2017 US Senate: D-52, R-48

Still basking in the glow of last night's Green Town Hall on CNN, and not ready yet to crown another Jackass O'Day, let's check in for the first time this cycle on the latest US Senate projections.

Not burying the lede: it's a very tight contest.  Electoral-vote.com, my personal favorite, and Election Projection both give the GOP 51 states for a slim margin to hold control.  The difference in methodology is that E-v.com doesn't have any toss-ups; they jut throw the states up daily based on the very latest polling.  (Only if a poll shows a tie do they acknowledge that in their revised projection.)  They also count the Senate's two independents, Bernie Sanders and Angus King, as Democrats because that's who they caucus with.  So today they rate it 51-49 while E-P has it a more accurate 51-47-2.

Update (8/19): Note how E-v.com changes day-to-day.

Larry Sabato has it tied 47-apiece, with 6 states -- NV, IN, OH, PA, NH, and FL -- going either way.  Charlie Cook thinks it's 47-45 Republicans, with 8 tossups.

Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight.com has projections from early June that give the Ds "three to four seats", and they need four to wrest the majority away from the Republicans (on the increasingly-safe assumption that Hillary Clinton is the new president).  His latest report, still two weeks old, is more encouraging as the polling suggests that a few Senate Republican candidates are in danger of being caught in Trump's undertow.

Update (8/19): Enten's piece from 8/16, titled "GOP's chances of holding Senate following Trump downhill" eluded me, but reinforces his and (and my) premise.

Several of the links above profile the specific state races and link to polling and such.  I'm not ready to get that granular; there'll be plenty of time in September for things to flesh out a little more clearly in many of the states where it's close now.  Ohio is going right down to the wire in both the White House and Senate contests anyway.

Your interactive toy is at 270towin.com, and here's my best guess today: D-52, R-48 with NV staying blue and WI, IL, IN, PA, NH, and NC flipping blue mostly on the strength of Clinton's surge in the swing states, and AZ, MO, OH, and FL remaining red.  (Wisconsin's and North Carolina's Dems should also benefit a couple of percentage points from the court-ordered relaxation of their restrictive voter/photo ID laws, as is the case in Texas ... subject to last-gasp litigation outcomes.)

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

The real people's mandate for President Clinton will be if she has a blue Senate and a blue House to work with, as Barack Obama did in his first two years.  The crisis exacerbated by one of the nation's five largest health insurers removing itself from the state-mandated Obamacare exchanges suggests a simple fix: the public option.  But history tells us that Clinton will not fight any domestic battle she cannot be assured of winning.

Excessive gerrymandering means a Democratically-controlled House still looks just out of reach.  But due to the Trump Train's derailment, Dems are dreaming big.  Good on 'em for that, but some swift and direct action will be necessary if their dreams come true.

A public option is one thing that could make me feel encouraged about Clinton's first term.  The other would be more diplomacy and peace and a lot less war.  (I probably shouldn't dream too big.)

Stein rises, knives come out

The reason the smear got called out early is because the smear, sadly, got traction.   CNN, hosting tonight's town hall with the Green Party ticket, had to do the responsible journalistic job and report on it and the other silly attacks listed there.  But if this is the best Jill Stein's detractors -- most of them being the crappiest of conservative corporate Democrats, mind you -- can do, it's a pretty weak case against voting for her ... except in the vanishing number of swing states.  Which Texas will not be (sorry, Charlie).

What we see here with the 'cranks' and 'kooks' business is the logic dictating that Hillary just might need that 2% to carry Texas, so we'd better beat harder on the Greens.  (Two percent is about six times the amount that Stein drew here four years ago.  Democrats have a better shot at peeling off Harambe's 2%, or Deez Nutz's 3%.  I'm just saying.)

Downballot digression: throughout the Lone Star State we see the lousiest of the lousy who show on our ballots representing both sides of the conventional aisle, as we believe and as we know.  It took them over a dozen years and a few election cycles, but the TDP finally figured out that if they just fill up the all the lines, the ignorance of straight-party voting would enable them to stand the best chance of knocking the Greens off the ballot and absorb what is left of the actual left in Texas into their collective.  Consequently you have a circumstance this cycle where an appellate court candidate who is all but invisible makes a stand against the Green who got the most statewide votes two years ago, 10.45% (without a D opponent).  Neither of the two women -- Betsy Johnson (D) and Judith Sanders-Castro (G) -- are exactly favored in their respective bids for the Texas Criminal Appeals Court against Scott Walker.  No, not that one.

Scott Walker, the failed presidential candidate and Wisconsin governor, wasn't on the (Texas GOP primary) ballot. But Dallas-based criminal defense attorney Scott Walker is vying for a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The Republican barely campaigned before the March primary. His opponents weren't even sure he was running, and he didn't give any interviews. But he still dominated the first round of voting, winning 41 percent in the four-person race. Many credit that to his recognizable name; voters who make it that far down the ballot sometimes pick a name that sounds familiar. But Walker sees it differently. He told The Texas Tribune (after he won the runoff in May) that he spent "a lot of time praying about this election."

“I believe God heard my prayers," he said. 

Glowree Be!

