Revolutionary News Update Vol. 6: Ready for Oligarchy

2008 was a very different year. Democrats were trying to replace a Republican president who had job disapproval ratings in the mid-60s to low 70s throughout the summer and fall of 2008. Democrats -- both Obama and Clinton-- were pledging to change the direction of the country in a year when more than 80% of Americans consistently told pollsters the country was on the wrong track.

So Democrats could afford a little disunity. They had the wind at their backs.

They don't have the wind at their backs now. They're trying to win a third straight election, something that's been done only once by a party in the past 56 years (the GOP in 1980/1984/1988). President Obama's approval/disapproval numbers right now, according to Gallup, are 51%/45% -- but that's not overwhelmingly positive the way Bush's numbers in 2008 were overwhelmingly negative. And the "right direction/wrong track" numbers are still negative -- not as negative as they were in 2008, but they'd have to be as positive now as they were negative in 2008 for the two elections to be analogous for the Democrats. We'd need 80+% of the country to be happy with the way things are going; we have about 30%.

(And even in 2000, when the country was extremely happy with the status quo under a retiring Democratic president, the Democrat who wanted to be his successor couldn't put the election away.)

No, the Democrats can't afford the luxury of a sustained fight.  Not this year.

Oh let's fight anyway.  A little while longer, June at least?  There's still be months left to fight the real bad guys, yes?

Then again, we could fight in the streets like it's 1968, when ...

... the Democratic Party establishment, led by the authoritarian Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, rigged the nominating process at the Democratic National Convention.

In the run-up to the Convention, over 80% of Democratic primary voters sided with the two anti-war candidates, Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-NY), the victim of an assassination, and Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN).   The will of the electorate was ignored by party elites. Daley’s backroom maneuvers secured the nomination for a candidate who had not won a single primary — Vice President Humbert Humphrey.

Daley’s authoritarian manipulation of the process produced chaos and violence both inside and outside of the convention. During a convention speech, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT) denounced what he described as the “Gestapo tactics” of the Chicago PD — tactics that a federal commission later described as a “police riot” orchestrated by Daley. The violence and chaos inside and outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, not to mention the betrayal of the anti-war sentiments of the electorate by the party establishment, led to the party’s demise that November and six more years of carnage in Vietnam.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz isn't as stupid and malicious as Daley, but we get the point.  There's going to be a lot of yelling "RELAX!" at each other, some calls to simmer down, shut up, or go away.

Matthew Yglesias makes the case that Bernie will -- sooner than the convention in July -- back down, endorse Clinton, herd his sheep in behind her.  He uses the tired trope of comparing Jill Stein to Ralph Nader and using the word 'spoiler', but even without that mistake, some of Bernie's herd will still go astray, most certainly.  Even Noam Chomsky encourages swing state voters to wait until the last minute, watching to see if your state is in Electoral College play before casting a ballot, saving Hillary Clinton and the rest of us from Donald Trump.

But the 2016 election is much more likely to be disrupted by the Libertarians, Gary Johnson and William Weld, who are already polling at ten percent.  Bill Kristol, the very model of modern autocratic arrogance, has selected the GOP's alternative to Trump without soiling his gloves on any of those messy primaries or that nasty voting business.  And he has picked obscure conservative blogger David French, the Rick Santorum of 2016.  What fun.

Update: More from Steve Benen on French. And this from Non Prophet News details the historical ramifications of strong alternate party bids, from Teddy Roosevelt to Strom Thurmond to George Wallace to Ross Perot.  Notably not Nader.  That's a myth, as we all should know by now.

I'll have to miss the state convention here in Deep-In-Hearta; Mrs. Diddie's new hip and Mom's 90th birthday take precedence over the desire I have to get in a fight with some Clinton folks and wind up in the Bexar County Jail, to say nothing of the thrill of listening to the minions cheer Hillary's coronation, watching as the parliamentarians run Robert's-Rules-roughshod over the Sanders delegation, and generally drive off what remains of a Democratic progressive wing in the party.  To be followed by a reprise at the DNC in Philly in July.

So enjoy, Texas Democrats!  You've once again managed to silence the voices that would lead to an invigorated Democratic Party in Texas in favor of a conservative, corporate-controlled Republican Lite version, the kind of Democrats that haven't won a statewide election in a generation.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Dream big of turning Texas blue like you usually do.  In the meantime you'll find me reporting on the only progressive presidential nominating convention left, the US Greens here in August.

