The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance declares that the number of the counting shall be three (to zero) as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff looked at the Congressional seats the DCCC says it will target in 2018.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos exposes the craven hypocrisy of Texas Senator John Cornyn.  No, Sen. Cornyn, we did not overwhelm your offices because we are sore losers.

SocraticGadfly takes a look at a biennial Texas Legislature tradition — peddling seemingly unconstitutional bills. This year, silencing non-duopoly voters and other vote disenfranchisement is in the crosshairs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme heard Stephen Miller and Jason Chaffetz. Texas Republicans, like the Trump apparatchiks and GOP operatives in other legislative bodies, are going after voting rights with a vengeance.

Three years, eleventh months, and one more week just like the past three, writes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value posted a picture he took of diverse and excellent citizens of Houston protesting against Trump's travel ban. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Dos Centavos collects reactions from Democrats in the state Senate to SB4 (the sanctuary cities bill).

Bonddad reiterates that while Trump is not imploding, the resistance against his administration is vast and intense, the sort of things that wave elections in midterm years are made of.

jobsanger finds a Gallup poll that says the public believes that Trump has damaged the country's standing in the world.

Candidates for Lewisville city council and school board are busy filing for election, reports the Texan Journal.

And Texas Vox covers the debate over expanding West Texas' nuclear waste facilities.  Public hearings are scheduled this week in Hobbs, NM and Andrews, TX.

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The Austin American Statesman reports that US Cong. Joaquin Castro will make a decision about challenging Ted Cruz in eight weeks, and discloses that his brother Julián will not challenge Greg Abbott in 2018.

Free Press Houston is hosting a town hall forum this week on protecting marginalized communities during the Trump years.  (No political party recruiting, please.)

Cort McMurray's heart goes out to poor John Cornyn for having to deal with all those pesky constituents.

Grits for Breakfast is lately peeking at Washington DC through a palmed face.

The San Antonio Express News make the most persuasive case in favor of eliminating straight party ticket voting.

The Midland Reporter Telegram picks up the Fort Worth Star Telegram's report on Texas being #1 in wind power generation, but there are challenges looming.

Lone Star Ma calls on us to make contacting our elected officials part of a daily routine, and Texans Together offers some practical advice for doing so.

Therese Odell rounds up the anti-Trump Super Bowl highlights, and Equality Texas points out that both God (faith leaders from diverse religions) and Football (aka the NFL) are warning Texas not to discriminate over bathrooms.

The TSTA Blog explains how the Texas Senate's budget cuts funding for public schools.

Bakeyah Nelson implores Ben Carson to "first do no harm" at HUD.

Somervell County Salon remembers a time when the biggest concern about a grifter in the White House was Sarah Palin getting reimbursed by the RNC for a fancy bra.

And Pages of Victory resurrects an old 1940's classic, "Der Fuehrer's Face".

Sunday Funnies

Three years, eleven months, and one more week

Just. Like. This.

Every president gets humbled in office, but never as early or the way in which all of the defeats and bad news piled up Thursday for Donald Trump. Indeed, here's what took place on Trump's 21st day on the job:

• A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously refused to reinstate Trump's travel ban, which represented the administration's third-straight judicial setback over the executive order.
• Trump retreated on his team's previous refusal to recognize the "One China" policy (which maintains that the United States and other countries diplomatically recognize China and not Taiwan). "President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our 'one China' policy," per a White House readout from Trump's call with Xi.
• It turns out National Security Adviser Michael Flynn DID discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia the month before Trump took office, the Washington Post writes. "The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect."
• And House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) chastised Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway for urging Fox viewers to buy Ivanka Trump products. "[W]e request that you use authority Congress granted to you under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, as amended, to 'recommend to the head of the officer's or employer's agency that appropriate disciplinary action (such as reprimand, suspension, demotion, or dismissal) be brought against the officer or employee,'" Chaffetz and Democrat Elijah Cummings wrote to the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

They've also got the entire three-week play by play for you there.  And it didn't include a review of Conjob's "counseling" apology to Trump for violating federal laws (Colbert runs 'em down) by shilling for daughter Ivanka's fashion line, no longer available at Nordstrom's.  Unlike Boeing, Lockheed, the various auto manufacturers, and the media companies who've been raked over the coals by President Brand Manager, Nordstrom stock gained strongly after his Twitter tantrum.

Facing lawsuits galore on every executive order he has signed (I'm so old I remember when EOs would torment Republicans; like, a month ago), Trump experienced the highest expression of legal humiliation to date in having his Muslim ban rejected unanimously by a three-judge federal appellate panel yesterday.  The executive summary:

President Trump reacted to the 9th Circuit's ruling with this tweet: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" NBC's Pete Williams reports that the administration could very well make a quick appeal, perhaps to the U.S. Supreme Court, as early as today. More on the ruling from NBC News: "'Federal courts routinely review the constitutionality of — and even invalidate — actions taken by the executive to promote national security, and have done so even in times of conflict,' the judges wrote. The appeals court panel also dismissed Justice Department arguments that presidential decisions about immigration policy related to national security are unreviewable. 'There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,' the judges wrote."

Don't anticipate an already overworked eight-member SCOTUS to take up the question, which would leave the 9th Circuit's ruling intact.  And if Neil Gorsuch is telling the truth, expecting him to reinstate the ban as the new ninth Justice at some future point in time might be a stretch.  And that would be because Trump has vastly over-reached.  But could he be doing so deliberately?  The most interesting legal POV comes from MarketWatch's Brett Arends.