So watch the CNN town hall tonight whether you have an open mind about an alternative to "lesser evils" or not, livestream or in the company of others, follow the Twitter feed -- look for a hashtag like #GreenTownHall or something similar -- and laugh at the putzy snark attempts by Democrats who can only win something every four years (fortunately for them it's the big enchilada; you know, "SCOTUS" and all that), then try to imagine what it would be like electing a female president who would stave off our looming environmental apocalypse, stopped our country's all-but-endless wars, eliminated student debt by telling the Big Banks to eat it, and advanced a jobs program based on an update of FDR's New Deal.  Then ask yourself how crazy that would really be.

Why, it's almost as crazy as this.

PPP has Trump leading Clinton by just six points in Texas

This will buoy the hopes of Lone Star Democrats.

Hillary Clinton is within 6 points of Donald Trump in Texas, according to a new poll released Tuesday, as the Democratic presidential nominee continues to make inroads in traditionally red states.

Trump, the Republican nominee, has 44 percent support in the state to Clinton's 38 percent, according to a survey by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP).

[...]

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson had 6 percent support, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein had 2 percent. Evan McMullin, the former GOP House staffer who just announced his independent bid, polled at 0 percent.

My sense is that it's better news for down-ballot Dems, especially in Harris County, and probably for Pete Gallego in CD-23 in his bid to usurp Will Hurd in their biennial game of musical chairs.  Will the flow of money out of Texas be reversed?  Doubtful.

The CNN town hall with Stein and running mate Amaju Baraka tomorrow evening might be the Greens' last shot at lifting these numbers into a range where she qualifies for the CPD-sanctioned debates.  Those parameters have been released, and they give the appearance that only Johnson/Weld has a chance at reaching them.

(In Houston your watch party is at Midtown Bar and Grill.  Other locations in Texas -- El Paso, Laredo, Austin, and two in the DFW area are listed here.)

Charles will have a sunny take posted in the early morning darkness tomorrow, as he's been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of Texas turning blue in 2016 for some time now.  Hey, it's nice to dream big and all, like he's said before, but I have a standing bet for anybody who wants to take that it that it ain't hap'nin.  Love to be wrong more than I'd like to take anybody's money ...

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance announces that all of its members have renamed themselves "Simone" as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff notes the changes to the voter ID law that were approved last week.

Harris County Republicans completed the epic fail trifecta with Commissioner Steve Radack's "enjoy your floods!" remarks, which piled on the continuing troubles of DA Devon Anderson and Sheriff Ron Hickman. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posted that Democrats have a good shot at a clean sweep of these three offices, and only one of them should require a little effort to accomplish.

Like PDiddie and most others around Houston, Texas Leftist was quite surprised to hear/see Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack's insensitive comments about flood victims. Thankfully his Democratic challenger Jenifer Pool was quick to respond. This race may have just gotten interesting.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is appalled at the McAllen Monitor for publishing an oped describing how to strip TWO Supreme Court Justices from Barack Obama.

Socratic Gadfly, as he continues to recover from a fairly bad broken arm, tells 1 percenters he's not a freeloader because of the legitimate assistance of workman's comp.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston can't tell if his Congressman, Brian Babin, has endorsed Donald Trump or not.

MOMocrats sees the 2016 election as a referendum on continuing gun violence.

Priscilla Villa at Bluedaze writes about the Eagle Ford shale's deleterious health effects on the residents of South Texas.

Neil at All People Have Value saw a mother steer her young daughter away from some Legos at the Lego store saying that a Lego airplane and truck was for boys. Neil wondered what is wrong with people. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More great lefty Texas blog posts!

The Texas Moratorium Network links to the WaPo's video of Jeff Wood, whom the state of Texas has condemned to die for a murder he did not commit.

Grits for Breakfast interprets the declining prisoner population numbers as evidence for closing a few TDCJ units ... by letting some private prison contracts expire.

Not-Breaking News: Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer reports that Lone Star neoliberals with more money than critical thinking skills will once again be used as an ATM by the Clinton campaign.

Zachery Taylor assembles the evidence that the corporate media has indeed 'rigged' the 2016 presidential election.

Josh Blackman highlight's the Electoral College's intended role as a check on despotism.

Paradise in Hell counts all the ways that George P. Bush's endorsement of Donald Trump is awesome.

The TSTA Blog reminds us that school finance depends on legislators, not lottery players.

Fatima Mann guest-posts at Ashton Woods' Strength in Numbers that liberation for black women is a demand and not a request.

Texas Freedom Network has the most absurd right-wing quotes from last week.

CultureMap Houston details the $44-million Galveston beach restoration project.

Space City Weather explains why hurricanes go where they go.

And John Nova Lomax ponders the morality of Steve Miller's rock classic Take The Money And Run.

Sunday Funnies

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody
and I wouldn’t lose any votes.”

The Daily Jackass: "A vote for..."

"Repeat after me..." (and remember: every time you say it, an angel gets its wings).

Some people are comparing it to rape.  That's an overreach, but "bullying, badgering, shaming, scaremongering, insulting, belittling, mocking, and abuse of all varieties" isn't.  What I have been persuaded of is that Hillbots think that Berners are just as shallow and intellectually corrupt as they are, and thus will respond to these playground taunts.

They won't (not if they're as smart as I believe they are, that is).  And if it is you that is saying "a vote for the greater good is worse than a vote for the lesser evil", then it is YOU that has become the Jackass.

The best response to bullying has always been a punch to the bully's nose.

Since we're shaming bullies on the playground these days, it certainly seems appropriate to do the same to the grownups online.  And offline, as necessary.

