The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance isn't ready for the hottest part of summer as it brings you the roundup of the best of lefty Texas blogs from last week.

Off the Kuff looks at Travis County's design for a new kind of voting machine, one that will add security, ease of use, and an honest to goodness paper receipt.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson, Democrats running for office in Texas should make every Republican answer about Greg Abbott's "drive around" remark about explosive chemical storage in their neighborhoods: Abbott hemmed in by the GOP's ideology.

As the federal trial over Texas redistricting began, a series of GOP e-mails outlining their anti-Latino mapping strategy was revealed. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs observes that the ooutcome won't be known for months, and the decision won't affect the 2014 midterm elections, but the case for the Republicans looks very grim.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to know that the Texas Tribune exposes Dan Patrick as a liar and Leticia Van de Putte as a truth-teller.

Stace at Dos Centavos handed out a few bouquets and also had some brickbats for Texas and national leaders on immigration reform.

In the wake of Denton City Council's failure to ban fracking, TXsharon at BlueDaze kept up the pressure by remobilizing her community for the November ballot referendum.  She also noted the Russian connections between the frackers (and the anti-frackers).

The Lewisville Texan Journal posted his local roundup of news and views, starting with the worsening Texas drought.

Texas (more like Rick Perry, Greg Abbott and Republicans) did not accept the Medicaid expansion, leaving millions of Texas' poorest families without healthcare options. But as Texas Leftist discovered, there are over 800,000 Texans that qualify for Medicaid and CHIP under current policy and just don't know to sign up. Even as we fight for expansion, helping these families is something that can be done right now.

Egberto Willies attended Netroots Nation and had a few posts on some of the highlights, including Joe Biden's keynote speech.

Neil at All People of Value took the Wendy Davis campaign to task for having nothing on its website about immigration reform.

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

Joe the Pleb at Burnt Orange Report posted the rescheduling of Open Carry Texas' march through Houston's Fifth Ward for August 16th.  That's going to be almost as incendiary as concealed chemical storage caches.

Greg Abbott gave Socratic Gadfly one more reason not to go to the movies, and suggested everyone text the attorney general and GOP gubernatorial candidate a different F-word than "Freedom" to him.

Lone Star Q notes that only six Texas mayors have signed on to the national bipartisan coalition Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, and none from North Texas.

Bay Area Houston connected the dots between Greg Abbott and state representatives Gary Elkins and Vicki Truitt on payday lending "reform" in the Texas Lege.

Lone Star Ma is busy block-walking for Wendy.

The Texas Election Law Blog highlights a few issues with the Comptroller's webpage on the relative level of debt financing of counties, cities, school districts, and special law districts.

The Lunch Tray reminds us that summer camp is another opportunity for kids to get loaded up with junk food.

Grits for Breakfast wants to know why DPS is doing a full set of fingerprints for every drivers license renewal, even though the Lege has not authorized that.

And finally, the TPA congratulates Andrea Grimes on her new gig as "State of the Media" columnist for the Texas Observer.

Kos, Netroots Nation, and immigration

There were two interesting developments over the weekend at Netroots Nation, the annual confab of liberal Democrats (the fairest, if not the most accurate label) taking place this year in Detroit, Michigan.

The first one occurred last Thursday, when Joe Biden, one of the keynote speakers (Elizabeth Warren was the other) was heckled -- politely, but heckled nevertheless -- by a small group of pro-immigrant folks.  Egberto Willies was on the scene and filed this report.

It first started softly and progressively got louder. A group of attendees stood up in the front side of the room and started yelling ‘Stop deporting our families.’ The vice president did not get frazzled or perturbed.

“I respect your views and I share your views,” (Biden) said. “But let me take these issues one …” The hecklers continued for about a minute thereafter. They were then escorted out of the room peacefully.

“You should clap for those young people. …” (Biden) said. “Can you imagine the pain, the anxiety, coming home every day wondering whether or not your mother and father will still be there. Can you imagine. Can you imagine what it must feel like.”

After the interruption, (the vice president) resumed his speech.