Contrary to what you may hear, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Thursday did not — repeat: did not — repudiate Trump’s legal right to suspend selective immigration. It just repudiated the bungling incompetence with which his administration made the case.

Yes, the three justices ruled: “Courts owe substantial deference to the immigration and national security policy determinations” of the president and Congress. That is “an uncontroversial principle that is well-grounded in our jurisprudence.” Indeed, as I pointed out earlier this week, it is well established that the president has very broad discretion to suspend immigration where he deems it necessary.

But that was not what the Trump administration claimed. Instead, they argued that they were actually above the law, the Constitution or legal review.

“The Government has taken the position that the President’s decisions about immigration policy, particularly when motivated by national security concerns, are unreviewable, even if those actions potentially contravene constitutional rights and protections,” the justices wrote with disbelief. They added: “There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy.”

You couldn’t make this up. Trump is now raging at the judges. But the blame for this fiasco lies entirely with him, and no one else.

This is so valuable to understand that I'm excerpting long.

All the administration had to tell the appeals court was that it had rational reasons for suspending immigration from the seven specific countries. Even with national security details “redacted,” the president’s lawyer could have laid out a simple case. Call it Iraq War II. “Intelligence sources say ... intelligence sources warn ... We have received intelligence ...” And so on. He could have kept it vague and menacing. He could have made it up. So long as he offered something. All the courts needed was an excuse.

Cue our old friend “Curveball.”

The justices were very unlikely to second-guess a president’s national security intelligence. They don’t consider that to be their job, they don’t want to do it, and they know how dangerous that could be — for the country and, indeed, for the standing of the courts.

Legal precedent strongly suggests that they’d support the president so long as he could reassure them he had a rational basis for his action.

But that’s not what Trump’s lawyer did.

When even John Yoo says you've fucked up the legal interpretation of the unitary executive, you've fucked up.  Badly.  Unless that was your plan all along.

Instead, August Flentje, a lawyer for the Trump administration, spent most of the hearing arguing the president’s actions were beyond review — and that individual states had no “legal standing” to challenge his executive order either. That was another stupid and fruitless argument, especially as Washington, the state in question, had shown clearly how it was affected.

Trump’s refusal to offer any kind of rational excuse for his immigration ban produced a double whammy. First, it insulted the judges by saying they had no right to review his actions. Second, it left him wide open to a First Amendment challenge. As the judges noted, there was plenty of Trump administration rhetoric suggesting this might be an unconstitutional ban on Muslims. Trump’s refusal to offer an alternative, rational explanation for the executive order was therefore a real problem.

Arends is offering some advice here to the Trump legal team for the future SCOTUS hearing.  But before he gets to reminding them that the law is on their side if they will only argue it correctly, he lays down the smack that they have already tilted the odds against themselves.  And also issues a warning for what may lie ahead if Trump is playing a long con, in hope or expectation, of a future terrorist attack on the US.

But maybe none of this should be a surprise.

What should we expect from a president whose special counselor hawks Trump family merchandise from the White House podium, and whose chief of staff recently heralded the arrival of our “new King”?

I’ve gone blue in the face over the past 20 months reminding MarketWatch readers that, no, Donald Trump was not a “successful businessman” or a “successful executive” in the traditional meanings of those terms. He is a serial bankrupt. He inherited a fortune from his dad, and made more only by scamming people, and sticking it to his bondholders and stockholders. Many of you would be rich, too, if you had his start, his greed, and his lack of ethics.

It would be genuinely interesting to see a true business leader take on the role of president. But Donald Trump is no Steve Jobs, no Henry Ford, no Bill Gates, no Walt Disney, no Warren Buffett. He is no value creator, no genius and no leader. He is a con artist, a huckster, the equivalent of a hawker of used cars or subprime derivatives. His skills are chutzpah, greed and a cynical, rat-like cunning.

The law still favors his ban on immigration. The question is going to be whether his administration makes a real legal argument when it goes, as it surely will, to the Supreme Court.

My original take was that Trump had merely bungled his case. But I could be wrong — very wrong.

I mean what I say about his “rat-like cunning.” Trump is a master manipulator. It is actually plausible that he screwed up this lawsuit deliberately. Trump and Trumpism thrive on conflict, paranoia and resentment. News that a bunch of “fancy-pants, elitist lawyers” at the 9th Circuit — in San Francisco, no less — has thwarted his immigration ban is great politics for him. It whips up his base into fury, and encourages them to look to him, even more, as their “protector” against the “elites.”

And, without wishing to be ghoulish, just imagine if an immigrant from one of these seven countries were by remarkable coincidence to cause a terrorist attack. Trump would look like a hero to his fans. His opponents would look terrible.

Would Trump do this deliberately? Would he play politics with people’s lives in order to consolidate his regime’s grip on power?

Well, that’s what Vladimir Putin did. And we know how much Trump admires Putin.

Nothing to add, except this: we're one terrorism event in this country removed from Cheetolini declaring martial law, curbing every expression of free speech, executing the most vigorous prosecution in the harshest ways of those who would practice their dissent and resistance (such as your humble reporter here and cartoonists like Ted Rall), and other Murphy's Law-like consequences of neofascism that ought to have already curled your hair.