Capitalism's psychopathy

The Green Party, at their Houston convention last week, passed an amendment to the platform that replaced the words "responsible stakeholder capitalism" with "an alternative economic system" based on "workplace and community democracy."

Because capitalism has demonstrated that it cannot function properly without socialism to rein in its rapacious greed.  Here's how Bill Maher -- who gets it wrong on the "chicken or fish" choice in this election -- gets it right here.

"Someone needs to explain to the free-market crowd that when it comes to socialism, you’re soaking in it.” So many Americans hate the word ‘socialism’ but love the concept: Medicare, unemployment, disability, farm subsidies...."

"America’s real religion is capitalism. And like any religion, it needs a devil. And that devil has always been socialism."

"... (T)he unfounded fear of socialism spreading out of control is nothing compared to how we've let capitalism spread out of control. It's eaten our democracy. It's eaten our middle class. It's eaten our health care system, our prison system, our news media. It's even eaten our food system so thoroughly that a lot of our food is no longer something that should be eaten."

In the common unacknowledged ground rule of negotiations, you can't get a little if you don't ask -- or demand -- a lot.

One of Maher's main targets in the kind of capitalism most often seen corporate in America, and the way it leaks into every part of our culture. Recently, the National Parks system decided it would allow naming rights as a solution to it's $11 million debt problem, which Maher thinks of as the last brick in the fall of America. "Get ready to see the bison roaming at Yellowstone with the Nike swoosh shaved into their ass."

In the end, Maher doesn't say socialism is a replacement for capitalism, but that he thinks of it as "capitalism's lap band." 

I can settle for some if we can't have it all.  And if Clinton's Democrats are afraid to ask for any... then I suppose we'll be back here in four years.  And Bernie Sanders, the guy who lit the socialism fire that burns so brightly this year, is probably going to be lying on the dock in back of his new summer home, on the lake in Vermont.

Harris County GOP fails: Anderson, Hickman, Radack

Throughout the year I've left the wild tales of incompetence of DA Devon Henderson and Sheriff Ron Hickman by the wayside in spending time blogging about the presidentials.  In the local contest to see which Republican can be the biggest ass, Precinct 3 county commissioner Steve Radack elbowed his way to the top of the dung pile with his "Enjoy your flood!" remarks over the weekend, videotaped and in heavy rotation on social media.

He's not backing away from them, either, presumably because he's getting some support from commenters on and offline.

So... suppose I was one of those "some people" who wanted a new car, my house redone, but wanted my insurance company to pay for it all?  How would I go about summoning a deluge in order to get my upgrade?  Prayer? Rain dance?  What if my insurance company short-sheets me and I don't get enough for my flooded car or home to replace it or make it like new?  Steve Radack doesn't mention how much I'll like that.

I could write at length about these three public servants who have lost focus on the meaning of their jobs, but I really shouldn't have to.  Everybody knows what you're getting when you vote for a Republican these days, and it's the farthest thing from good governance that your mind can imagine.  I'll just point out that Anderson, Hickman, and Radack all have election opponents, worthy challengers who are better choices for these county executive responsibilities, in November.

Kim Ogg is running to defeat the DA, Ed Gonzales is going to take out the current appointed sheriff, and Jenifer Rene Pool is the Democratic candidate aiming to replace the odious and insensitive county commissioner.

In a wave election -- which 2016 is portending to be -- where Democrats and Republicans of the establishment variety throng the polls to cast votes against Donald Trump, Ogg and Gonzalez should be able to ride Hillary Clinton's coattails to victory.  Pool is going to need a little more help to get there, and you can assist in a least a couple of ways.

(Who said I was a lousy Democrat this cycle?)

Daily Jackasses new and old

-- John Aravosis of AMERICAblog is today's Burro Pendejo, in what is becoming a spirited contest of "Can You Top This?".  He's got a running feud with Sputnik News going over his outlandish 'Russian sympathizer' accusations, which he's stoking in his own comments (deleting most of the ones he disagrees with, leaving his customized juvenile insults in response).

It appears that I’m the subject of a blistering article in the Russian state propaganda organ, Sputnik, over my recent criticism of Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s visit to Moscow last winter.

Let's just hope he's not the object of a Russian spy with a poison pen, a la James Bond.

Red-scaring is the most popular of the latest tactics of fever-dream Clinton Dems.  They're madly conflating Trump and Stein in a mashup of distractions from the disastrous Wikileaked DNC emails, which have detailed an unprecedented depth of corruption within the party's politburo, resulting in the firings of several top party operatives, the suspicious death of one staffer and even the Republicans' own harebrained concoctions of the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist by that country's government.

Joe McCarthy would be so proud.

Update: Mint Press News with the most thorough dismantling of this latest smear attempt.

I honestly cannot understand what drives these rants beyond a seething hostility of the left that is mostly contained within the ranks of those still involved -- or deeply self-identifying -- as Democratic apparatchiks.  In effect, we now have three conservative political parties in the United States, and that's not counting the Constitutions.  This unrequited rage goes way past a 16-year misplaced grudge against Ralph Nader, and has even swept up once-rational Texas state representatives in its contagion.

I'm going to quit trying to explain it any further because it doesn't make any sense.  I'm just going to document their atrocities and crown the king jacks and queen jennets when I discover the vilest of their tirades online.

