Scattershooting the shitshows *with updates

-- I am just not going to spend much time following the Trump/Comey carnival from town to town.  If that's your thing, you have all you want to consume.  My plans are to get out and do something fun around town on Saturday and then take Mom out to lunch on Sunday, avoiding the teevee Talking Heads as stringently as possible.

-- It's that time of spring/early summer when the Texas Lege is on its worst behavior, and as the calendar deadline came and went last night, statehouse Republicans drew knives on each other and the Texas Senate's Education Committee snuck vouchers into the school finance bill and passed the bill out to the full floor.  Which means Joe Straus, et. al. is the last chance to kill them.

(T)he House has indicated that it opposes school choice but supports funding schools at a higher level than the Senate says the state’s tight budget can handle. In a bargaining move by the Senate to push school choice, a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and an issue supported by Gov. Greg Abbott, House members who oppose school choice at least have to consider the issue now.

Don't hold your breath.

-- A glimmer of good news: despite Harris County's best and most expensive efforts, a federal judge struck down their opposition to reforming bail bonding for the indigent, and the Sheriff's Office is moving quickly ahead on releasing the debtor's prison inmates.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal denied the county's motion to stay her order, leading to an expedited appeal by the county expected to be filed Friday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Rosenthal's order is set to go into effect on Monday. County officials are already planning to begin releasing inmates even as their lawyers fight to stop the order.

The judge ruled that the county's bail practices are unconstitutional, forcing poor people to stay in jail when people with money can walk free while awaiting trial on misdemeanors, allowing them to go on with the lives and jobs.

[...]

According to testimony at a lengthy injunction hearing earlier this year, many defendants opt to plead guilty rather than wait for their day in court on a minor offense.

Rosenthal weighed the request for a stay based on who faced the "greater harm" if she granted it: The 15 Criminal Court at Law judges and five hearing officers who asked for the delay or the inmates being held on bail rates they couldn't pay. She explained in her order Thursday that the misdemeanor defendants stuck in jail while awaiting trial would suffer greater harm than the county in implementing a new bail system [and also] found "that overwhelming credible evidence established that Harris County has a policy of routinely and systematically detaining indigent misdemeanor defendants before trial on secured money bail that the defendants clearly cannot pay because of their indigence, without procedural protections."

Update: The Fifth Circuit late yesterday put a stop to Judge Rosenthal's stay.

A federal appeals court granted Harris County a last-minute reprieve Friday in a contentious civil rights lawsuit, calling a temporary halt to a judge's order that would have altered the way cash bail is handled for hundreds of people jailed on misdemeanor charges.

In an order posted after the courthouse closed Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the request of the county's teams of lawyers to stop the order - set to take effect Monday - until the appeals court can further review the matter.

A three-judge panel of the court  notes the temporary halt to the order was issued "in light of the lack of time before the district court's injunction will take effect and in order to allow full consideration of the following motions and any responses thereto."

And the sheriff puts his plans on hold as well.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez had already been preparing paperwork for the expected release of about 80 indigent inmates locked up while awaiting trial on misdemeanors.

[...]

Gonzalez ... is among those who believes the bail system should be overhauled. He said about 100 inmates a day would have been affected by the new bail system.

"We are prepared to comply, allowing many inmates to return to their homes while their cases get resolved in court," he said Friday, before the ruling. "We need to make sure we keep peace in our community, but the system should be compassionate."

I suppose (once the lower court's order is confirmed, that is) the jails, city and county, will now have plenty of room for all the homeless people they will begin arresting today.  Unfortunately someone *update: nearly died of a drug overdose at the Wheeler encampment last night, which is all the motivation some people will need to accelerate their plan.  This is how it went down at City Hall a couple of weeks ago.  Leading homeless activist Shere Dore spoke with Fox 26's Isiah Carey earlier this week about the issue, but the report is not mentioned that I can find on his many social media outlets.  Unusual for such a relentless self-promoter.

Update: More from the scene yesterday; Sylvester Turner applies the full court press (including a billboard on I-45), and Burnell McCray's photographs document the lives being impacted.

-- It's worth re-pointing out the obvious inability of Clinton Democrats to recognize their own hypocrisy, even without demonstrating much in the way of cognitive dissonance.

The toons I have for Sunday are some of the wildest I have ever collected, by the way.  And most of them will never see the light of day at Blue outlets like the Beauty Shop or Ted's.  We no longer live in a world where the psychopathy of the Republicans can be condemned without acknowledging the absolute failure of the Democrats to stop them, electorally or in the use of their meager political power, and not just in Washington and elsewhere but in places like Austin.

With respect to the meme above, let's really get this clear: Trump stands as much chance of being impeached as Obama did.  To hear liberals repeat this ridiculous whine using the logic of the TeaBaggers is, to quote a president's Twitter feed, sad.  Trump is not only not going to be impeached; he's not even going to be investigated as long Mitch McConnell is in charge.

Senate Republicans are unified in rejecting calls for a special counsel to take over the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election, even as some take a critical tone against the president’s abrupt firing of FBI Director Jim Comey.

[...]

... Republicans, even those critical of President Trump for firing the FBI director while he was investigating ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, are not biting — at least not for now. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told a CNN reporter at least six Republicans privately support either a select committee or special counsel to look into the Russia claims, and it’s possible that more information could come out about Comey’s firing that would change their positions.

“Today we’ll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.

Several Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is leading its own probe into Russia, echoed McConnell, saying a special counsel at the Justice Department would get in the way of their investigation, which has been criticized for being understaffed and slow.