Will some Republicans start resisting soon?  There aren't enough Democrats, as we have seen.

Like thieves in the night

Republicans came and stole your healthcare, confirming in the predictable party-line vote the most corrupt Trump lieutenant so far.

No reason to chew your fingernails, Sec. Price.  It's in the bag.

In a middle-of-the-night vote, the Senate confirmed Rep. Tom Price to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The 52 to 47 vote was along party lines.

Democrats opposed Price, a Republican from Georgia, because he is a key architect of undoing the Affordable Care Act and has advocated making major changes to Medicare. Their suspicions were deepened when it was revealed Price traded health care stocks while having oversight duties of the health care industry. Price has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Republicans view Price, an orthopedic surgeon, as a champion of free market principles who will guide the repeal and replace of Obamacare, the top legislative priority for President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans.

Insider trading is of course illegal when anyone does it, and we seem to have returned to the good old IOKIYAR days.  On the bright side, we're beginning to see some significant differences between the corporate Democrats and the Grab-Our-Pussy Party in the Senate.  And if you missed it, the response to Jill Stein's Tweet earlier this week gave the angriest of Donkeys *cough* Dan Savage *cough* another chance to back-kick her about that.

Somebody -- a whole lot of somebodies -- had the point whoosh right over their heads.  Maybe I'll get around to a separate blog post about it, but for now and especially if you'd like to disagree with her statement that "Democrats serve corporate interests", sound off in the comments.  Let's have that out.

Bad things have come in threes this week with Devos and Sessions and now Price.  We still have Rick Perry and few more turds in the pipeline.  Why, we even saw Trump's SCOTUS pick, "Fascism Forever" club founder and Noah/James Horwitz-doppelganger Neil Gorsuch, telegraphing some possible disputes with the president, specifically his Tweets.  I would say he's gaslighting us (read all of this link for the ongoing dynamics) so he can get confirmed.  Gorsuch needs 60 votes, or 8 Democrats, if Mitch McConnell doesn't decide to go nuclear.  I just don't trust the guy (any of them).  Let's note what Gorsuch said, via a Democratic senator behind closed doors, for the record anyway.

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch told a US senator Wednesday that President Donald Trump's tweets about the judiciary are "demoralizing" and "disheartening."

In a meeting with Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Gorsuch, who's largely been silent since Trump nominated him last week, took exception to Trump calling a federal judge in Seattle a "so-called judge" after blocking the President's travel ban.

"He said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening and he characterized them very specifically that way," Blumenthal said of Gorsuch. "I said they were more than disheartening and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are."

Ron Bonjean, who is leading communications for Gorsuch during the confirmation process, confirmed Gorsuch called Trump's tweet about the "so-called judge" "disheartening" and "demoralizing" in his conversation with Blumenthal. 

Words that will certainly have to be explained in greater detail in his confirmation hearing, and we can all see if he can sell his judicial independence as effectively as does the Executive Branch Chamber of Commerce.  That brings us to more of yet another lousy week for President Big Orange Baby, with his Tweets about his now-slapped-down Muslim ban and Kellyanne Conjob's violating federal law by pimping out Ivanka's clothing line after it was discontinued at Nordstrom's, and ... a few more things for the very next post.

Sessions confirmed

Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday as President Trump’s attorney general, capping a bitter and racially charged nomination battle that crested with the procedural silencing of a leading Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Mr. Sessions, an Alabama Republican, survived a near-party-line vote, 52 to 47, in the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Mr. Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation’s top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate.

Some people might dispute the party affiliation of Joe Lieberman Manchin, who was the only Democrat who voted for Sessions.  On the other hand ...

to the "But Bernie isn't a Dem!" Democrats:

Joe Manchin is. Own it.

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) February 9, 2017

That kind of Democrat -- Manchin, Gilberto Hinojosa, James Cargas, etc. -- is precisely the reason why I'm no longer a Democrat.

DeVos confirmed, Warren silenced, more scattershots

Like I said before, skip a blogging day and it's hell catching up.

-- Mike Pence broke the tie, and thus we now have a Dominionist who knows nothing about, indeed is opposed on religious grounds to public education, in charge of public education.

How long do you think it will be before your children and grandchildren are kneeling in prayer following the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance?  How long before intelligent design is taught in favor of evolution, like it is in church schools?  How long before -- never mind.  The answer is that it won't be long at all.

The whole reason private education came into existence is so that religious dogma wouldn't be forced on kids at taxpayers' expense.  Conservatives have evolved to the point that the answer is to strangle public schools.

-- Elizabeth Warren was silenced by Senate Republicans because she dared read a letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Jeff Sessions.  During Black History Month.  The power play is backfiring on Mitch McConnell.

Republicans can't help being racists; it just comes so naturally to them.  Of course it might be sexist instead.  My guess is it's both.

-- Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz had a debate on healthcare.  Generally speaking, both men lost.  Cruz because of his typical smarmy, condescending style and lack of facts; Sanders because ... well, he's always talking at us and not with us.  Cruz can at least feign empathy.  Update: Awkwardly.

Sanders doesn't really believe in the ACA; he's a proponent of 'Medicare for All' or universal single payer.  But he has to play this goddamned Democrat game of supporting some half-measure that until recently had Obama's name on it.  Because he doesn't want to rile up the Shrillarians too much.

