Scattershooting the Greens, the US Senate, and the TXGOP

-- Both DBC and Gadfly have analyzed the 'what went right/wrong' for the US Greens and the Texas Greens, which beats the hell out of Kuff's theory of numbers or whatever he's deep into a spreadsheet about this week.

This isn't brain surgery: the Greens will take a quantum leap of sorts if/when a number of prominent Democrats give up on a Revolution from within, bolt that party, and take over the GP, bringing professional infrastructure with them.  I wished hard for it to be Bernie Sanders almost two years ago, but as you may recall it was Tad Devine that convinced him, against his inclination, to run for president as a Democrat.

So there must be some collective and public exodus of elected officials and their operatives, not just a few political scientists like Dr. Cornel West.  A prominent name at the top of the ticket, like Ralph Nader was in 2000, is critical.  As we blog today, there simply aren't enough Donkeys who believe that it's anything but a pipe dream to build something viable outside the two-party box, and that's because the media exposure won't be there for them, and because the presidential debates are run by a cabal of duopolists.  Those two things have to change before the GP can take the next step.  Media exposure will come if the name is big enough; the CPD must be made obsolete by replacing it with something else first.

Update: As a reminder for those such as Dan Savage who don't really get what the Green Party represents beyond Jill Stein, Politics of Courage supplies a list of all Greens who ran for Congress, state, and local offices in 2016 and the vote percentages they earned.  It's also worth noting that Laredo city council member George Altgelt, first elected with Green Party support and just re-elected in that city's non-partisan municipal contests, endorsed Gary Johnson for president.

-- For those Democrats still transitioning from denial and anger toward acceptance ... this isn't going to make you feel better.  Charles Schumer was the wrong guy at the wrong time to lead this charge, but you're stuck with him now.

Senate Democrats are the last line of defense against Trump's agenda because of the chamber's supermajority hurdle. They're expected to oppose any attempt to repeal Obamacare and slash tax rates, among other policies. At the same time, they want to work with him to pass a massive infrastructure package and crack down on Chinese currency manipulation.

On top of that, Democrats must defend 25 Senate seats in 2018, including five in deeply conservative states and another five in traditional battlegrounds that Trump won.

It's going to get worse in 2018 before it gets better in 2020.  Hopefully.

Update: Twenty-twenty is the big enchilada, with an imperative to turn Trump out of office and electing a slew of Democrats in the statehouses, as the census is performed and redistricting moves to the top of the priorities list.

Speaking of going from bad to worse...

-- The Texas Legislature is readying for next year's session with a conservative agenda that makes Trump's look liberal.  Dan Patrick is going in for the kill.

Patrick's top two priorities are passing a balanced budget — which is required by state law — and reforming the state's property tax system, which he said is "taxing people out of their homes and hampering business growth." The rest of the list is filled with ideas that will be stringently opposed by Democrats and, in some cases, moderate Republicans, including limiting which bathrooms transgender people could use; imposing more restrictions on abortion; strengthening the state's voter ID law, and allowing parents more choice in the schools that their children attend.

[...]

The rest of his list included plans to ban local governments from refusing to cooperate with immigration agents or enforce immigration laws; prevent student-teacher relationships; cap increases in state spending, and rein in insurance lawsuits after hailstorms. 

No mention of addressing, much less fixing, the state's funding for its public school system.  Nothing about improving the healthcare of Texans.  And as in Washington, there's nothing on the horizon that suggests 2018 will be anything but another red wave at the statehouse again.  The Castro brothers aren't stupid enough to run for anything in two years.  (They were not the attack dogs that Wendy Davis could have benefited from in 2014 and they won't be of much use to anybody who dares to run in 2018.  Their precious political capital is invested in non-liquid assets.)

Texas Republicans may be the absolute shittiest in the country, but it's Texas Democrats who keep losing to them.  Who will be the sacrificial lambs Democrats proffer for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and so on down the list of statewide executive offices?  Could they at least find someone to challenge Sid "C-word" Miller, for crine out loud?  Or will it be another assembly of no-name stooges that can manage 38% or so on the basis of straight-ticket voting, like Jim Hogan or Grady Yarbrough or Betsy "Combat Boots" Johnson?

Who wants to run against Ted Cruz?  Besides Michael McCaul, I mean.

Sad!

-- Rick Perry for Department of Oops.  Only Donald Trump would consider our illustrious, longest-serving governor in history to run a Washington bureau that was on his list to eliminate, but which he could not remember the name of.

Scattershooting Trump's first week as president-elect

-- It's been a bumpy ride for everybody.  Those on the Train and not.

Here's how the day went for the Trump transition: pic.twitter.com/XGV41WgvZj

— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) November 16, 2016

Via Mother Jones.  NYT:

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.

One week after Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.

Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired. Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser.

The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Rogers who had ties with Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Christie had sent Kushner’s father to jail.

Prominent American allies were in the meantime scrambling to figure out how and when to contact Trump. At times, they have been patched through to him in his luxury office tower with little warning, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

Amateur hour all day yesterday.  In the evening, Trump ditched his media contingent to go out to dinner with his family.  Their top-secret security clearances have been requested.  Though not officially, apparently.  'Conflicts of interest' being what they are.