And it's not just that loyalty to party -- or your party's president -- over country, or to the rule of law, is the only thing that matters to Republicans; the Democrats are experiencing too much infighting to capitalize in 2018 to so much as put impeachment on the table.  This past-its-sell-date baloney is fed to them daily by the likes of Louise Mensch and Palmer Report and others.  Careless thinking is part and parcel of what appears to me as a general lack of understanding about how far they have driven -- and continue to drive -- the party off the rails.  As an example, I take frequent issue with the Observer (a Kushner family publication, but with several progressive writers who still get published), Naked Capitalism, and HA Goodman, a hyperbolic and excessive shill for his efforts in the style of local Donkey Egberto Willies.  (Sidebar snark: "So-and-so slams so-and-so on Rachel Maddow/Bill Maher" etc. is not riveting blogging, and that banality drives about 75-80% of Eg's content, but only if you can get past the constant pimping of his email list, radio shows, books, whatever other activism he's involved in that he can't otherwise monetize, and so on ad infinitum).

But when they're quoting the DNC's lawyer from legal briefs in the ongoing trial associated with Bernie Sander's contention that the party apparatus repeatedly defrauded his efforts to secure the nomination, which essentially denies that democracy has anything to do with being a Democrat ... somebody whose mind hasn't been clouded by neoliberalism maybe ought to shake those fuckheads by the shoulders.  And it ain't gonna be Tom Perez.

With nothing but a severely dysfunctional Democratic Party, the GOP is only going to get worse.

The day the world lost its mind

Or perhaps it was just the day that everybody in the United States seemed to lose their minds.  To hear the talking heads on teevee tell it, that is (my wife watches but I don't, so I got updates throughout the evening on yesterday's shitshow).

The day began with the reveal of James Comey's fatal error.  He's likely more than mildly nauseous this morning.  Bold is mine.

The FBI on Tuesday sent Congress a letter correcting Director James Comey’s testimony regarding the “hundreds and thousands” of emails he incorrectly claimed top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin forwarded to her husband Anthony Weiner.

“Director Comey spoke of hundreds and thousands of e-mails being forwarded from Ms. Abedin to Mr. Weiner’s laptop computer,” Gregory A. Brower, the assistant director for the bureau’s Office of Congressional Affairs, wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA). “Investigators ultimately determined that two e-mail chains containing classified information were manually forwarded to Mr. Weiner’s account.”

This completely stunned me.  Not just that there were only two emails, but that Comey was so completely wrong about the number of them, testifying under oath to his hideous mistake, which led to ... well, you know.

As we know, it got worse for him.

Comey testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Abedin made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of emails to Weiner “for him I think to print out” so Abedin could deliver the hard copies to Clinton.

ProPublica reported earlier Tuesday that piece of Comey’s testimony was inaccurate, and that the FBI had privately acknowledged the director’s misstatements but was still considering next steps.

“The FBI believes it is reasonable to conclude that most of the emails found on Mr. Weiner’s laptop computer related to the Clinton investigation occurred as a result of a backup of personal electronic devices,” Brower wrote in the letter to Grassley.

Epic fail.  Pantsed by his own people.  So while a few Hillbots immediately opened fire, as Gadfly has documented, we had to wait until the end of the day for Trump to wake up.

President Trump on Tuesday fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, abruptly terminating the top official leading a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s advisers colluded with the Russian government to steer the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The stunning development in Mr. Trump’s presidency raised the specter of political interference by a sitting president into an existing investigation by the nation’s leading law enforcement agency. It immediately ignited Democratic calls for a special counsel to lead the Russia inquiry.

So from there the reactions and spot analysis spiraled out of control.  While Democrats caterwauled about everything from Nixon to 'special prosecutor' -- the best idea coming from Texas Monthly's politics editor, RG Ratcliffe, suggesting two; one appointed by Obama and one by W. Bush -- Republicans clamored for Trey Gowdy to be named the FNG at FBI.  Update: Or maybe Rudy Giuliani.  Or Chris Christie.

This is my effort at documenting a few of the items that make the most -- or least -- sense to me; YMMV.

-- Trump has been on the verge of firing Comey for about a week; a remarkably well-kept secret with this administration.

Trump had grown angry with the Russia investigation — particularly Comey admitting in front of the Senate that the FBI was investigating his campaign — and that the FBI director wouldn't support his claims that President Barack Obama had tapped his phones in Trump Tower.

-- But wait; didn't Trump write in his termination letter to the director ...

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.

-- Yet there obviously is an ongoing investigation.

However, a recent court filing by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FBI in an ongoing FOIA lawsuit plainly indicates the FBI has an active investigation pertaining to Donald Trump’s actions related to actual or potential election-related hacking and espionage by Russia.

Two, it appears.  Or maybe just the one.

Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas as part of the ongoing probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new report.

The subpoenas to associates of former national security adviser Michael Flynn are seeking business records, CNN said Tuesday.

CNN confirmed with people familiar with the matter that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Va., issued the subpoenas in recent weeks.

The subpoenas are a significant escalation of the FBI’s broader investigation into possible ties between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The news of subpoenas comes on the same night President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

Jeff Sessions -- who recused himself from investigating Trump's Russian connections because he lied prevaricated under oath about having conversations with Russians -- will not be the one who appoints any special prosecutor.  That job falls to the new deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, who was confirmed with 94 votes in the Senate just a couple of weeks ago (and who helped shiv Comey).  Here's more about the man to watch from the NYT.