This is the dilemma when you're trying to foment a revolution inside the castle walls.  And also why that never succeeds.

-- Trump offered to ruin an unnamed (but identified by gender) Texas state senator who has introduced legislation eliminating asset forfeiture to law enforcement by suspected criminals.  If you rule out Konni Burton on the basis of "him", they're talking about one Democrat -- Chuy Hinojosa -- or Bob Hall or Don Huffines, members of the Senate's Tea Party caucus.

Grits was first to see the irony.

Meanwhile, conservative groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Justice, and others have been pushing forfeiture reform hard for the last few years. So this is an area where Trumpian authoritarianism finds itself at odds with traditional, property-rights rooted conservatism and small-government distrust of government power.  There are dozens such fracture points emerging where Trumpism  diverges from traditional conservatism, so this issue arises as part of a larger debate: Will there continue to be a place for small-government conservatism in the Trumpian era? D.C. Republicans probably cannot resist his Big-Government siren song. But here in Texas, perhaps those values are a little more deeply rooted. Burton's SB 380 would be a good opportunity to express them. 

Update: The Statesman feels confident in naming Bob Hall as the object of Trump's scorn.

Let's hope some of our corporate media Capitol bureau contingent can formulate a pointed question to ask a few senators.  Something like: "Yes or no on SB 380?"

-- Two steps for free and fair elections; one backward ...

The same day that Mike Pence became the first Vice President in American history to be summoned to break a 50-50 split in a Cabinet confirmation vote for Betsy DeVos, members of the Committee on House Administration advanced two pieces of legislation to repeal laws that safeguard the integrity of elections.

The committee, chaired by Mississippi House Rep Gregg Harper, voted 6-3 along (shocker!) partisan lines to advance the Election Assistance Commission Termination Act, ThinkProgress reported. This act of termination would kill off the bipartisan commission that was formed in the wake of the debacle of the 2000 election to ensure that states were making it easier and more transparent to vote. It also oversees voting machines to make sure they don’t get hacked. According to its government website, the commission “is charged with supporting state and local election officials in their efforts to ensure accessible, accurate and secure elections.”

The commission was designed as oversight for the implementation and compliance with the Help America Vote Act. It’s worth noting that Republicans held the White House, the House and 50-50 control with the VP’s tie-breaker in the Senate when HAVA was signed into law in October, 2002. This goes to show how radically far the GOP has declined in its moral compass in the last 15 years. Republicans are voting to repeal legislation that their party wrote and enacted the last time they held unified control of the federal government.

... and one forward.

In blunt and highly critical language, a federal judge on Wednesday blasted the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and issued a ruling that lays the groundwork for removing the primary obstacle to a serious independent running for president in 2020.

In her 28-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said that, in rejecting a complaint by Level the Playing Field, a group seeking to change the rules for participation in the final fall debates, the FEC had acted in a manner that was “contrary to law.”

The FEC was the defendant in the case, but the real villain in the story is the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private organization that is dominated by Democratic and Republican party stalwarts.

You might recall that a different federal judge ruled against the minor parties trying to crack open the debates last August, which sealed our crappy duopolist fate (again).

The CPD’s rules – mainly the 15% threshold late in the election cycle for admission — have effectively excluded independent candidates from participating in the September and October debates, thus denying them the chance to become president — even though polls clearly show Americans want that choice.

Fix it or the plaintiffs will be able to fix it themselves, wrote the judge.

In one important passage of her opinion, the judge referred to evidence submitted by the plaintiffs and wrote:

“Given these expert analyses, the evidence that since 1988 only one non-major-party candidate, Ross Perot, has participated in the debates, and only then at the request of the two major parties, and the evidence that the CPD’s chairmen and directors are actively invested in the partisan political process through large donations, the court is perplexed that the full extent of the FEC’s analysis consisted of no more than a footnote stating that even if the fifteen percent threshold excluded third-party candidates, this still did not indicate that it was not an objective criterion. This begs the question: if under these facts the FEC does not consider the fifteen percent polling criterion to be subjective, what would be?”

The judge concluded by ordering the FEC to “reconsider the evidence and allegations and issue a new decision consistent with this Opinion within 30 days.” Otherwise, she wrote, the plaintiffs “may bring…a civil action to remedy the violation involved in the original complaint.”

STOP and then GO, democracy!

-- Democrats in Congress are at least trying to remove Steve Bannon from the National Security Council seat he secured for himself.

While national security lawyers argue over whether Steve Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council is legal or not, members of Congress are pushing back to close whatever statutory loophole even might render legal what is clearly a violation of long-standing national security norms.

In one of last week’s most under-reported stories in the major press, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the US Senate this past week, each designed to clarify the composition of the NSC and Principals Committee, ensure Senate oversight over appointments, and, in the case of HR 804, “To Protect the National Security Council from Political Interference.” As of today, the House bill has 85 co-sponsors.

No GOP signatories yet, and Trump could veto it if it came down to that, but this is more meaningful than another protest or petition or phone call to a full voice mailbox.  Cruz and Johns Cornyn and Culberson ought to be able to go along with the premise that a Democrat could do this in four years, which is why they should act now.

Send an email to your Congress critter through the contact form on their website (the best).

The Super Bowl Hangover Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance passes along the press release from Melissa McCarthy Sean Spicer that the Atlanta Falcons won the popular vote in last night's most Super of Bowls, and in other news, Jill Stein is accepting donations for a recount of just the Patriots' passes.  Only one, actually.

