower against PCA, I hit the lecture circuit of a sort; speaking to students at universities and conferences about the experience. Nine people died from salmonella poisoning across the country, and 700 were made ill.  The Texas Department of Agriculture, under Commissioner Todd Staples, had certified the Plainview plant for organic processing three separate times even though they were not registered with the Department of State Health Services.  They had no license to operate, yet were certified for safety!

Three years after my reporting it, Texas still had done nothing to investigate my claims of poor health practices by the company.   I made up my mind that no person -- no child, no adult -- should ever have to suffer or die because of corporate ineptitude or greed.

Just yesterday, it was reported that the nationwide cyclospora outbreak includes more than half of the reported cases in Texas!  We still have tremendous food safety problems in Texas and nothing has been done, nor likely will be done if the Republican or Democrat is elected.

What are your top issues and your plans for addressing them?

1) We want food safety and GMO labeling, working in conjunction with the DSHS, to make Texas the safest place in the United States to buy food and food products, increasing our economic viability. There is no harm in consumers having all the information possible when buying food. This will require the Texas Department of Agriculture to be restructured to have more inspectors on the ground, and a direct connection with other agencies as a top priority when safety issues outside the Department are noted.

2) Safe water and more aggressive conservation methods, along with the use of renewable energy.  Fracking is not the answer given our state's water shortages.  Too many rural towns already have warnings that their water does not meet minimum standards to drink.  Wichita Falls is already recycling waste water.  In West Texas there are lots of wind generators already, and room for plenty more.  Texas is becoming a leader in renewable energy, and we must continue to do more.  Less water used for fracking and electricity generation means more water for Texas farms and cities.

3) Holding corporations accountable. As I have said many times, we the people are fined and arrested when we break the law, but corporations are just told to get into compliance, as has been shown with 355 unlicensed facilities that broke the law. Instead of just a compliance warning, these companies should have at least been fined... just like people.

4) There are virtually no fines that have been handed out to pest control companies (and they fall under the Department of Agriculture) that break the law. We have regulations in place, but no enforcement.

5) And legal protection for whistleblowers who report in good faith those who break the law!

What sets you apart from your opponents?

My Democratic opponent Jim Hogan -- well, if anyone knew anything about where he stands I could respond, but I do not see much of anything out there.  I guess taking no position on anything is good enough to get you the Democratic nomination?

No website?  No Facebook page?  He refuses to give interviews for the most part and runs away from Democrats and the Texas Democratic Party like it's the plague.  What sets me apart from a blank slate?  I feel comfortable letting the voters decide that one.

My Republican opponent, Sid Miller, helped cut $64 million from Planned Parenthood and sponsored the sonogram bill.  And the Agriculture Commissioner has what to do with this?  Here's a quote from his website: "An avid rancher and hunter, Sid Miller believes in the Constitutional right to bear arms".  Does the Agriculture Commissioner get a vote on gun legislation?  I don't think so.  Let's stick to the issues relevant to the office!  I am the only candidate in the race for Agriculture Commissioner talking about the issues relevant to agriculture in Texas... that is, if you don't count my Libertarian opponent, Rocky Palmquist, taking over Kinky Friedman's advocacy for marijuana legalization.  But you won't find that on his website, since all it says is 'coming soon'.

In keeping with the tenets of the Green Party, I have taken zero donations from corporations (such as Monsanto).  My campaign is true grassroots, for the people.  I owe no one.

What's the best way for people wanting to help your campaign to get in touch?

I have FB page, web page and a direct #.

https://www.facebook.com/kendrickforAgCommish

www.kendrickfortexas.com 

806-800-1021

Paypal address is kkendrick41 at gmail dot com.  Please mark it as political donation, and leave your name, address, phone, and occupation (this information is needed for the Texas Ethics Commission). They make it difficult for a 3rd party candidate without a full time treasurer to run (go figure, Texas would never do that, right?)