For the record again, the subterfuge IMHO does not lie in Russia's attempts to hack the election.  They tried; they did not succeed.  US elections are far too decentralized to be hacked by a single source; voter suppression is in fact a more impactful, concentrated, and successful effort.  Here's your proof of that.  But Trump's undisclosed tax returns probably hide a lot of Russian money over several years, especially if his son spilled the beans on that years ago.  That's where the real danger of having a president compromised by a nefarious foreign actor lies.

Let's stop here with a timeline of the events that have unspooled from early July -- an excellent resource -- surrounding Comey and his October 28 letter and everything since, as both a refresher and a tonic for your (or maybe just my) vertigo/dizziness/nausea, etc.  Let's also note that Comey becomes the third person fired by Trump (Preet Bharara and Sally Yates were ahead of him) who has lost their job in the midst of investigating Trump's Russia ties.

More, probably, later.

An open letter to Mayor Turner and the liberals on Houston City Council regarding the homeless ordinance

Time to ramp up the pressure a bit.

Feel free to use and send the text of my email below in time for today's city council session or write your own.  It was addressed to Mayor Turner and CMs Robinson, Edwards, Boykins, Cohen, Davis, Cisneros, Gallegos, Laster, and Green.  I do not believe any of the Republicans are redeemable on this issue, and won't waste my time contacting them.  The ten people above, the so-called liberals on Houston's council, could take the action I demand without any support from the conservative faction anyway.  It's in their hands.

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am aware that the city ordinance which criminalizes homeless encampment goes into effect this Friday, May 12.  At the time Council unanimously passed this ordinance a few weeks ago, I found myself stunned at the callous, inhumane action of the liberals, led by Mayor Turner, joining the worst of the conservatives in this vote.

I STRONGLY OPPOSE this ordinance. Government cuts to HUD and a lack of existing affordable housing in a Houston market once more on the speculative rise due to a strengthening oil economy leaves those most vulnerable at greatest risk of finding themselves on the street.  Additionally, the glaring, unreformed Harris County bail bond program that has created debtor's prisons of our jails must be resolved before this ordinance adds to a incarcerated population with little hope of being released for their victimless "crimes".

This ordinance is likely unconstitutional, and a court challenge is inevitable.  It is abjectly foolish, as Republicans in Austin and in Washington DC have repeatedly demonstrated, to be on the wrong side of the history of social justice.  Why you would wish to stand with them is frankly beyond my comprehension.

The ordinance criminalizes our city's homeless for merely trying to survive.  Houston will not be able to implement quick or long-term solutions, especially after the homeless coalition had announced that the plan to house 500 homeless by September will not be met.  This is the farthest thing from a holistic definition of "meaningful change", an Orwellian hashtag if ever there was one.

As a voter and taxpayer, I strongly urge YOU to postpone the enforcement date of May 12th until you and other stakeholders can move forward with a better plan.  You should respectfully reconsider your action and pause the implementation of this cruel ordinance until such time as you have have arranged a truly workable solution, and not just given lip service and hashtags to one.

Regards,

Perry Dorrell

P.S.  I found it extremely inappropriate for the Mayor to have visited the environmental rally at the end of last month and say to a volunteer there that "y'all are pimping the cause" of homelessness in Houston.  That warrants a retraction and an apology, and those of you who are Council members to whom this letter is addressed should be the first ones to demand it of the Mayor.

This meme speaks for me as well:

Update: In response, the mayor had his stooges in the media roll out "aggressive panhandling", "Meaningful Change Not Spare Change", and "drug users" (thanks, Constable Alan Rosen).  All of which is just more of the same shitty stigmatizing of the poor.

What would Jesus do, indeed.  Not only wouldn't He do that, he wouldn't find a middle man to handle charitable donations for the homeless who was also a registered sex offender.

Word from today's council hearing is that still nobody on council is listening or responding.  My email inbox can confirm the same.  The heat is just going to have to get hotter, I suppose.

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's lefty blog post roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance thinks lacking human decency should be considered a pre-existing condition.

Off the Kuff took a look at the already-crowded field vying to knock off Rep. John Culberson.

Easter Lemming recapped the disappointing Pasadena election, and the the Lewisville Texan Journal also has posted results for elections held there over the weekend.

SocraticGadfly snuck into FBI Director James Comey's Senate testimony hearing and found out the 10 real takeaways.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme noted that Texas Republicans are just as greedy and mean spirited as ever. Insurance industry over consumers and papers please for profiled people.

Dos Centavos saw Greg Abbott's signing of the anti-sanctuary legislation as an outlawing of brown skin.  And on Cinco de Mayo, John Coby at Bay Area Houston issued a call to arms (to the polls).

Texas Leftist decried the passage of Trumpcare by the US House, and Ted at jobsanger sees racism as the cause for the GOP abandoning their own plan.

Texas Vox advanced the state's solar energy conference to be held in Austin in June, as energy entrepreneurs throughout the state will convene and network.

On Star Wars Day (May the Fourth) the Empire struck back, observed PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value attended May Day protests in Houston that called for fair wages for all. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

The Rivard Report takes a look at the San Antonio mayor's election, where a runoff between incumbent Ivy Taylor and city council member Ron Nirenberg will determine the winner.

From KERA, allegations of voter fraud have delayed the election results of a city council seat in west Dallas, with a runoff likely.  And All Ablog Austin has the final poll numbers from the Central Texas counties of Travis, Williamson, Hays, and Bastrop.