-- Original DJ Chris Hooks got busy getting paid over the weekend with pieces in the Observerer again and in Politico.  He was calmer, but still somewhat unbalanced, with "kooks" replacing "cranks" and "dead-enders" and his animosity substituted for the most part with snarling contempt and reeking condescension.

This qualifies as progress.

Hooks even managed to rile the normally placid Kuffner with his sneering about the HD-146 special election.  Hooks is not going to be invited to anybody's house for beers and lawn darts at the rate he's expelling these noxious, prosaic gases.

Many more Jackasses on deck!  Competition is stiff!

Still nothing for her to worry about

Most of the Democrats I visited with over the weekend are finally starting to relax a little now that the horse-race polls are coming into alignment with the Electoral College projections.

-- This fellow (with lots of good analysis) has it Clinton 323-Trump 197, 18 EC votes tossup.  And a 99.6% probability of her winning the election.

-- These folks also see a landslide.

Note that AZ is turning blue in their scenario but NV is not.

-- Nate Silver's bunch, who'd been running a little on the conservative side this cycle after getting Berned in Michigan, shows the largest spread, with 365-172.7 and one electoral vote to Gary Johnson.   "Only" an 87.5% probability for Madam President.

-- Larry Sabato with the same conclusion, and 347-191.

Given these numbers you might think that future Daily Jackass and AmericaFUCKYEAHblogger John Aravosis would be chill, but he's not.  I booted him off the blogroll here months ago -- maybe even before Ted -- for his Clinton shilling and attacks on Bernie Sanders, which immediately transferred to Jill Stein.  With these fresh Red scares he's really going to have a lot of blood on his hands if/when Hillary bombs Iran, starts a new war -- hot, cold, or "just right" -- with Russia, or simply continues the Obama bombing campaign, now in four countries but nowhere on your teevee.

Coming up: a few fresh Daily Jackasses and some updates to old ones.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is feeling the Olympic nationalist spirit as it brings you this week's roundup of the best of the left of the Lone Stars from last week.

Off the Kuff is pleased by the changes to voter ID requirements that were agreed to last week.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme, like the US Hispanic Congressional Caucus, is disgusted with the CEO of IBC bank doing business in South Texas while supporting Donald Trump.

Taking into account both real and hypothetical options, SocraticGadfly uses ranked choice voting to explain how he would vote, or like to vote, in this year's presidential election.

The Green Party's presidential nominating convention in Houston kept PDiddie at Brains and Eggs busy most of the week.  There's a CNN town hall scheduled for next week for the Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka ticket.

Texas Leftist also blogged about the Greens' convention at U of H.

Texas Vox takes note of the US Dept. of Energy's attempts to restart the federal high-level radioactive waste program, this time in Texas.

Neil at All People Have Value walked on Houston's fabulous Airline Drive with a sign regarding the need for respect for all people.  APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston asks whether you should trust Donald Trump with your children.

Dos Centavos has another Tejano music review of Veronique and her latest, Mi Año Dorado.

And the Lewisville Texan Journal celebrates their first year as a print medium.

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

More scattershots from Texas bloggers and writers!

Zachery Taylor saw the DNC's war demagoguery as an extension of his indoctrination research.

TFN Insider has the latest from Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, a prominent Trump supporter who's spent the last two weeks "debunking" the theory of evolution.

Grits for Breakfast cited a Houston Press story where the representative for the Harris County sheriff blamed inmates for the jail's preventable, antibiotic-resistant diseases.

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers calls for Harris County DA Devon Anderson to step down.

Make West Texas Great Again reports on the first-ever agriculture forum in Lubbock, organized by Ted Cruz after he was criticized for inaction by Breitbart Texas.

The Texas Observer's sixteenth 'Texas Miracle' podcast speculates about the Dallas GOP's disarray and its effect on the Texas Republican Party in general.

The TSTA Blog sees through the latest school finance "reform" idea.

Pamela Coloff's 2006 story on the UT Tower shooting received a lot of attention on the 50th anniversary of that horrible day.

Better Texas Blog explains how Texas can support kinship caregivers.

Dan Wallach contemplates election security as national security.

The Texas Living Waters Project argues that desalination could harm Texas' bays.

Juanita Jean is seeking support for Glen Maxey's ballot by mail program.

Eileen Smith keeps trying to make sense of Donald Trump.

Somervell County Salon passes along the news about the multi-county feral hog program at the county expo.

And Pages of Victory reminds Democrats that Republicans are still plenty strong.

The Daily Jackass: Voting third party is just like sending 'thoughts and prayers'

Congratulations, Jef Rouner of Free Press Houston.

Every four years we get together and play American President Idol, electing either a Republican or a Democrat. And, every four years this is when some fringe kook or two tries to tell us about all those parties outside the system, man. The ones who are really woke, as my white ass should probably not be saying, and aren’t corrupt by Big Scaryword.

See, Noah Horwitz, this is how you move to the head of the class.  Note that a clear path could involve going "anti-vaxxer" a full week after that smear has been debunked.  If you truck in lies that have been demonstrated to be lies, you're a pretty big Jackass.  But this is Rouner's moment; let's allow him to revel in it.

Between the carnival of carnage that was the Republican primary choosing the form of Gozer the Destructor and the bitter hold out of Bernie Sanders to the end of the Democratic one, emotions on both sides got a little high. I’ve never seen so much announcing that people were voting third party, and every single bit of it is as bloody useless as the Republicans offering their thoughts and prayers to the victims of the mass shooting (does it really matter which one I name?).