The second was the reveal that the godfather of Netroots Nation and publisher of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, will boycott the convention next year when it is scheduled to be held in Phoenix, AZ.  For that, Dave Weigel at Slate.

After last night's annual Netroots Nation pub quiz—a raucous party with in-jokes that go back years, probably exemplified by the team that brought a giant Burmese flag to protest a 2011 decision in favor use of the name "Myanmar"—I remarked to a friend from the Daily Kos that it would be fun to team up next year. Breaking news: That wouldn't happen. "It's in Phoenix, and Markos is boycotting Arizona." Meaning that Markos Moulitsas, whose Daily Kos blog spun off this annual event in 2006, would neither show up nor bring his team to the next host city.

Before I could ask Moulitsas about the decision, he went and explained himself on the blog. He vehemently disagreed with the "inherently divisive" decision of a board he did not belong to. (The conference was called Yearly Kos in 2006 and 2007, before Moulitsas recommended a broadening re-brand.)

I doubt the conference would decide to host the event in, say, Apartheid South Africa, in order to "take the fight to the enemy". If you think that analogy is absurd, it is, but only in terms of degree, not intent in the county that has consistently elected Sheriff Joe Arpaio since 1992. But if you want a less bombastic analogy, look to labor: Netroots Nation refuses to hold events in cities without union hotel and conference facilities. They're not "taking the fight" to non-unionized locations because we, as a movement, stand for the right of people to organize and we don't reward those places that deny those rights. It's the right call. Also, would the conference have been happy to stay in Arizona had Gov. Jan Brewer signed the virulently anti-gay SB 1062 earlier this year? Hard to see that happening.

Latinos deserve that same kind of respect.

In the short history of blogging and online activism, this is a BFD. Moulitsas' blog was the Petri dish for countless writers and campaigners; Moulitsas himself was an accidental icon of the 2004-2008 period when the press woke up to the "netroots." 

Yeah, it's a BFD all right.  Both developments are one more clue to Democrats running for political office this cycle, especially in places like Texas, to either get it together with actual support of the plight of Latinos without papers in this country, or forget about getting elected.  Period, end of story.  Let's clarify this some more.

"Glenn Beck is to the left of Barack Obama on child immigrants," said Chris Newman, legal director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "Obama never filed a civil rights challenge against Arizona's law. He is an accomplice to the civil rights violation in Arizona."

You won't grow the left-leaning electorate, you will not get the vote of Latinos already registered and voting, never mind those that are not, if you cannot come correct on this issue.  You damn sure don't get to call yourself 'progressive'.  Wendy Davis has already made this mistake in her focus to draw the mythical crossover voter, allegedly conservative-leaning independents and moderate Republicans.  This strategy of running to the right in the general election is a demonstrated, proven failing one for a Texas Democrat running for governor.  Some day that lesson may be learned, but it does not appear as if 2014 is going to be the year.  And to be fair, many Democrats do get it, and that will be to their advantage.  Stace at Two Cents:

With immigration-related stuff hot in the news, it’s good to see nationally recognized Democratic leaders take a lead in actually offering services and shelter, rather than become immigration “experts” and offer nothing. Obviously, Texas’ own Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has done a great job. Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland has done a great job of taking on the Obama administration’s express deportation policies, while trying to protect the children from Murrieta-type hate in his own state. Now, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is offering up his state to child refugees. I hope we find more of these unafraid Dems, especially in Texas.

Lest you think the nativist screaming on this issue represents a majority of opinion, please note that in McAllen yesterday, the advocates for humane treatment of migrants outnumbered the xenophobes 60 to 3 in their rally/counter rally.  Be sure and look at all the pictures and read the signs.

The Minority Vote

Unless the next poll for the Texas Tribune (in the field this past week, polling for governor, US senator, Congress, and social issues such as abortion) shows a significant tightening of the gubernatorial contest, no amount of money or where it comes from or the amount of spin it gets from both directions will matter.  We can shift our attention to other statewide and downballot races.  Or at least I can.

Sunday Funnies