Equality Texas has the call to action on some of the more hateful legislation on tap this week from the Lege, including HB 3859, a bill that would allow child welfare organizations, agencies, employees, and foster parents that contract with the state to discriminate against LGBTQ families and others when making foster care and adoption decisions.

Texas Watch marks the passage of the House version of the Blue Tarp Bill, with the Senate still to vote on its own, and Grits for Breakfast rounds up a few of the police accountability bills that are bottled up in the Lege.

Via the Texas Tribune and the Austin American Statesman, the Texas House passed two other noteworthy bills: eliminating the governor's right to appoint his donors to state posts, and doing away with the straight-party ticket voting button.

RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog documents the trend toward partisan local elections (which used to be much more non-partisan).

Texas has experienced an alarming spike in pedestrian deaths throughout the state, with drunk or distracted walking blamed as the cause, reports CultureMap Houston.

Somervell County Salon ruminates for the easily amused about the demise of net neutrality, and Pages of Victory excerpts from a recent article wondering why, in the face of such repeated and terrible Republican action, the Democrats keep losing to them.

Sunday Mildly Nauseous Funnies

On Star Wars Day, The Empire struck back

May the Fourth was with somebody but not those of us with pre-existing conditions.

After US House Republicans finally -- barely -- repealed Obamacare, they celebrated with a beer bust.  Hope they got a cut rate on their Bud Lite.  Maybe Keystone Light would have been cheaper, added a little more to the symbolism?

It's not over; the Senate (to hear them tell it) is basically planning on ripping the House bill up and starting over.  That might be good news, it might be bullshit.  Don't mistake Lindsey Graham for the last of the Jedi, despite his skepticism.

“Any bill that has been posted less than 24 hours, going to be debated three or four hours, not scored? Needs to be viewed with suspicion.”

Bernie Sanders thanked Trump for supporting Medicare for All -- something Texas Congressman and still lone 2018 US Senate candidate Beto O'Rouke has yet to express publicly, despite his recent fundraising emails declaring healthcare is a human right -- and promised to quote President Cheetolini on the floor of the upper chamber as the AHCA gets its sausage repacked into something perhaps more edible.

In Austin, The Empire struck back a day early, passing Arizona-style "papers please" legislation (SB4, the anti-sanctuary bill) despite the copious tears of internet sensation Gene Wu and others.  The most cogent analysis came from RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog, who stated simply that the Lone Star business lobby, unable to focus on more than one battle at a time, caved on immigrants rights in exchange for fighting what we still hope will be a winning one on the bathroom bill.

I don't agree, by the way, that the Texas House did the same.  Joe Straus telegraphed anti-sanctuary legislation early in this session,  and the electoral facts are that no Republican who voted against SB4 could be reasonably expected to withstand a primary challenge from his or her right in 2018, and that would produce a Balkanized lower chamber in 2019 looking much like a Senate led by Lav Lord Patrick, which is to say some more conservative Speaker than Straus.  This acknowledges another political reality: Texas Democrats will continue to lose just as hard as always.

There's a long court battle ahead (and it will begin right away) on immigrants rights, and Texas may come out less favorably at the end of it than did Arizona given the Fifth Circuit and Justice Gorsuch and all, but at least there's some precedent that gives hope.   Don't count on any help from Sith Apprentice Sessions at the DOJ.

The good news out of the Lege this week is limited: you probably won't have to get your car inspected any longer, and you might get to smoke a little weed if the doctor says you're sick enough.

So the Resistance/Rebellion needs more heroes, maybe younglings stepping up next year.  Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo anyway, parade or happy hour or no.

Starring Sylvester Turner as Stepin Fetchit

It is a very unfortunate thing to have to point out, especially coming from an old white guy speaking about a black man, a prominent Houston politician who grew up in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, who served that district with distinction in the state legislature (if not always to its best interests) and now serves as the fourth largest American city's mayor, a post he has desired for more than twenty years.

Nevertheless, truths are inconvenient, and this is one.  Turner is not the stereotypical character of Vaudeville and 1930's film fame but their careers share remarkable similarities.  Both men are -- were, in Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry's case -- just playing roles dictated by society's circumstances in exchange for money, power, and influence.  Turner in fact might be more accurately described of late as a House Negro or an Uncle Tom, although he is in full command of the house on Bagby and as such has considerably greater influence over the course of events.  But that leadership, more accurately his hypocrisy on the definition of 'progressive', an issue longtime readers know chafes the hell out of me, is causing a little trouble in Bayou City, and it starts with an 'O' and it sorta rhymes with "homeless".  There's also a 'p' for 'panhandling', the most harsh and dehumanizing label that can be applied to the least among us in this regard, but we'll circle back to that in a moment.

Before addressing the ordinance that criminalized homelessness in Houston, advanced by Turner and one of the most conservative members of Council -- I teased it at the top of this post last week -- let's note what has happened since then: attorneys Eric Dick and Randall Kallinen have filed suit against the city on behalf of Phillip Paul Bryant, whose complaint is that the ordinance violates the expression of his religious beliefs.  And Mayor Turner made an appearance at the "Food Not Bombs" weekly feeding of homeless persons at their downtown location last Sunday evening spoke at Houston's rally for the climate at the end of April where he was confronted by a Food Not Bombs volunteer and allegedly retorted: "y'all are parading and pimping the cause" of caring for the homeless.