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

Make you own choice for Ag Commish, readers.  Trust me, I have.
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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Democrats gird for November

Texas has seen some pretty big waves in midterm election years, and the results from last night portend a continuation of the historical trend.  But Texas Democrats, no strangers to wilderness wandering over the past twenty years, may yet find a pony at the bottom of the pile.  At least if you can buy in to Ken Herman.

In a surprise, the Democrats did well in Tuesday’s Texas GOP runoffs. And, perhaps even more surprising, the Dems also managed not to screw up their own runoffs.

None of this, of course, means Democrats have much chance of winning much in November, but the runoffs showed that Republicans, swerving even further right (next up: fetal voting rights?) may give Dems a fighting chance in future years.

The Dems scored Repub runoff wins when GOP voters picked a lite guv candidate who some Republicans think may be mentally unstable and an attorney general candidate who recently confessed to breaking the law. And the Dems won their own U.S. Senate runoff by not nominating Kesha Rogers, a LaRouchie (look it up) who wants President Barack Obama impeached. Rogers lost to David Alameel, who’ll face GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

The Dems also did themselves a favor by nominating Jim Hogan, an unknown, for agriculture commissioner over Kinky Friedman, a known who, in a new twist on his tired political act, ran on a legalize-pot platform, perhaps not an issue Dems want lit up this year.

The only real surprise to me was Kinky falling down.  I can't stand the guy myself, but I thought I was in the minority on that.  Turns out I'm not.

There is this urban legend that swirls around Friedman like a cloud of stale cigar smoke: that he expands the electorate, brings conservative voters over with him to vote for other Democrats, and so on and so forth.  In the aftermath of Kinky's loss, John Coby was more than his usual cynical about the entertainer's participation, but when Friedman made a late campaign appearance at a Harris County Dems assembly a couple of weeks ago, he had them eating corn from his hand.  This account from a month ago in the Houston Press explains what he was working -- yes, legitimately campaigning -- to overcome.

(Kinky's campaign manager Cleve) Hattersley ascribes Friedman's poor showing in Harris County in March to a negative phone bank program guided by Democratic Lieutenant Governor candidate Leticia Van De Putte (which we noted in our previous reports).
"We know most of the negative votes in Houston were inspired by the anti-Kinky phone calls," says Hattersley. "So we expect a pretty big turnaround next time simply based on this."

Sorry, no cigar.  Might this be a tipoff to the strength of LVdP's grassroots organizing?  Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The Dems’ big win Tuesday was Houston state Sen. Dan Patrick’s defeat of three-term GOP Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Patrick is perfect for Dems who want to portray Republicans as way right of where many Texans live. He now faces Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio... Dems were helped by GOP efforts to tarnish Patrick, including Dewhurst TV ads. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a loser in the March GOP lite guv primary, pitched in by releasing 1980s medical records detailing Patrick’s mental health issues back then.

So either Van de Putte has the best shot at winning in November, or else it's Heartbreak Hotel again.  (It could be both, of course.)  We get to endure a little more bragging and lot more cockiness from the GOTP for another week, maybe two.

The next good show comes next week when the Texas GOP — fresh from putting the “fun” in “dysfunctional” — makes believe it’s one big, happy family at its state convention. That effort could be challenged by a potentially contentious presidential straw poll pitting Gov. Rick Perry vs. Sen. Ted Cruz, as well as Texas-raised Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas-born Jeb Bush. (You never can have too many Texans running for president.)

But before Dems get too good a laugh out of Tuesday’s outcomes, let’s remember this: the screaming Senate gallery mob that shouted down the GOP-controlled Senate’s first attempt to pass an abortion restriction bill in June 2013 helped boost Patrick, who used that night as an example of Dewhurst’s poor leadership.

Now the mobsters must deal with a reality they helped create: They’re going to get a lieutenant governor (Van de Putte) they’ll like a lot more or one (Patrick) they’ll like a lot less.

This is a pretty good view into the backstretch of the statewide political horse race.  Patrick versus Van de Putte is going to start sucking oxygen away from the rest of the field, most notably Davis versus Abbott.  For her part, the senator from Fort Worth has already thrown down the gauntlet in front of her Republican opposition (who will have to ask someone else to pick it up for him).

Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis’ camp wasted no time in trying to turn the nomination of Sen. Dan Patrick for lieutenant governor to her advantage.

Her campaign asked how soon Patrick will campaign with Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, her opponent for governor.

Patrick has often had incendiary rhetoric on immigration, seen as a drawback to  his party’s efforts to attract the growing Hispanic population – particularly since he faces a Latina nominated by the Democrats for lieutenant governor, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte.

Abbott has talked about wanting to reach out to Hispanics and to compete in areas including the Rio Grande Valley.

“When will Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick appear on stage together to highlight their shared values opposing equal pay for women when they do the same work as men, referring to our immigrant communities as the ‘third world’ and defending deep cuts to public schools that led to teacher layoffs and overcrowded classrooms?” Wendy Davis communications director Zac Petkanas asked Tuesday.

There are going to be some interesting storylines going forward even without Kinky and Kesha to kick around any more.  One will be Van de Putte's appeals to the moderates within the TXGOP.

“I know that David Dewhurst has had a tough campaign, but I never doubted his love of this state and his willingness to work across the aisle to put Texas first,” she said. “Dan Patrick, that’s another story. He’s a great entertainer, a great radio personality, but I never know if it’s the ‘theater Dan’ or the ‘real Dan’.”
Van de Putte made the comments at a San Antonio media availability after the Republican runoff was called for Patrick.

“With David Dewhurst and most of our leaders and most of the people who work in the Legislature, they don’t have hidden agendas. They care more about the report cards of our kids, instead of Dan Patrick, who cares more about the report cards that fringe groups give him. Where’s the real Dan? I don’t know. I don’t know who’s going to show up, but I’m going to be ready,” she said.

Beyond praising the now-defeated Dewhurst, Van de Putte’s remarks were tailored, it seemed, to try to appeal to Republicans disaffected by Patrick’s win in other ways, including explicit appeals to the business community, which has long been a bedrock for the GOP.

“Business leaders have told me time and time again that Dan Patrick infects us with a Washington-style politics of ‘my way or the highway,’ and that’s not what Senate does, that’s not what Texas government does, that’s not what our communities do,” she said, later adding: “It’s all about pragmatic governance and problem solving, not Washington-style bickering. You prioritize good public policy over politics.”

See recent statements by Bill Hammond and other pro-business, pro-growth Republicans -- here's one -- for more on this angle.  He is quite obviously no fan of Dan.

In a DKos thread yesterday previewing the Texas primary runoff races, I found several Kossacks proudly declaring their long voting history in the GOP primary.  The best example of battered spouse syndrome among Texas Democrats came from these two comments there.

I voted for Dewhurst. A Larouchie on the general election ballot would suck, but not nearly as much as having Dan Patrick holding the most powerful position in state government. That snake will make Rick Perry seem like a rational statesman.

I will not be be voting for the Dew in November however.

No you sure won't, buddy.  Neither will anybody else, of course.  And everybody in Texas knew that well in advance except for you.

I voted in the R primary too. Because, well, Democrats can't win in Texas. Everything is Gerrymandered to hell and back.

Yes.  Especially in statewide races. *facepalm*

It gets worse: one of the last comments there was someone asking which of Pete Gallego's opponents they should vote for.  With Democrats like these, no one should ever have to wonder again what is wrong with Texas.

Republicans -- like those two I quoted above -- outnumbered Dems 4-1 in voting in the runoff elections across the state.  Battleground Texas' job seemingly got a lot tougher.  Democrats need to find lots of fresh, hopefully enthusiastic voters in order to turn back the coming red tide, but they also need some of their so-called supporters to wise up and stop shooting each other in their respective feet.

I don't even know where to begin to address that problem.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Patrick, Paxton, Alameel, and... Hogan

Early returns show those four leading their races by wide margins.

Ryan Sitton is on the way to defeating the only statewide Tea Partier losing tonight, Wayne Christian, in the GOP runoff for the Texas Railroad Commission.