Make sure your seat belts are securely fastened.

-- I wrote the day before the election that North Carolina was going to be pivotal, but as the returns came in solid red for Trump and Sen. Richard Burr, it just seemed like another prediction I missed.  Today, the outcomes there have regained importance.  For one thing, it looks like the incumbent Republican shitheel governor, Pat McCrory, has lost but still isn't conceding.  So that election may not be decided until after Turkey Day.

Early (morning one week ago), North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) declared victory over Gov. Pat McCrory (R), the embattled incumbent who has signed into law some of the most retrograde legislation in the country since his term began in 2013.

But McCrory refused to concede, saying the race was too close to call. Cooper was leading by slightly more than 4,300 votes on Wednesday. As of Friday, the state attorney general was ahead by more than 4,900 votes.

McCrory initially said the outcome of the race wouldn’t be clear until Nov. 18, once provisional and absentee ballots had been counted. But now it seems an answer might not be available until after Thanksgiving.

58,000 provisional and absentee ballots have yet to be counted. But most of the provisional ballots were cast in Democratic-leaning counties. Cooper won eight of the 10 counties with the most provisional ballots. McCrory was favored in two of those counties, and in several others not in the top 10, according to The News & Observer.

If the race is within 10,000 votes once all of the state’s ballots are tallied, then McCrory or Cooper can ask for a recount ― a procedure that likely wouldn’t happen until after Thanksgiving.

McCrory followed the Texas model during his one term in office.

Shortly after he took office in 2013, McCrory repealed the Racial Justice Act of 2009, which allowed inmates on death row to appeal death sentences that were sought or imposed on the basis of race. He reasoned that it “created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice.” That July, McCrory ended unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of people and signed a bill mandating that abortion clinics meet the same standards as surgical centers.

McCrory signed one of the nation’s strictest voter ID requirements into law in August 2013. The law was struck down by a federal appeals court in July after three judges determined that GOP lawmakers had chosen to implement specific ID requirements ― as well as to reduce the number of early voting days and to change registration procedures ― in order to keep black voters from the polls.

In March, McCrory signed HB 2. The law prevented local governments from passing any anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people, and mandated that individuals can only use restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. The bill, which is one of the most far-reaching in the country, has caused the state to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Weeks later, McCrory signed an executive order widening the law to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. The order did not reverse the bathroom portion of the bill.

McCrory also signed a bill in July that removed police camera footage from the public record. 

There's bound to be a place for McCrory in the Trump administration.  Two more things; first, North Carolina's legislature has a plan to subvert the will of the voters and maintain a conservative majority on the state's Supreme Court.

Even as Donald Trump won the state, North Carolina voters chose last week to elect a new liberal majority to the state supreme court. The new North Carolina Supreme Court would provide a check on the power of the GOP’s veto-proof super-majority in the state legislature. But the legislature has come up with a scheme that would add two seats to the court and allow Gov. Pat McCrory (R) to appoint two justices — maintaining the conservative majority.

And second: "Hi, America.  NC here.  We know what you're about to go through."

-- Hey Donkeys: here's another wake-up call.  Wrap up the pity party and get back to work.

Democrats have one final shot to flip a Senate seat -- but in order to pull off an upset, they need to quickly rally around the Louisiana candidate whose victory could be a bright spot in an otherwise dismal year. Public Service Commissioner – and jovial cattle farmer – Foster Campbell will face off against Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy, a twice-failed Senate candidate, in a Dec. 10 runoff.

On the surface, it might seem like a lost cause: A Democrat running a statewide campaign in Louisiana in the Year of Trump. On the contrary, though, Campbell has a legitimate shot to upset his opponent the same way Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards did in 2015. Yes, Louisiana has a Democratic governor. He's busy at the moment cleaning up the fiscal mess left by his predecessor, failed presidential candidate and Kenneth-the-Page avatar Bobby Jindal.

Edwards pulled off an upset in part because of Jindal's failures, and in part because he ran against David Vitter, a less-than-charismatic politician tainted by a bygone prostitution scandal. But Edwards prevailed not only as an anti-Jindal and anti-Vitter. As an Army veteran with family law enforcement ties and a calm demeanor, he was a strong candidate in his own right.

Campbell, too, is a good bet; he has a wicked sense of humor and speaks plainly. During a recent debate, he rebutted false allegations of ties to ex-KKK leader David Duke, saying, "I have nothing in common with David Duke other than we're probably breathing."

[...]

Electing Foster Campbell is the most immediate way to rebuke President-elect Trump. A Campbell victory would mean a 51-49 split in the Senate. This is the last best way to make a difference in 2016.

Campbell is a fighter. During his career, he's fought for ethics reform, lower energy rates for rural consumers, and for victims of domestic violence. Guided by a love of family and a deep-seated faith, he fights for the little man -- and woman.

Campbell is a man of the people; Kennedy is counting on the elite. This year alone, he was the beneficiary of $400,000 from a political action committee funded by one Chicago family.

With a Campbell upset, fifty-one to forty-nine means almost the same thing as it meant in 2001, when Jim Jeffords switched parties.  That could be a real earthquake once more if, say, Susan Collins of Maine were to be persuaded to cross over.  And/or maybe Rand Paul as an indy?