The mayor's press office, contacted for a response about this phrase, neither confirmed or denied that Turner used those words as of post time.  They did start the pushback early, after I scratched on several members of the mayor's staff for a response on the record.  (Turner was in Philadelphia yesterday for meetings; if his office responds regarding the comment specifically and not with more spin, I'll update here or post fresh.)

It's hard for me to understand why the mayor and all the Democrats on Council would join the Republicans in making poverty a crime -- who is the victim of this crime? -- but some Democrats are scared of panhandlers, so there is obviously that.  Public sentiment runs strongly against homeless congregants, at least according to my neighbors on Next Door, so there's that as well.  Seems to be little question that cracking down on poor people is popular.

But it's more difficult for me to get to the mayor's mindset on this 'pimping the cause', because ... what does anyone have to gain by feeding the homeless that corresponds with the definition of the word 'pimping'?  Does Turner believe there's money, or Doorknob forbid, sexual favors to be had in organizing to share food with poor folks?  Doubtful he believes this.

Let's give our mayor the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is not a full-blown sociopath or psychopath in regard to these continuing efforts to drive the homeless out of town.  His ordinance makes no provisions for where the folks being shoved out from under the overpasses might go; so far, just some friendly chats with non-profits about maybe stepping up their game a bit.  And hey, that's working; he claims two or three people he's gotten off the streets in the last week or so.  Just a few thousand to go.

Honestly, I feel he's just a little overly concerned about holding onto his job, particularly in a year when municipal elections are unlikely to be held, and he's following the lead and using the tactics of the neoliberals who were elected before him to do so.

Turner has paid some heavy dues -- no pun -- in saving the city's budget from the "awful" pension deal for policemen and firefighters that has long threatened Houston's financial future, a problem negotiated by his predecessors long ago which, like so many other municipal retirement obligations across the country, became unfunded liabilities due to the GOP's relentless efforts to drown government in the bathtub via tax cuts.  But Houston's dilemma was most certainly a steel can kicked down the road and smacked into his head by Bill White and Annise Parker, two more of the most conservative, corporate Democrats you can find anywhere.

Turner is smart enough to see a successful model for re-election, and in this town you can talk like a Democrat but you better act like a Republican.  He didn't just barely defeat Bill King because he was a progressive, after all.

And Turner has talked a good game while playing a hard and winning one: he browbeat the Lege into passing his reforms after threatening to lay off thousands of police and firemen, which made obstinate jackass Paul Bettencourt fold like a cheap card table.  Some pretty strong jiu-jitzu; stoking fear of increased crime rates goes straight to the GOP lizard brain.  Let's tip our hat to him on that.  But in the long run, HPD and HFD will go into retirement with much less security because nobody in charge has dared to suggest increasing taxes to pay for unfunded mandates, a reality for a long time now.  Democrats have gotten rolled on that one for decades, not just in Houston and not just public employees but teachers and those of us in the private sector as well.  (How's your 401K been doing over the past twenty or so years compared to your dad and granddad's pension?  A little too much wave in the gravy?  Too rough a ride on the old stock market roller coaster?  Ready to have Wall Street take over Social Security?)

Turner showed up at the Climate March on Saturday and made another speech emphasizing unity and inclusion.  He's fought hard for sanctuary for DREAMers and the undocumented against the Austin Republicans and the Trump Deportation SS, aka the Texas DPS.  He's big on holding the fort for the LGBT community, and they'll once again be strongly behind him whenever he next stands for re-election.  Those people are well-organized, after all, and the Latino bloc remains the so-called sleeping giant in electoral politics.

Not so much the homeless.  Hard to have a photo ID if you don't have an address.  Trying to figure out where your next meal might be coming from is a little more important than voting in the HISD recapture election wrapping up, after all.  And if we don't have any city elections this year ....well, there goes some accountability for Democrats to act like they care about working people, non-working people, and those less fortunate than that, and to be more concerned with little girls who live in the Heights who want their sidewalks fixed, or the moderate Republicans in River Oaks and Tanglewilde Tanglewood (thanks for this correction to DBC in the comments, also with his take) who despise seeing those dirty people holding signs begging for money at the intersection.  And who write fat checks to politicos.

It's probably not Turner being a sick dude with some deep animosity for the poverty-stricken; he just wants to stay in that nice office downtown, with the limo and the bodyguards and all the other trappings of power and influence.  And he needs a lot of corporate cash from the upper crust in H-Town -- the actual sociopaths, in other words -- to do so.  He's completely lost me, however, just like every other Democrat who conducts themselves in this fashion.  This losing touch with their roots and their base seems to be why Democrats in general are failing, but as former CD-7 candidate Jim Henley noted in a FB post about Obama cashing in post-presidency, there remain a lot of very dense Donkeys unable to see the problem.  So they make excuses, or go lower by playing the race card.

I expect this post will draw some of that vitriol as well.  I'm braced.

Sylvester Turner is not Stepin Fetchit, so I sure wish he would stop acting like him.

The May Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance participated in the Climate March this weekend and fully supports the cause of workers across the world on May Day.  ('Loyalty Day' can suck ass.)

Off the Kuff takes a very early look at potential Congressional races for 2018.

SocraticGadfly offers his reflections on the career and trial of "Our Man Downtown," John Wiley Price.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that Republican hatred of democracy and people marches on in Texas.

Democrats keep looking for excuses to kick people out from under their tent, and the evidence was everywhere PDiddie at Brains and Eggs looked over the past couple of weeks. There aren't enough Marches, Resistances, and Revolutions to overcome so much squabbling, backbiting, and infighting.  In similar vein, Captain Kroc at McBlogger wants to see the two factions battle it out.

jobsanger cites the Economic Policy Institute in detailing the damage Trump has already done to workers in his first 100 days.