[...]

Which is why voting third party is mostly an empty gesture meant to telegraph a person’s own virtue without actually involving real work. If Stein really wanted to do some progressive good or even pass her bonkers woo ideas, she’d be a Democrat or at least an Independent who works with Democrats like Sanders. If Johnson actually cared about letting you smoke weed hassle-free, he should have done something about it when he was a Republican in actual power.

I was a Democrat who worked for ten years attempting to to pull the Texas Democratic Party to the left.  I wasn't alone; the Progressive Populist Caucus was, in 2006, the largest in the TDP, with several hundred members.  You have perhaps noted over the past decade how successful we were.

There's a better analogy if your intention was to crack on both progressives and religious extremists simultaneously: "the best way to make change for the better in ISIS is to join them and transform the organization from within".  Not ludicrous at all, is it?

Nothing Stein or Johnson say matters. At all. Their platforms are meaningless because neither of them will ever be called to do any of it or have to answer for the promises that they made to voters. Theirs is a consequence-free existence. Politifact is never going to check them on the Johnsonmeter or the Steinmeter like they did for Barack Obama and will certainly do to whoever wins this long-ass trudge to the future of the country.

Actually what they say and do does matter, as history has demonstrated.  Where do you think all this "spoiler" nonsense comes from?  It's that sort of progress that duopolists fear.  Even Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton's not-so-useful idiot, fell for the 'spoiler' BS right from the beginning of his campaign.  See, you can't really spoil an election that's already spoiled.

More importantly, the two major parties often co-opt the messages of the minor parties (Tea Party subsumed into GOP, sad attempts by Dems to occupy Occupy, Green becomes 'green' without those dirty hippies).  So they must be doing something right if their best ideas are being shoplifted.

Most importantly, political scientists get it and have for a long time.

"The irony is that no leading political scientist who studies political party systems believes that it is necessary to squelch minor parties in order to 'defend' the two-party system. The true definition of 'two-party system' is a system in which two particular parties are much bigger than all the others; it doesn't mean a system in which minor parties have atrophied into non-existence. The last leading political scientist who believed that it is socially useful to squelch minor parties was Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, but he changed his mind over five years ago, and now advocates that election laws treat minor parties equitably." -- Richard Winger, Ballot Access News December 12, 1996

Logic needs to stay out of Rouner's way, however.  He thinks he's on a roll.

That’s politics, and more importantly, that’s America. It’s not a place built by storming out of the room in a moralistic crusade, and it’s certainly not a place where sitting on the side-lines free from any blame deserves virtuous acclaim. There’s a reason Hillary Clinton wrote a book called Hard Choices, and even Donald Trump recognizes that if his vision for America is to matter he has to actually get in the game on a team that can win. So did Sanders. You have three choices. The last one is “do nothing,” and voting third party for president is just doing nothing with a big old bowl of sanctimonious bullshit on top. Just like praying for shooting victims who need blood donations and cities that need lead out of their water.  

Maybe I've missed it, but did Democrats get the lead out of the water while I wasn't paying attention?  Have they stopped the police from killing unarmed black men?  Have they banned fracking yet?  Repealed Citizens United?  Halted the TPP?

Ohhhhh: they just need more help in Congress, where all the guys and gals on both sides of the aisle are already owned by the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, and the NRA.  I think maybe Rouner missed the whole 'revolution' part of the equation.

As you might imagine, today's Jackass has been excoriated by the readers of FPH on the original page and on the Facebook page, very few of which happen to be orthodox Democrats or Republicans waiting to be scolded about not conforming.  This seems more like a successful clickbait trolling excursion, and if you read only a few of the responses at either place, you'll see our boy has been roasted and then seared in his own juices to a greater degree than I need to add to.

Much like the Texas Observer, Free Press Houston used to be a radical, iconoclastic, unabashedly liberal-before-progressive-was-the-word newspaper.  Then they went out and hired all these angry Hillbots, and then wonder why their subscriber base has abandoned them.

Sad!

Better Choices Funnies

There are more palatable options than chicken or fish ...

#GNCinHOU - Assange, Stein, Baraka, West, and YOU

Today's speeches and the roll call of states will culminate a furious week of Green Party events, media coverage, and high profile exposure (at last) of America's only political option for peace.  One highlight breaking late is the "chairman" of Wikileaks, making some remarks from long distance just before lunchtime.  Perhaps you saw him last night on Bill Maher.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, the organization that recently posted thousands of the Democratic Party's internal emails online, will speak via live stream at the Green Party national convention, party officials announced Friday.

Assange is scheduled to speak at 11:45 a.m. Saturday over a live stream from the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

He will speak on the third day of the progressive party's national convention at the University of Houston, before the party nominates its 2016 presidential nominee, widely expected to be Jill Stein.

Assange is expected to be interviewed by 2004 Green Party presidential nominee David Cobb, party officials said in a statement Friday.

Wikileaks recently made headlines by releasing thousands of Democratic Party emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, suggesting that some DNC party officials quietly had backed Clinton. The revelations angered Sanders supporters, rocked the Democratic gathering and prompted the ouster of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The keynote speakers today will be Dr. Cornel West and YahNé Ndgo, late of the Bernie Sanders campaign and now -- like so many others -- advocates for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.