In the days to come, political analysts will try to explain how the Railroad Commission race became the only high profile Republican runoff in which the supposed Tea Party favorite lost. Jim Malewitz at the Texas Tribune notes that Sitton outspent Christian. Sitton appeared to be the favorite of the oil and gas industry. He had numerous personal endorsements from industry leaders and some established Republican figures (although more money and endorsements didn’t seem to help some other candidates the runoffs).

Sitton will now face Democrat Steve Brown and Libertarian Mark Miller in the general election.

"Sonogram" Sid Miller is beating Tommy Merritt for Republican ag commissioner by a 55-45 margin.

In the race to replace Steve Stockman in CD-36, Woodville dentist Brian Babin leads Tea Party-preferred Ben Streusand also by 55-45 (2% of precincts reporting).

Ralph Hall, the nation's oldest and longest-serving Congressman, became the first in the nation to lose his primary.  Like Dewhurst and many others, he got TeaBagged.

The Texas Tribune called the GOP lite gov race for Patrick at 7:40 p.m.  His lead then was more than 100,000 votes, 63-36% and climbing.

With a bit more than 3% of the state's precincts reporting, Jim Hogan -- no campaign, no donations -- is defeating Kinky Friedman to be the Democratic nominee for agriculture commissioner, 56-44.

Despite no advertising efforts, no website and only one campaign trip to meet with reporters in Austin, Hogan,a former dairy farm operator and current insurance agent, received 4,310 more votes than Friedman in March, making him the front-runner in tonight’s Democratic runoff.

Hogan has no campaign manager or staff and has received no campaign contributions.

Emails obtained by The Dallas Morning News in January revealed the Friedman campaign considered offering Hogan a meeting with Willie Nelson to entice him to drop out of the March primary. The offer was never presented to Hogan, and Friedman said both he and Nelson had no knowledge of the plan.

Shortly after 8 pm, the AP called the race for Hogan.

David Alameel is crushing Kesha Rogers, 72-28, for the right to be crushed by John Cornyn in November.

More postings in the morning.
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Two votes today *oops

*Corrections below reflect the HERO vote is actually Wednesday. -- PD.

The one today at your precinct polling place, and the one to be taken tomorrow by Houston city council on the city's non-discrimination ordinance.

Only about 15 percent of the state’s 13.6 million registered voters cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries in March, and turnout is expected to be even lower on Tuesday. Just over 2 percent of voters in the 15 largest counties were casting ballots in early voting that started last Monday, according to the secretary of state’s office.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Texas remains the reddest of the red.  It could be different -- a whole lot different -- and even Dan Patrick gets it.

Now then, about that HERO.

"This amendment is more than just bathroom crap that has been thrown around by our opponents for the last several weeks. It is about the human rights of all Houstonians, not just for the few," (Monica) Roberts said.

(Mayor Annise) Parker already has enough votes around the council table to pass the ordinance and expects it to go through (today). ...

"It is my life that is being discussed," Parker said. "And while we can say around this council chamber that it applies to the range of protected groups, and it does, and it is right and appropriate that the City of Houston finally acknowledges a local ordinance that respects African-Americans and Hispanics and those of different religions, the debate is about me. The debate is about two gay men at this table. It is very intensely personal."

So there's a little extra civic duty necessary to execute today* and tomorrow, for those who have not already done so.  It's a great weather day in Houston to do it, too, especially if you're a duck.

Update: Someone asked me for predictions, so I will say tonight's victors (it's hard for me to call them 'winners") will be Patrick, Paxton, Sid Miller, David Alameel, and Kinky.  Oh, and Ralph Hall goes down in flames, the only Congressional incumbent in the nation to lose his primary so far, and the Houston NDO passes with the same five dissenting votes as two weeks ago.

The incumbent members of Congress have an 11% approval rating and a 100% renomination record as of this morning.  What's wrong with this picture?
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Friday, May 09, 2014

Feeling the Heat Friday

-- Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster: our long national masturbation that is the NFL draft is finally over.  Hope it was good for all those involved.

I mean really. Two mock drafts a week for eight weeks by a million different Twitter nerds?  Is it possible that concussions aren't the only brain damage suffered by football fanatics?