MOMocrats writes about Trump's hundred days in terms of the end of Obama Nation. (This is NOT a play on words.)

The Lewisville Texan Journal posts an op-ed from The Mom of No about the low bar she set -- and barely cleared -- for Easter.

And Txsharon at Bluedaze tells a true fracking story in eight lines of poetry.

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

The publisher of the Austin Monitor, Michael Kanin, has been named the new publisher of the Texas Observer.  Congratulations!

Jonathan Tilove at First Reading wraps up his coverage of Alex Jones' child custody suit by noting the post-trial press conference where Jones berated the media, Trump-style.

DBC Green Blog was a little disappointed in the Climate March but has greater expectations for today's May Day rallies.

Scott Braddock reports on the school voucher astroturfing story.

Robert Rivard makes a case for changing the timing and frequency of San Antonio's elections.

Michael Li rounds up and summarizes the remaining disputes over the Texas Congressional map.

Therese Odell recoils in horror from the transcript of the AP interview with Trump.

Sandra Thompson follows the money that is opposed to bail reform.

Former Rep. Scott Hochberg explains why he is voting Yes on the HISD recapture referendum.

Somervell County Salon has a good laugh with Stephen Colbert about the red button on Trump's desk that summons a butler bringing a Coke.

Ty Clevenger at Lawflog sees the Booger (Robertson) County Mafia growing nervous again.

And Right Wing Watch documented US Rep. Randy Weber's tearful apology to God (sic) for the American sins of pregnancy termination, prayer in public schools, and marriage equality ... but not slavery, or the atrocities inflicted on First People, or even the excesses of corporate greed or war.  What a f'n guy.

Sunday 100 Days Funnies

April 29, 2010:

Democrats continue purge, retrench

A bit over two weeks ago -- during Holy Week, mind, you -- Houston City Council voted unanimously to criminalize homelessness in the city.  Every Democrat joined the conservatives: Mayor Turner, who is at the forefront of the effort, with a strong assist from Republican At-Large CM Mike Knox, but joined by Democrats (Mayor Pro-Tem) Ellen Cohen, ALs David Robinson and Amanda Edwards, and District members Dwight Boykins, Jerry Davis, Robert Gallegos, Mike Laster, and Larry Green.  That's nine alleged liberals who lined up to cast away the least among us.  Four days before Easter Sunday.

To say that action triggered my snowflakes is understating the case.

Since then I've written, edited, re-written, and re-edited my post about it at least a half dozen times.  It's still not ready for me to publish, and the two council meetings since -- one where Houston's strongest advocate for the homeless suffered a seizure, and this past Wednesday's -- indicate no remorse on the part of the mayor or the so-called progressives who hold a majority on council.  I'm still deciding how hot I'm going to flame their asses.  For today, let's take a look at national Democrats behaving badly in similar ways.  It's been a bad couple of weeks for them.

You might recall it got started when Bernie Sanders was on Face The Nation last Sunday and pointed out, to the chagrin of the establishment, that the Democratic Party's current model is a failing one.  That brought rebuke from various quarters, and the leading attack was Sanders' endorsement of Heath Mello, a candidate for Omaha mayor who has espoused some anti-choice views while serving in the NE state legislature.

(A personal note here: my wife has both served on the board of Planned Parenthood when we lived in West Texas, and availed herself of their services on two separate occasions when we first moved to Houston.  I escorted her both times to the clinic's former location on Fannin, encountering the crosses jammed along the sidewalk and the gruesome photos attached to the fence.  We are about as pro-choice as pro-choice gets.  I do not and have never supported Democrats who aren't, or who think that choice is negotiable -- like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for example.)

When Clintonites declared Sanders' endorsement of Mello -- and his missing voice in favor of Georgia's 6th Congressional Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who happens to be in a runoff to replace HHS Sec. Tom Price against Republican Karen Handel, of Komen Foundation disrepute -- was some kind of compromise of Sanders' long and strong pro-choice record, or when they expanded the conflation to wonder why someone doesn't support the party platform in this regard ... then they just haven't been paying attention to Democrats over the years.  Here's Bill Scher of of the longtime website Liberal Oasis, via Real Clear Politics, to remind them.  My excerpt leaves out some background you might want, so read the whole thing.

Much scrambling ensued. Sanders belatedly threw his support to Ossoff. The liberal netroots activist site Daily Kos withdrew its endorsement of Mello. Mello started talking like he was pro-choice. DNC Chairman Tom Perez tried to defend the party’s endorsement while touting the party’s pro-choice platform. By (a week ago) Friday, he was celebrating Mello’s pivot: “I fundamentally disagree with Heath Mello’s personal beliefs about women’s reproductive health. It is a promising step that Mello now shares the Democratic Party’s position on women’s fundamental rights.” Perez then went further, with an ultimatum to every Democratic official and candidate: “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”

Shock you; I agree with Perez.  Let's hear Bernie out here, and then we'll go to the moneyshot.

First, Sanders revealed his priorities. He tried to characterize his endorsement as electoral realism, telling NPR, “You just can't exclude people who disagree with us on one issue” and the Washington Post, “If you are running in rural Mississippi, do you hold the same criteria as if you’re running in San Francisco?”