West was appointed to the Democratic Party's platform drafting committee by Sanders. The activist raised concerns over the party's stance on Palestinian rights, and later endorsed the Green Party, saying "there’s no way, based on moral grounds, those based on my own moral conscience, that I could support [the Democratic Party] platform."

He added about Sanders' ultimate support for Clinton's nomination at the Democratic National Convention: "And once my dear brother moved into his endorsement, his strong endorsement of the neoliberal disaster that Sister Hillary represents, there was no way that I could stay with Bernie Sanders any longer, had to break with the two-party system."

That should get a few pairs of Jockeys in a wad.

Not attending the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. #GNCinHOU pic.twitter.com/Myfy0byIN9

— Green Party US (@GreenPartyUS) August 5, 2016

Here's a schedule of speakers and events.  Note that political conventions don't always run on time, but Assange will likely be prompt (satellite time is neither inexpensive nor flexible).  Dr. West is slated for 2 pm.  Videos from yesterday's pressers are already posted; Texas Green candidates down the ballot are represented in the third one there.

"Come for the revolution, stay for the party". Tonight, after the formalities conclude.

Music, food, a cash bar and lots more.

Throw some caysh into Jill's money boom.  She's already purchased some national teevee advertising, jumping ahead of Trump there and in this poll of voters under thirty.

If you can't be in Houston today for a little history, find a livestream.

Voter ID affidavits, and election day in HD 146

Charles has kept us up to date on both items, so I can only add a couple thoughts.

-- Twenty-seven four Democratic precinct chairs will select their (and my) new state representative from among a field of half a dozen or so contenders.  The favorites are Erica Lee Carter -- daughter of Cong. Sheila Jackson Lee and the oligarchs' pick -- and Shawn Thierry, a frequent Harris County judicial candidate for the Democrats in recent years.

My money is on Lee.  She opened her campaign at the SD-13 special election, which former HD-146 Rep. Borris Miles won (a prediction of the vote count I happened to nail).  HGLBT activist, social media marvel, and recent Daily Jackass award winner Kris Banks will probably have the live-Tweeting.  I'll check with him late morning to see who won, being elsewhere doing more exciting things personally.

Update: In the closest possible outcome, Thierry defeated Lee 13-11 when third challenger Larry Blackmon's vote opted not to force the top two into overtime.

After one round of voting by raising hands, Thierry had 12 votes, Carter had 11 and Blackmon 1. This led to an immediate runoff between Thierry and Carter, with a request for a change of voting procedure. Instead of raising hands, precinct chairs stood in line next to their candidate of choice. This time, Thierry beat Carter by two votes.

Charles with his take from the scene.

-- The parties in Veazey v. Abbott, the voter/photo ID litigation finally decided a couple of weeks ago by the Fifth Circuit, came to an agreement and the rules have been relaxed for voters.  Essentially those without picture ID may present their voter reg card, or phone bill, water bill, etc. confirming their identity, swear and sign (the affidavit) that they are who they say they are, and cast a provisional ballot.  In elections past, very few of those were ever counted because they generally involved the voter taking some kind of action between Election Day and the county canvass, which finalizes the election.  First, Matt Angle at Lone Star Project ...

The order would essentially allow voters whose name appears on the voter rolls but lacks a photo ID to cast a ballot if they can present other appropriate proof of identification including a utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck, or a voter registration card.  Their vote can only be challenged if there is conclusive proof that the voter is not the person listed on the voter roll.

A person who is involved in this process locally spoke with me and explained how the verification process differs this time.  I have paraphrased that response in the next graf.

For BBM (ballot-by mail) voters, signature verification -- comparing the sigs on the current ballot with recent past ballots -- is the method by which those votes are certified as legitimate.  In the case of a provisional vote without ID, the voter has signed their voter registration card and their affidavit, and those two signatures can be compared just as they are (electronically, scanned) for BBM.  Beyond an obvious mismatch, they only reason a vote would not be counted is if someone came forward with compelling evidence that the provisional voter is not who they represented themselves to be when voting (and signing the affidavit).   Quite a high bar to clear for a ballot to be rejected.

Expect there to be many folks in Harris County and across the state who are delighted with the fact that they have been re-enfranchised for the coming election.

Update: Ernest Canning at Bradblog with more.

"The Greater Good"

Jill Stein's latest ad.



More posts today than yesterday, as the registration and kickoff obligated my time offline.  (Daily Jackass candidates are lining up for judging.)  Follow the Twitter feed to the right for the latest or check in here and on Facebook.  Read a summary of the opening day and see some pics on Flickr.

Here's a few more pics from the GPTX FB page.

Greens get CNN town hall for August 17

The Libertarians, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, held their second one just last night, and now the party of the progressive people are getting theirs, in two weeks.

CNN announced Wednesday it will host one of its town hall events with the Green Party's presumptive presidential nominee Jill Stein and her presumptive running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

The hour-long event will be held on Wednesday, August 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET. The event will broadcast live on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Espanol and online via CNNgo.

Libertarians draw from Clinton to some small degree greater than Jill Stein does in recent polling.  One more thing for nervous Clinton folks to be concerned with.  If somebody happens to post something about Libs "siphoning" from Dems, I'll have to feature it in the Daily Jackass.

Meanwhile, here's a mathematical analysis of how to not waste your vote.