When do you people start paying attention to things that matter?  Such as...

-- Hillary Clinton may have an actual scandal brewing.

Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to U.S. Special Operations Command blew their lids at the news, broken by The Daily Beast, that Hillary Clinton's State Department refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. It provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and deeply partisan reactions on both sides of the aisle as the international outcry over the kidnapping of 300 female students by Nigerian based terror group grows.

Already on Thursday Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), the chair of the Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counter Terrorism and Intelligence, sent a new letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, obtained by The Daily Beast, asking why Boko Haram was not classified as a terrorist organization in 2011 as sources within elite US military units told ABC News that they tried to put the Nigerian Islamist terror group higher up on their target list -- only to be "shot down by State."

Somebody's got some 'splaining to do.

Update: That would be 'No, Monica'.  Boy, the air went out of that faux scandal faster than Gasbag Limbaugh breaking wind.

-- David Alameel is a little ahead of her, as he is already doing some 'splaining.

A chain of dental clinics owned by wealthy Dallas businessman David Alameel, the Democrats' top choice in the U.S. Senate race, entered into a federal court agreement in 2008 to settle claims brought by four women who said they lost their jobs after complaining about a sexually hostile work environment.

Alameel strenuously denied any wrongdoing this week, as he did throughout a trial in Dallas County District Court and a subsequent federal suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A Dallas jury found in favor of Alameel's Jefferson Dental Clinics after an emotional seven-day civil trial in November 2004. The EEOC complaint was settled four years later through a consent decree that involved no admission of wrongdoing but required Alameel's clinics to publish a non-harassment policy and conduct training for all his employees and managers.

There's one more relevant excerpt.

The case resurfaced among GOP operatives this week in advance of the May 27 Democratic primary runoff, where Alameel faces Houston political activist Kesha Rogers, a "Lyndon LaRouche Democrat" who wants to impeach President Barack Obama. Alameel, who was endorsed in January by gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, has emerged as the top choice of Democratic leaders hoping to rebuild the party in Texas by mobilizing women and minorities.

Let's leave aside that "GOP operatives" mucking around in Democratic primaries part.  Everybody knows that's what they do, after all.

I'm not voting in the Democratic runoff, and not just because I can't tolerate either of the two candidates running for US Senate or Texas Agriculture Commissioner (Jim Hogan and Kinky Friedman).  And it's not because they're going to be sacrificial lambs, either.  Hell, Friedman might actually have a puncher's chance in November because the Republican candidates are even more lame.  Tommy Merritt and Sid Miller are both opposed by the Texas farming lobby, for fuck's sake.  Why is that?  Because they're Dan Patrick clones on immigration.

“Let’s just cut to the chase on this thing: Eighty-five percent of the agricultural labor that goes on in the state of Texas … is done by either undocumented or illegally documented people,” said Steve Pringle, legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau. “If and when that labor supply is not there, that production simply goes out of business.”

Unlike red and blue partisans, I refuse to vote for the least worst option any longer.  No more "lesser of two shitasses" for me.  And let's get clear that Democrats and Republicans are officially restricted from making fun of the Greens and the Libertarians and independents about the quality of candidates they run for office.

The larger tragic comedy is that whoever emerges from these runoffs is going to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy people across the state who want something from them if they get elected.  We'll keep getting the cheapest of political prostitutes for the highest possible price until we -- that's pretty much all of us, Texas -- wake up and do something different.

-- There's a cop in Hearne who really needs to find another job, and not one as a security guard.

More than 100 protesters gathered in downtown Hearne on Thursday afternoon for a march to call on the town to fire a police officer who fatally shot a 93-year-old woman earlier this week.

Officer Stephen Stem, responding to a 911 report of a woman with a gun, shot Perlie Golden several times Tuesday evening after encountering her brandishing a firearm at her home, according to a news release issued by police.

Golden was the second person Stem has fatally shot while on the job. He was cleared by a grand jury in the shooting death of a man in December 2012. He has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation into Tuesday's incident.

I'll bet those grand jurors didn't even have to go through an LEO shooting simulator in order to no-bill Officer Stem.  You know, since Hearne is such a small town and all.