True enough. But Sanders doesn’t speak in terms of electoral realism when it comes to anything on his economic populist agenda, such as single-payer health care, free college and a $15 minimum wage. Anti-abortion votes didn’t disqualify Mello, but apparently Ossoff’s pledge to cut “wasteful spending” and his rejection of “Medicare for All” was, until Sanders was pressured, insufficiently progressive to merit endorsement. By putting his favored planks on a higher plane than abortion, Sanders sends a distressing signal to reproductive rights activists about what he is willing to trade away to accomplish his desired transformation of the Democratic Party.

So while the Nebraska Democratic party chair has slammed Perez for his purity demands, Bernie still belongs over there with the pragmatic Hillary and Barack on women's reproductive freedoms.  Red-flag warning: here comes the reality takedown, Donkeys.  Emphasis is mine.

On the other side of the coin, NARAL’s implication that the Democratic National Committee should snub all candidates who are not fully pro-choice also creates major complications. Why? Because Democrats already have people in office who oppose federal funding for abortions and late-term abortion rights, or who define themselves as personally opposed to abortion.

This faction includes several senators up for re-election next year and tenuously clinging to red state turf: Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Bob Casey (Pa.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.). Abandoning them when Democrats are desperately trying to retake control of the Senate would be political malpractice.

While these senators hold views that pro-choice activists deem antithetical to their objectives, their ascension paradoxically occurred in concert with the Democratic Party’s deepening commitment to abortion rights. Two of the four were elected to the Senate for the first time in 2012, when the Democratic convention was as vociferous about reproductive freedom as ever, and the platform was rewritten to explicitly support federal funding of abortions.

... The four red state Democrats simply expressed their opposition to the platform and won their states anyway, defeating far more socially conservative Republicans. Meanwhile, national party officials didn’t go out of their way to spotlight their “pro-life” candidates, which would have muddled their national message and hampered the base turnout needed to re-elect Barack Obama.

As linked above, both Clinton and Obama have said the right words but signaled to the anti-choice faction a willingness to bargain.  By contrast, those pro-birth Dems have actually voted proper.

Of those still in the Senate, Heitkamp and Casey have voted to protect funding for Planned Parenthood. Heitkamp helped filibuster a ban on abortions 20 weeks after conception. Casey, who, unlike the others, was in office at the beginning of Barack Obama’s first term, voted to confirm two Supreme Court justices expected to uphold Roe v. Wade. Surely the others would if given the opportunity. The same could not be said if Republicans snatched their seats.

And we'll find out in 2018, as most of these Blue Dogs are up for re-election.  Let's wrap this with Schur's pragmatic POV.

Abortion rights activists are getting the better of this bargain. Allowing a few marginally “pro-life” Democrats inside the party tent helps maximize Democratic numbers in the Senate without diluting the national party’s message. A zero-tolerance policy would only shrink Democratic numbers in the chamber, weakening the party’s ability to protect abortion rights and resist the rest of the Republican agenda.

Many progressive (sic) Democrats say they want a “50-state strategy,” without considering that party members in some states won’t want to run on every plank in the platform. The trick is to allow individual Democrats to quietly go their own way when state terrain demands it, so as not to suggest any sacrifice of principle by party leadership. There’s no upside in loudly bragging about a Democratic big tent on abortion, and unsettling base voters in the process. Nor is there any value in naming and shaming right-leaning candidates who aren’t trying to rewrite the national party platform.

If I was a Clinton Democrat, I'd feel a little chastened.  But I'm not.  And since I'm not a Sanders Democrat either, the various criticisms of his emphasis on economic populism to the occasional lack of verbal emphasis on women's rights -- again, check his voting record -- or the tired accusations that his politics are racist (Ta-Nehisi Coates has the best nuance for this question, over a year ago) aren't really my battles any more.  About the only reason why I'd like to see Bernie split off from the Democrats at this point is to hasten their crumbling into irrelevance.  That I can get behind, if still cautiously, because his new party wouldn't necessarily be mine.

That would have been enough for one vast Blue schism for the month (and this post), but then Obama decided he was going to give a speech to Wall Street bankers for $400,000.  About healthcare.  And some stupid fucking Democrats decided it was necessary for them to vigorously defend that.

No.  Just no.  Caity, take over.  This one is going to sting, Mules.  A lot.

Could you ask for a more perfect bookend to Obama’s blood-soaked neocon abortion of a presidency than his receiving $400,000 to give a speech at a health care conference organized by a Wall Street firm?

My God I hate every single thing about every single part of this. Let me type that out again in segments, so we can all really feel into it: 

Four hundred thousand dollars. For a former President of the United States. To give a speech. At a healthcare conference. Organized by a Wall Street firm.

Why are Wall Street firms organizing motherfucking healthcare conferences, one might understandably ask? And why are they hiring the man who just completed an eight-year war on progressive healthcare policy and a torrid love affair with Wall Street criminals? These are extremely reasonable questions that might be asked by anyone who is intelligent and emotionally masochistic enough to look straight at this thing, and the answer, of course, is America. That’s what America is now. The man who continued and expanded all of Bush’s most evil policies, created a failed state in Libya, exponentially expanded the civilian-slaughtering US drone program which Chomsky calls “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times” to unprecedented levels, facilitated the Orwellian expansion of the US surveillance state while prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, and used charm and public sympathy to evade the drastic environmental policy changes we’ll need to avert climate disaster and lull the progressive movement into a dead sleep for eight years now gets paid nearly half a million dollars an hour to continue bolstering the exploitative corporatist nightmare he’s dedicated his life to. [...]

This is your intervention, West Wing Democrats.