Here's your blog post roundup!

Off the Kuff interviewed Jose Garza, counsel for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC), about the ongoing voter ID litigation.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos reports on her street activism in Houston. Together We Are a Formidable Force. #Resistance #Indivisible #DailyAction.

Socratic Gadfly takes note of two pieces of transgender news this week and connects some snarky dotes to the bathroom bill sponsored by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst.

With Trump's Nixon impersonation just a week old, and more cabinet nominee confirmation votes coming this week, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs hopes the Democrats have a Patriot-like comeback performance in them.

Mindful of the key role in the Trump White House played by white supremacist Steve Bannon, Neil at All People Have Value visited the Houston Holocaust Museum. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

In the immediate wake of Trump's 'travel' ban, Texas Leftist posted about the outpouring of support for Texas Muslims at the Capitol in Austin on their biennial lobby day.

Ted at jobsanger sees the lawsuits against the Trump administration start to pile up.

MOMocrats documented what happened on the eleventh day of Trump.

Texas Vox has a new director of Public Citizen's Texas office: Adrian Shelley, the former head of Air Alliance Houston.

Two city officials in Lewisville, a city councilman and a 911 dispatcher, passed away within the week, reports the Texan Journal.

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More stories from around Texas!

R. G. Ratcliffe at Burkablog is rounding up his own collection of Lone Star news and stories every Friday, and his latest covers the border wall, NAFTA, the changing faces of Dallas minority leadership, and media fatigue.

Julie Chang at the Austin American Statesman wonders why so many Texas teachers accused of improper relationships with students are never charged.

Eva Moravec, writing for the Houston Chronicle, takes note that some Texas police are failing to follow the law that requires them to report shooting incidents.

Alex Samuels at the Texas Tribune sees that with Trump on their side, Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott are bullish on term limits.

Elise Hu shares the story of her father and his journey to the United States as a refugee.

Grits for Breakfast calls on the Lege to raise the age for adult crimes from 17 to 18.

Jay Blazek Crossley criticizes the Houston-Galveston Area Council for lack of diversity on its transportation policy committee.

The TSTA Blog bemoans Dan Patrick's dishonesty on vouchers, and Scott Braddock reports that Patrick and Steven Hotze are still besties.

Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer thinks the left in Texas need their own Tea Party, and DBC Green blog says that kind of revolution won't go nearly far enough.

Paradise in Hell delivers the National Prayer Breakfast speech Trump meant to give, and Somervell County Salon collected some of the bigger laughs the new administration earned over the past seven days.

And Dave Zirin, writing for both The Nation and The Rag Blog, covered the partying and the protesting at the Super Bowl.

Sunday Funnies, of Bans and Bannons

Starring Conway as Goebbels

The trouble with documenting the atrocities in TrumpWorld is that if you skip a day, he's already on to the next one.   Same goes for his propagandists.

#BowlingGreenMassacre trended all day and into the night, spawning a "We Are All Bowling Green" vigil for victims and a spoof website, courtesy the ACLU (which had previously shattered donation records).  Bowling Green Massacre survivors are now marking themselves safe on Facebook.  So with all of that snark in full bloom, it's no longer timely -- and maybe a little Godwin-esque -- to point out the disturbing similarities between Kellyanne Conjob and the original Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels ...

... but we may not have to wait long for her next alternate fact.  Tomorrow is Sunday, the a.m. talking heads can't stop putting her on despite her whining about not getting any sleep for months, and even with some big football game happening, she -- or some other needy attention-grabber in the two-week-old administration -- isn't going to be able to tolerate having the spotlight shining elsewhere besides on them.

Hat tip to a fatigued Field Negro, who worked in a mention of Trump's doctor and his reference to President Hair Furor's male baldness pills, and their being implicated in sexual dysfunction and depression, along with Howard Stern's worry that Trump is, you know, appearing mentally unstable.

So if we can get him out of office before Steve Bannon convinces him to start a war with China ...

"Fascism Forever"

This is going to confuse those Republicans who've insisted that fascism is leftist.

Maybe now it's OK to start calling this Fascism? https://t.co/IioG1NjXCE via @MailOnline

— Elliott Lusztig (@ezlusztig) February 2, 2017

Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch founded and led a student group called the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ at his elite high school, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The club was set up to rally against the ‘left-wing tendencies’ of his professors while attending a Jesuit all-boys preparatory high school near Washington D.C.

Although it's explainable as youthful impetuousness, this may help pull Senate Democrats out of whatever quagmire it is that they've gotten themselves into.

Gorsuch founded the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ during his freshman year at Georgetown Preparatory, a now-$30,000-a-year private Jesuit school that is one of the most selective in the United States.

[...]

The yearbook described the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ as an anti-faculty student group that battled against the 'liberal' views of the school administration.

‘In political circles, our tireless President Gorsuch’s “Fascism Forever Club” happily jerked its knees against the increasingly “left-wing” tendencies of the faculty,’ said the yearbook.

The sort of undergraduate objection long in the running.  Shades of Ted Cruz, in fact.  But it looks the same when you hold it up to a mirror, too.  Why, I'm so old I remember when a wee neoliberal attending Brandeis University couldn't abide living in the Democratic People's Republic of Boston, and had to scurry back home to Texas so that he could wear his cowboy boots to class without being laughed at.  (Cringing duopolists on both sides of the aisle, as we know, are a-skeered uh soshulism.)