Follow me on Twitter @PDiddie or watch this space for developments from the Greens' presidential nominating convention, opening today at U of H.

Yes, Trump is terrible (but the next Republican will be worse)

And speaking of shitty, why isn't Hillary beating Drumpf by a greater margin?  (That's a rhetorical question, most of us -- even Erick Erickson -- already know why.)

By any conventional standard, Donald Trump just blundered through the worst three days of any presidential candidate in living memory.

Showing a characteristic refusal to back down from a fight, Trump took the almost unthinkable step of publicly escalating a feud with the parents of fallen US solider, Capt. Humayun Khan, who blasted Trump at last week's Democratic convention as unfit for the presidency.

And in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn't make a military move into Ukraine -- even though Putin has already done that by seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

In any normal political campaign, these stumbles would hobble Trump's ability to pass the fabled commander in chief test, in which Americans take their measure of a candidate and decide whether he is fit to lead them.

But no one needs reminding that 2016 is not a conventional political year.

The Republican Party is NOT imploding, but they are having an existential crisis.  Let's admit it: this cycle wouldn't be much different if Ted Cruz was the nominee.  I agree with this guy's premise (but not his rationale -- "Free trade GOOD!"), who says that the GOP has to lose this year so that they can win in 2020.

There is a Simpsons episode where two aliens, Kang and Kodos, invade our planet and scheme to take charge by abducting and impersonating the two US presidential candidates.

They are discovered before polling day, but this does not prevent their triumph.  Kodos declares: “It’s true, we are aliens, but what are you going to do about it?  It’s a two party system; you have to vote for one of us”.  One plucky man says: “I believe I’ll vote for a third party candidate”.  But Kang responds witheringly: “Go ahead, throw your vote away!”

No, seriously.

The key dividing line in the United States (has) little to do with Republican vs. Democrat, rich vs. poor, or liberal vs. conservative. To explode these conventional oppositions, it would take a billionaire Republican populist, who had once been a solid Democrat and who offered a political program that mixed together liberal and conservative ideas, conspiracy theories and racial animus, but above all else exhortations [...] to rise up and retake the country. Indeed, the triumph of Trump in the Republican primaries -- based, in part, on his appeal to former white working-class Democrats and independents, his fierce attacks on mainstream Republicans, and his flouting of what passes for conventional wisdom about electability -- sent the pundits back to their think tanks to figure out what on earth was happening with American voters.

Trump was, they concluded, sui generis, a peculiar mutation of the American political system generated by the unholy coupling of reality television and the Tea Party revolt. But Trump is not, in fact, a sport of nature. He reflects trends taking place around the world. He is, in many ways, just a mouthpiece ... 

Trump won't be able to overcome his raging ego, narcissism, or lack of emotional maturity (Clinton was spot on when she said he can be baited with a Tweet), and that's before you consider his hideous bigotry and highly questionable business dealings.  He's quite the fraud, but he'll fail, and the GOP nominee next go-round will not make his rookie mistakes.

Cruz is taking copious notes, and Paul Ryan can surely put a shinier coat of lacquer on his own neo-fascism to fool enough people disgusted with Hillary's presidency four years from now.  And that dynamic will hold irrespective of how well the Greens and Libertarians can do in the next cycle, after what portends to be a banner year in 2016.

This cycle is unprecedented but reasonably predictable.  Twenty twenty?  Not so much.

Scattershooting more donkeys

-- Your Daily Jackass is John Cobarruvias of Bay Area Houston.  Previous jacks and jennets are here, here, and here.  John was a runaway winner based on his command -- he's reliving his days as an Aggie Cadet -- that can be countered simply enough with "No, we must not".

The difference between Clinton and Trump is the degree to which you would prefer a war-mongering corporatist who might be a sociopath versus an actual sociopath.  You know what they say about voting for a Democrat pretending to be a Republican running against an actual Republican: people go for the real thing every time.  It is, as most of us know, questionable as to whether Drumpf is an actual Republican, and that's causing an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance on the right.

If a Jackass of the 2016 Cycle is eventually awarded, John's got a strong lead on the rest of the herd (or drove, or pace).

Jackasses on deck : "Repeat after me", and "Why Berners should be good losers".

-- Amaju Baraka is Jill Stein's running mate.  If you have to ask, "who?" then you qualify for enlightenment.  Don't forget that fear is the path to the Dark Side.

-- More debunking of the anti-vax smear of Stein by the scummiest of Democrats.

I support preventative health care as a human right (including vaccines), now let's discuss why the DNC rejected universal health care.

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 30, 2016

Time to Move On, Donks?

That's all I have time for.  Follow me on Twitter (@PDiddie) for Green convention updates, daily recaps in this space, and whatever winds up on the Texas Green Party Facebook page.

Debating Blue vs. Green with SCOTUS as backdrop

Ed. note: As this post was being composed, Jill Stein has selected human rights activist Ajamu Baraka to be her vice-presidential running mate.  More on that later.

I don't want to be harsh every single day for the next three months to all of these binary thinkers, but I need to point out how often they use the same threadbare logic.

-- Ben Jealous debated Jill Stein on Democracy Now (you may recall he was a Sanders supporter up to last week) and the tropes he employed were, in order, "Trump", "privilege", "George W. Bush in 2000", and "Greens need to start at the bottom", all of which have been debunked in these pages in recent days.