I can understand why pro-establishment liberals are defending this man; he stands for everything they stand for. If all you stand for is vapid tribalism and vanity politics and you are willing to sacrifice integrity along with economic and social justice and the lives of other people’s kids in corporatist wars overseas in order to feel like you’re on the right team, Obama is your man. But if you’re an actual, real progressive and not just a latte-sipping NPR listener with a sense of self-righteousness and a pro-choice bumper sticker, you’ve got no business regarding Obama with anything but disgust.

I mean, it’s wrong, but I also get it. The sympathy we’re tempted to feel for that child-killing corporate crony is one of the very few problems that we actually can blame mostly on Republicans. They spent eight years hammering the guy, but they couldn’t criticize any of his actual evil policies because they were all policies that Republicans support too, from warmongering to bolstering the Walmart economy. So they had to make up the most ridiculous bullshit we’d ever heard, which you couldn’t just stand around listening to without screaming and disputing. They couldn’t attack his Orwellian surveillance programs, so they said he’s a Muslim. They couldn’t attack his eat-the-poor neoliberalism, so they said he’s a Kenyan. They couldn’t attack the unforgivable bloodbaths he was inflicting on other countries, so they said he’s a socialist (Ha! Remember that one?). So by attacking these moronic right-wing narratives, we often wound up tacitly taking his side, which fostered sympathy.

I confess: even when I abandoned Obama in 2009 for not supporting the public option, I still felt obligated to spend years fighting back for him against the lies and smears and racism from conservatives and Republicans, battles he would not fight for himself.  I called him weak then, but now I see that it wasn't weakness.  Being a corporatist tool is what he was all along. 

If you needed more evidence that establishment Democrats would rather keep their heads in the sand about their 2016 failures, here you go.

Okay.  If you're still reading, Caitlyn says it all better anyway, so go grit your teeth at her.  I'll have more on the local version of these atrocious neoliberals serving us on America's fourth largest city council soon, and if you think I'm pissed off now...

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance Marched for Science in celebration of Earth Day this past weekend. Here's the lefty blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff analyzed the Texas Lyceum poll of attitudes towards Trump and 2018 races.

Easter Lemming remarks on the great Houston Chronicle endorsement for Pat Van Houte for Pasadena mayor and tells you a bit about city election political funding.

SocraticGadfly writes about — with photos — Earth Day 2017 and climate change reminding readers that time is running short, and that a carbon tax, a strong carbon tax, must be the baseline of any solution.

Back a week early from his fishing trip, CouldbeTrue at South Texas Chisme draws a bead on the TXGOP letting the lobbyists roam free range in the Lege.

Texas Leftist comments on the "cracked and packed" gerrymander of Texas House redistricting schemes that were struck down again by the courts.

Ted at jobsanger, like too many other devoted Clinton supporters, keeps driving the wedge deeper between that faction in the Democratic Party and the Sanders coalition.  Presenting the opposite point of view, the Houston Communist Party watched Bernie Sanders describe how his 2018 strategy for Democrats should terrify Trump ... but is likely to enrage Blue core constituencies.  And following on that, Ally Boguhn at Rewire wants to know why the DNC is supporting an anti-choice Democrat.

The popular political drama from the last decade The West Wing turns out to be a lousy model for the Democratic Party, observes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Txsharon at Bluedaze wonders aloud how far Apache Corp.'s harassment and intimidation in Toyahvale (near Balmorhea) will go.  And Texas Vox reports that the EPA will hold a public hearing via teleconference today.  Let them know how Trump's war on regulations affect real people.

The Lewisville Texan Journal has city council and school board races on its ballot and early voting for the May 6 election begins this morning.  That's true across Texas for your local elections, too, and don't forget: you still need your photo ID, or be prepared to sign an affidavit attesting as to why you don't have one.

While on vacation in his hometown of Cincinnati, Neil at All People Have Value found the Grim Reaper supporting Trump at the March for Science in that city ... and Abe Lincoln speechless.  APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More Texas news and blog posts!

As we commemorated the 181st anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto this past weekend, the Rivard Report has two articles  about the recently-revealed plans to restore Alamo Plaza, one from the historic preservation view, and one looking forward to connecting the plan with the goal of having a vibrant public space.

Even with Greg Abbott's support, the "bathroom bill" still faces an uphill battle in the Texas House, writes Peggy Fikac at the San Antonio Express News.

Better Texas Blog looks favorably on school finance bill HB21, and the Houston Press notes the TXSBOE's softening of creationist language in the science text standard.

Texas Watch describes HB 1774 and SB10 as the "Blue Tarp" bills, reducing incentives for home insurers to pay claims in full and on time.

Somervell County Salon sees 'strike two' called on Sid Miller's Hogpocalypse bill, and and the TSTA Blog isn't having it with Dan Patrick's spin on the budget.

Michael Li compares the 2011 and 2013 statehouse maps in the wake of the Fifth Circuit ruling that the 2011 map was passed with discriminatory intent. 

Dan Solomon introduces us to Student Body Armor.

Paradise In Hell attended the Ted Cruz town hall (which Cruz did not).

Lone Star Ma presents an Earth Day-themed reading list, and DBC Green Blog asked the March for Science to please give his Earth Day back.

Lisa Gray eulogizes longtime Houston preservationist Bart Truxillo, and Save Buffalo Bayou has the details of Terry Hershey's memorial service.

And Purple City says goodbye and leaves us with a few of the ideas it didn't get to finish exploring.

Sunday Funnies