Alas, and paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the Democrats you have, not the Democrats you want or might wish to have at a later time.  So the battle to confirm or reject GorsuchaScalia is joined.  Let's see if something interesting happens.

Update: Can the Senate Dems successfully filibuster the fascist club founder?  Magic 8-Ball says "better not tell you now".

These nominees and this process, tho...

-- I blogged about SCOTUS potentials this time last week, and except for Trump's "Apprentice"-like charade, there's nothing new to report.  Except for this.

"The reality is that to the best of my knowledge (Judge Thomas Hardiman) never left the state of Pennsylvania," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday night after the announcement. "He never was in DC, nor did he ever leave the commonwealth."

The Trump administration was taking extraordinary measures to build suspense and keep the final selection for its Supreme Court nominee under wraps for as close to the announcement as possible. Hardiman and Neil Gorsuch, both federal appellate judges, were the established favorites.

[...]

White House sources acknowledged Tuesday night they left the impression with reporters that he was coming to Washington. Hardiman appeared to play along. One source said Hardiman was given the sense that there could be a spot for him should another vacancy open up.

Sources inside the White House and close to Hardiman said earlier Tuesday that Hardiman was asked to come to Washington. Other news outlets reported before the announcement that Hardiman was going to be at the White House event, though CNN was never told that was the intent.

After he was seen leaving his Pittsburgh home, a CNN producer last saw Hardiman again at a highway gas station more than 100 miles east of Pittsburgh in the direction of Washington.

But earlier in the day, sources told CNN that both finalists were being brought to Washington ahead of Tuesday's White House announcement.

One source said that Gorsuch was told it was likely him. Those close to the process warned that until it was announced, Trump could change his mind.

"He likes a contest," one person close to the process said of Trump.

Two packets of briefing materials were being prepared to give senators Tuesday night: Gorsuch and Hardiman. But one person said the "Gorsuch packet" was full and complete, while Hardiman's was little more than biographical.

One person close to the process said Trump doesn't view runner-up as a bad thing. "There will be other openings on the court, so the person not picked will be runner-up," this person said.

I didn't ride along with the farce by watching the teevee, and Tweeted once just a few minutes prior to the announcement.  Homie ain't gonna play like that in the future, either.

-- I'll just keep looking ahead, now with the latest on the Treasury nominee's foreign money...

Senate Democrats are raising questions about whether Steve Mnuchin, President Donald Trump's treasury secretary nominee, deliberately misled lawmakers at his confirmation hearing. The concerns center on the extent of foreign investment in a series of finance entities Mnuchin helped manage, including one based offshore in the Cayman Islands ...

The focus has trained on a series of finance entities, all offshoots of the hedge fund run by Mnuchin up until he was selected as Trump's pick to be the country's economic point person.

Asked specifically about the investment makeup of the offshore entity during his hearing, Mnuchin repeatedly said it was created to provide opportunities for pension funds and non-profits to invest. There were also "a small number of foreign investors," Mnuchin told lawmakers.

But the offshore entity and a series of other finance vehicles, some of which weren't originally disclosed by Mnuchin during the financial disclosure process, hold gross assets of more than $240 million, according to an SEC filing reviewed by CNN. Significant percentages of each were held by foreign investors, according to the filing, and one was 100 percent owned by foreign investors.

Mnuchin's failure to initially disclose his relationship with the funds, along with his minimizing the scope of foreign investment in them during the hearing, has Democrats questioning whether it was part of a deliberate effort to steer them away.

"Misleading -- and that's the most charitable way you could say it," Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said of Mnuchin's explanation during an interview. "You walked away thinking that almost the only people were churches and pensions (investing in those entities.)"

There's also evidence that Mnuchin has lied to the Senate committee about one of his company's robo-signing on mortgage contracts.  Does perjury count as a crime in Trumpland?  Can Democrats stop -- or God forbid, delay -- this nominee?  How they stand up to Jeff Sessions is probably key.

-- How about Betsy DeVos and her plagiarism?

Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's Education Secretary nominee, appears to have lifted quotes in at least two instances in written answers submitted to the Senate committee tasked with approving her nomination.

After DeVos' confirmation hearing was limited to one round of questions by Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Democrats submitted hundreds of questions to the nominee. In response to a question from Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, on bullying of LGBT students, DeVos almost directly -- and uncited -- quoted Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of Obama's Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

Looks like Obama's team was good for something after all.

Trump education adviser Rob Goad described the plagiarism allegations as "character assassination."

"To level an accusation against her about these words included in responses to nearly 1,400 questions -- 139 alone from the ranking member -- is simply a desperate attempt to discredit Betsy DeVos, who will serve the Department of Education and our nation's children with distinction if confirmed," said Goad, who sits on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Sen. Patty Murray said Tuesday she is reviewing written answers the Michigan billionaire provided to the Senate that may include plagiarized material.

In another instance, DeVos' appears to have lifted language from the Department of Education website.

Do they still discipline kids for copying their homework from someone else?  How about you just report to the assistant principal's office, lady.  Oh wait ...

(DeVos) is also not the first Trump staffing pick to face plagiarism allegations since the President's election.

Conservative author Monica Crowley stepped away from her appointment to a senior communications role in Trump's then-incoming administration after CNN's KFile uncovered multiple instances of plagiarism.