Jealous also referenced at the end a mashup of 'pie in the sky' and Nader.  ('Pie in the sky' is one of John Coby's old standbys; he's earned future Daily Jackass consideration with his 'pinch your nose because you must'.)

-- Robert Reich and Chris Hedges had the same faceoff in the same venue, and Reich went Trump, "Supreme Court", "wait until next cycle", and followed that with Hillary's own faux pas, which riffed off Ted Cruz at the RNC's 'vote your conscience'.

These debates would be very instructive for those who still have an open mind as to whether to vote for Clinton or Stein.  There are always going to be certain understandings -- biases -- that each person listens or reads with, so in that sense there are very few true undecideds.  The arguments against Stein, as Jealous and Reich demonstrate, are always rooted in the same handful of lame rebuttals.

Let's examine one that rarely gets scrutiny: the SCOTUS premise, beaten like a rug previously here but this time we take a look from a more nuanced perspective.  In 2000, Barbra Streisand hosted a gala fundraiser for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in Los Angeles and raised what at the time was reported as a record-breaking amount of money, $5.1 million.  I remember watching at least part of the event, though not live, perhaps on YouTube or as part of some other documentary some years later.  Tommy Lee Jones, Gore's old college roommate, did the introductions.  Streisand and several other prominent artists of the time performed, and Barbra gave a short speech, calling for Gore's election to "reform campaign finance regulations, strengthen gun control laws, improve education and healthcare, safeguard a woman's right to choose, and control homophobia".

Isn't it fascinating how little things change in our presidential politics?

Streisand's brief mention of the Supreme Court's importance in the 2000 election was direct and blunt (I can still see her holding up her fingers with a determined look on her face): "The first three reasons to vote for Al Gore are the Supreme Court... the Supreme Court... and the Supreme Court."  You can read the rest here.

At the beginning of this primary season about a year ago, I polled a handful of Democratic activists about their choice for nominee and why, and a couple of them, sadly, named 'Clinton, because of the Supreme Court'.  Leaving aside the question of picking a party nominee on this uncareful logic, it seems obvious even to your average Democrat fifth-grader that electing a Democrat and not a Republican because of the SCOTUS makes sense for the same reason that it does for a Republican to vote for a Republican instead of a Democrat.

Having cleared that up, let's return again to the year 2000 and Gore and W. Bush and the infamous circumstances that occurred in Florida that year.  The myth that Ralph Nader is to blame for the outcome has been thoroughly refuted, but let's look closer at the numbers laid out by Jim Hightower in the oft-cited Salon piece from November 27, 2000 -- a full two weeks before Gore actually quit, on December 12.  Bold emphasis is mine.

Now it gets really ugly for the Gore campaign, for there are two other Florida constituencies that cost them more votes than Nader did. First, Democrats. Yes, Democrats! Nader only drew 24,000 Democrats to his cause, yet 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush. Hello. If Gore had taken even 1 percent of these Democrats from Bush, Nader’s votes wouldn’t have mattered. Second, liberals. Sheesh. Gore lost 191,000 self-described liberals to Bush, compared to less than 34,000 who voted for Nader. 

If the Supreme Court was such a vital part of the message to Democrats to elect Gore, why did over 300,000 registered Florida Democrats vote for Bush instead?  Did they miss the memo?  Did they defy the exhortations of thousands of their fellow Democrats, from Barbra Streisand on down?  Were they just, as so many people have delighted in saying about Florida Democrats in 2000, stupid?

What about those 191K who self-identify as 'liberal" Democrats?  What in the world was going on inside those people's brains?

I've not been able to track down -- in a decade of searching -- a single solitary response from the Blame Nader crowd, or anybody else for that matter, as to why these folks cast a ballot for Bush and not Gore.  I know they've never been appropriately held to account for Gore's defeat, while Nader's 90,000 or so votes always are.  Which begs the next question: how is it that Nader's votes are assumed to belong to Democrats, when more than triple that number of Ds can run off the reservation and vote Republican without consequence?  Whatever conclusions we might draw, one thing seems certain: "SCOTUS" was obviously not an important enough reason for them to vote for their own party's nominee, no matter what Barbra Streisand said.

(Sidebar: "SCOTUS" is a tenuous argument also because so many Justices have not turned out to be the "slam dunks" John Sununu, to use one example, predicted David Souter would be.  Hillary Clinton will likely appoint judges whom she believes most closely resemble her own mushy middle, corporate-styled centrism: Merrick Garland, Sri Srinivasan, Amy Klobuchar.  We're more likely to see those political types grow more conservative than liberal as the years pass.)

I suspect to the chagrin of Hillary supporters everywhere that history may be repeating itself in 2016.  It might be that the old and tired arguments to vote for the moderate Democrat against the freak-right fascist might carry even less weight than they have in elections past.  Let's establish clearly that a Trump presidency would be a disaster for all of us, irrespective of our class and/or privilege.

But it is still not a good enough reason for progressive Democrats -- who have been bullied and defrauded from start to finish in the just-completed primary -- to abandon their principles, pinch their noses, and avert disaster on behalf of others.  If Clinton is to win the Sanders bloc, she's going to have to do so without the standard guilt and shaming.  She and her supporters are going to have to come up with some more intelligent reasons for people to vote for her.

I don't see it happening, but they have a few final shots at it.  If they want to take them, that is.