OK, then!  Unlike the family of Perlie Golden, get out there and enjoy your Mother's Day weekend!

It might even rain!  That would be a good thing even if it rains on the Art Car Parade.
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Monday, May 05, 2014

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is already wishing it would rain as it brings you the week's roundup of the best Texas lefty blog posts.

Off the Kuff cheers two wins against voter ID.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says a picture is worth a thousand Dewhurst/Patrick debates.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos learns the truth about Rick Perry's Texas miracle. The fact of the matter is Rick Perry's Texas is a mess.

Horwitz at Texpatriate notes that Chris Bell has finally buried the hatchet in endorsing Kinky Friedman, thus forgiving all from 2006. You should too. Really.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad that colleges, including ones in south Texas, are being held responsible for handing rape cases.

In the wake of the Bundy/Sterling eruptions, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs came to the conclusion that racial bigotry is more generational than it is partisan. On the other hand, that blog post was written when everybody was still under the impression that the Clippers owner was a Democrat.

Neil at All People Have Value made note of the state-mandated rape of the forced sonogram law here in Texas that was strongly backed by Texas state Senator Dan Patrick and supported by three Texas state Senate Democrats. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

The Makeshift Academic provides a historical perspective on Medicaid expansion.

Elaine White helped the Religious Right take over the Republican Party in the 1990s, and lived to tell about it.

Keep Austin Wonky reviews Austin's rail options.

The Texas Green Report and Texas Clean Air Matters analyze the Supreme Court decision upholding the cross-state air pollution Rule.

LGBTQ Insider calls on Texans to support their transgender teachers.

Beyond Bones presents five ways to combat light pollution.

Texas Watch rounds up some news stories of interest in Texas.

Newsdesk showcases another fine example of Ted Cruz's ignorance of history and international relations.
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Monday, March 31, 2014

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is glad that so many people will be getting health insurance -- even if that number should have been much higher  -- as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff pushes back on some happy talk about the voter ID law.

Dos Centavos reviews the biopic of Cesar Chavez and emphasizes that the radical fringe in Texas would like to keep his name and others like his out of our kids' classrooms.

Horwitz at Texpatriate made the case for anyone but Jim Hogan, including Kinky Friedman, in the Democratic primary for Agriculture Commissioner.

Thanks to James Moore at Texas to the World, Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos learned Ted Cruz is a cheapskate who spends more time in Iowa than in the Rio Grande Valley. Libby also discovered Ted Cruz lied about The Biggest Lie in all Politics.

The Texas Central Railway, the latest effort to launch high speed rail from Houston to Dallas, made their initial plans public this week and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had the advance (before) and the post-press conference report (after).

Texas has a woefully inadequate and unfair tax system, and that puts us in a bind when we need stuff. Because as WCNews at Eye on Williamson reminds us that stuff costs money.

Texas Leftist is glad Democrats have finally stumbled upon a winning strategy for 2014. The questions now... Can we keep the fire burning through November, and will Greg Abbott and the rest of the GOP weasel out of having general election debates?

Reading a book about the settlement routes of black people in the United States, Neil at All People Have Value wrote about ideas of movement beyond physical migration. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

Join Egberto of EgbertoWillies.com on his new radio show Politics Done Right on KPFT 90.1 FM, Monday at 8:00 PM to discuss Obamacare and the 2014 election.

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

The Great God Pan Is Dead wants to know what Rice University has against art.

Cody Pogue asks and answers the question "What is Texas?"

Mark Bennett defines the ethics of decolletage.

Offcite photographs the Alps of Pasadena. No really, it makes sense once you read it.

Nonsequiteuse has a suggestion for those who think the equal pay issue is no big thing.

The Texas Living Waters Project implores you to give your feedback on our state’s water future.

Jen Sorenson, a freelance artist now living in Texas, illustrates her experience with Obamacare.

Texas Vox asks "How many oil spills will it take?" as it marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

And finally, in much happier anniversary news, Amy Valentine celebrates her fifth anniversary of being cancer-free.
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