Examples of plagiarism were found in her 2012 book, multiple columns for The Washington Times and her 2000 Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University. The former Fox New contributor was chosen to be the senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.

So it looks like somebody in DeVos' family is going to have to write larger checks to more Republican incumbents in order to keep this con going.

Brave new world!  How's everybody adjusting so far?  Got your shelter built and your fire going?  Ready to go scavenge for food?  Or would you rather keep whining about the Russians, James Comey, Bernie Sanders, and/or everybody who voted for Jill Stein?

You gonna march again this weekend?  Sign a petition to John Cornyn and Ted Cruz DEMANDING they vote against Sessions, or DeVos, or Tom Price or Scott Pruitt (here's your chance, Schumer) or any of the rest of these clowns?  Make a few phone calls to full voice mailboxes?

Maybe you could, I don't know, start thinking about how you might assist in organizing your precinct or something.  Just a suggestion.

The Gestapo in Denver

Not so secret a police state any longer.

Protesters at the Denver airport over the weekend were told by police that it was illegal to exercise “free speech without a permit.”

Denverite reported that over 200 people gathered at the Denver International Airport on Friday to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. In video posted to YouTube, Police Commander Tony Lopez can be seen advising demonstrators that they are in violation of the law.

“Stop doing anything that could be construed as free speech without a permit” ... Lopez warns in the video, which lacks context, that even carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution was prohibited in the airport.

“I cannot carry the Constitution without a permit?” one protester asks.

“Correct,” the officer replies.

Protestors are being handed these pieces of paper. Organizers tell crowd to take down signs, and not to sing or police will step in #KDVR pic.twitter.com/5HDM9RpmrV

— Emily Allen FOX31 (@EmilyAReports) January 29, 2017

So we can surmise that the Denver police department was just following the orders of the Denver city council.  Fortunately none of the protestors were arrested.  Yet.

Monday Night Massacre

Rock and roll.

Trump went the full Nixon last night, after acting AG Sally Yates had instructed DOJ employees not to enforce his Muslim ban earlier in the afternoon.  The FNG, also an Obama appointee like Yates, promises to compel the executive order.  And then Trump followed up by replacing the ICE director with an underling without explanation.

This may be a moment of clarity for Senate Democrats, but they are already waffling on whether to support or oppose Trump's to-be-named-later-today SCOTUS pick, now widely rumored as his sister's appeals court bench teammate, Tom Hardiman.

But the real news about the Muslim ban may lie elsewhere.

For all the pyrotechnics at the Justice Department today, this may be the bigger story. There's been confusion over the last three days over whether Republicans on Capitol Hill were briefed, consulted or involved in writing President Trump's now infamous immigration executive order. The White House has said they were. Republicans on the Hill said the first they heard of it was in news reports.

Now we have an explanation.

According to this story in Politico, the White House worked with senior staffers on the House Judiciary Committee to draft the order. But those staffers, who work ultimately for Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), didn't tell their bosses. In other words, they secretly collaborated with White House staff without informing the members of Congress they work for. Indeed, the administration went so far as to have them sign non-disclosure agreements swearing them to secrecy!

This is quite simply unheard of.

To be clear, the executive works with Congress all the time to craft legislation. That's the President working with members of Congress, though much of the actual work is delegated to staff. All normal. It's congressional staff working for the executive without telling the members of Congress they work for which is the big deal.

More from Josh Marshall there on What It All Means.  But for sure, this is what shaking up Washington looks like, and House Republicans suddenly need to assess how they are going to react to getting the end-around from President Cheeto Hitler.  I'll bet they won't just lie there and take it the way Democrats do.

If Trump is going to be reined in, it's going to be Team Pachyderm that does the dirty work.  If he keeps piling up constitutional crises this fast ... well, impeachment in six months at least sounds a little more plausible.  And at this pace, who can predict what happens today, tomorrow, the rest of this week, and next?  We're all going to have to do more than pop and eat corn, that much is certain.

Update: Not getting the word about the ban beforehand includes James Mattis, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, and GOP Sen. Bob Corker.  (Who knows, one of these men could possibly be a terrorist sympathizer.)

At least three top national security officials — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Rex Tillerson, who is awaiting confirmation to lead the State Department — have told associates they were not aware of details of the directive until around the time Trump signed it. Leading intelligence officials were also left largely in the dark, according to U.S. officials.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said that despite White House assurances that congressional leaders were consulted, he learned about the order in the media.

[...]

Mattis, who stood next to Trump during Friday’s signing ceremony, is said to be particularly incensed. A senior U.S. official said Mattis, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, was aware of the general concept of Trump’s order but not the details. Tillerson has told the president’s political advisers that he was baffled over not being consulted on the substance of the order.

Hoo boy.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance has a lot of blogging to do if it's going to make any Super Bowl parties this weekend.  Here's the roundup of the best of the lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff did an interview with Jessica Shortall of Texas Competes, one of the many groups that is fighting against Dan Patrick's anti-LGBT bathroom bill.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos reports that, true to Trumpian fashion, Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz avoid their constituents, going as far as to eject peaceful visitors from offices, locking them out, and calling the police.

SocraticGadfly takes a look at recent discussion about implicit bias, especially implicit racial bias, and believes it is indeed a valid concept, but at the same time has issues with testing for it.

Frustration at the weakness of Democrats -- in particular, Senate Democrats confirming Trump's cabinet appointees -- is spreading and growing stronger, writes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value sent a letter to each of his Houston and Harris County elected Democrats -- from the school board on up -- asking them what role they will take in opposing Donald Trump.  Neil will be posting the replies at his blog as they are received. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

After a couple of months off, John Coby at Bay Area Houston gets back in the saddle with a couple of postings, one about the HCDP chair race and one about Trump.

Ted at jobsanger takes note of Trump's approval rating having gone underwater already.

The Lewisville Texan Journal would like to point out that a woman's place is in the House and the Senate.

Dos Centavos was at the rally asking Houston officials to overturn the 287(g) immigration policy. 

And Texas Leftist celebrates the return of a Houston radio station dedicated to classical music.

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

More news from across Texas!

Texas Monthly's Daily Post visits the two busiest airports in the state to look at how the immigration ban is going.

Additional 'peaceful protectors' are requested at tomorrow's Muslim Lobby Day at the Capitol, posts the Rag Blog.

UT and NFL football star Ricky Williams was harassed by police in Tyler, and the mayor there responded by offering his guest room the next time Williams visits, though Grits for Breakfast figures that offer would not be extended to other racially profiled black men.

Somervell County Salon begins her most recent Ruminations of the Easily Amused by noting US Judge Sam Sparks striking down the fetal burial law.

The Midland Reporter-Telegram had the story about the mosque in Victoria, a previous target of hate crimes, which burned to the ground over the weekend.

The Texas Observer covered two protests, one in south Austin at the Texas Parks and Wildlife headquarters, against commission member Kelcy Warren (the owner of Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline company) and in San Marcos, where students of Texas State have been repeatedly intimidated by the long history of racial prejudice in that town.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, former state representative Kent Grusendorf has moved on from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Austin's most influential conservative thinktank.

The Texas Tribune covered the DNC chair candidates' appearance at the Future Forum, held at Texas Southern University on Saturday.

DBC Green Blog went to hear Code Pink activists Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin as they swung through Texas.

Rice University's Urban Edge blog has the story on the Texas Historical Commission's designation of the Astrodome as a state landmark, providing the defense against those who would rather tear it down than preserve it.

And CultureMap Houston collected some of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations from this past weekend.

In the aftermath of Trump's Muslim ban

Kevin Drum has missed more often than he's made over the past year or so, but he strikes this one dead solid perfect.  Opening with an excerpt:

Harold Pollack on President Trump's immigration fiasco:

The President’s team had months to prepare this signature immigration initiative. And they produced...an amateurish, politically self-immolating effort that humiliated the country, provoked international retaliation, and failed to withstand the obvious federal court challenge on its very first day.

Given the despicable nature of this effort, I’m happy it has become a political fiasco. It also makes me wonder how the Trump administration will execute the basic functions of government. This astonishing failure reflects our new President’s contempt for the basic craft of government.

This sure seems to be the case. For the barely believable story of just how incompetent the whole exercise was, check out this CNN story. It will leave your jaw on the floor. And yet, there's also one tidbit that makes me wonder if the chaos attending the rollout was quite as unintended as we think:

Friday night, DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions applying to seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen — did not apply to people who with lawful permanent residence, generally referred to as green card holders.

The White House overruled that guidance overnight, according to officials familiar with the rollout. That order came from the President's inner circle, led by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Their decision held that, on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US.

The decision to apply the executive order to green card holders, including those in transit, is almost insane. Whatever else he is, Steve Bannon is a smart guy, and he had to know that this would produce turmoil at airports around the country and widespread condemnation from the press.

Why would he do this?

I'll answer that (first, with respect to Trump): In addition to being a racist, a misogynist, and a sexual fetishist, our new president has now revealed himself to be a sadist.  Update: This is not hyperbole, not exaggeration.  Sadist.

"It’s working out very nicely,” (Trump) said on Saturday afternoon as he signed his latest batch of executive actions. “You see it in the airports.”

Bannon, for his part, is both Neo-Nazi and nihilist.

Not today. #JFKTerminal4 #NoBanNoWall pic.twitter.com/uON20Jod3V

— NYCLU (@NYCLU) January 28, 2017

In cases like this, the smart money is usually on incompetence, not malice. But this looks more like deliberate malice to me. Bannon wanted turmoil and condemnation. He wanted this executive order to get as much publicity as possible. He wanted the ACLU involved. He thinks this will be a PR win.

Liberals think the same thing. All the protests, the court judgments, the press coverage: this is something that will make middle America understand just what Trump is really all about. And once they figure it out, they'll turn on him.

In other words, both sides think that maximum exposure is good for them. Liberals think middle America will be appalled at Trump's callousness. Bannon thinks middle America will be appalled that lefties and the elite media are taking the side of terrorists. After a week of skirmishes, this is finally a hill that both sides are willing to die for. Who's going to win?

This is indeed chaos theory as applied to governance.  While the media's attention was focused on the protests, Bannon was appointed to the National Security Council (along with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief of staff Reince Priebus), replacing the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

That is some kind of hubris.  I'd say we're now headed pell-mell toward both a civil war and a nuclear war -- remember, the North Koreans have been bragging about their new missile and restarting their reactor -- and the reaction from the Chinese seems to be "let's get it started".

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  There may not be many more in our future!

Sunday Alternative Funnies