A Clinton indictment, and a SCOTUS instruction to the 5th Circuit on TX Voter ID

-- One week from today, Clintonites, and your quiet misery and stoic endurance of the defaming of your standard-bearer will all be over.  Unless she catches an indictment, that is.  And if that happens, it really goes clusterfuck.  This dude -- a former DOJ employee when now-FBI Director James Comey served as deputy AG in the W Bush administration -- says essentially the same thing I did a few weeks ago.  The notable difference being that in the wake of the State Dept. IG report released last week, he does not believe she can escape a federal grand jury's verdict.

No, her self-serving email set-up was not “allowed” under the State Department’s rules.  No, she was not “permitted” to use a personal email system exclusively as she did.  No, what she did was hardly just a matter of her “personal convenience.”  No, there is no evidence that any State Department attorney (other than perhaps Secretary Clinton herself) ever gave “legal approval” to any part of her special email system. No, everything she did was not “fully above board” or in compliance with the “letter and spirit of the rules,” far from it.  Yes, she was indeed required by the FRA to maintain all official emails in an official system for proper review, delineation, and retention upon her departure.  Yes, her private server equipment was in fact the subject of multiple attempted intrusion attempts (i.e., hacks), including by foreign nations.  The list goes on and on.  (Note that this does not even include Ms. Clinton’s many serious “misstatements” about her handling of classified or potentially classified information.)

Now, even the general public is left with the unavoidable conclusion that Ms. Clinton either is ignorant of the law (which too many people know is not so) or else feels blithely untethered to reality in a way that necessarily serves her secretive interests regardless of any truth — the technical legal term for which is “pathological lying,” or perhaps merely “psychosis.”  Not a pretty picture for a voter of any stripe at any stage of the electoral process.

I still can't see it.  Nor can I see this scenario for selecting a replacement presidential nominee should I be wrong and an indictment happens.

So what you must contemplate, as a leader of the Democratic Party, is the very real possibility of your likely presidential candidate actually being indicted, on criminal charges, sometime between now and, say, (a) the time of the convention at the end of July; (b) the time of the general election in early November; or (c) Inauguration Day in January.  Which possibility would you prefer?

Obviously, the answer might well be possibility (d):  No indictment at all.  But if that were not a realistic possibility, and remembering that your absolute imperative in this election cycle is to avoid at all costs ending up with a President Donald Trump, your preference is clear:  You want a Democrat other than either Clinton or Sanders to go up against Trump in November, unorthodox as that might now sound.

In short, you want a Biden/Kerry ticket, a Kerry/Biden one (less likely), or a ticket with either one of them (preferably Vice President Biden) together with whomever Hillary Clinton picks as her running mate in July.

An already-chosen running mate?  Yes, her running mate, chosen by her as the presidential nominee — because you want Clinton to be replaced as your nominee (i.e., after the convention), but not with Senator Sanders, for all the reasons stated above.

That was a fun and fanciful read, but I remain of the mind that Clinton skates, becomes the nominee, and is elected president.  YMMV.

Update: This doesn't mean as much as they think it means.  The author of the original, Frank Huguenard, is fairly well-known crackpot (but Snopes should get his name spelled correctly).

-- It doesn't happen much any more that an op-ed outside the Lone Star State weighs in on the lavatory of democracy that is Texas, our Texas, but the WaPo did, and the headline is 'Texas Voter ID chicanery'.  It's a worthwhile rehash of where we are at this moment, but here's the nut graf.

It remains unclear whether the Texas law will apply in the November elections, but the Supreme Court, apparently eager for clarity by then, instructed a federal appeals court in New Orleans to render its judgment by July 20. 

If the en banc review upholds the law, then that decision will be immediately repealed to an 8-member SCOTUS.  No bets taken on that verdict.

The Weekly Memorial Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance says that whether you buy a new mattress, grill a steak, go to the movies, or do nothing but rest, remember the reason for the seasonal holiday you're enjoying today.

Here's the weekly blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff rounds up coverage of Ken Paxton's latest anti-transgender lawsuit/publicity stunt.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos remembers Ken Starr and his role as the Republican Grand Inquisitor during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Socratic Gadfly, looking ahead to the general election and his mentions already of "Plan B" and Green Party voting, takes note of what he calls anti-third party electoral bigotry.

Some incredible pictures of the sky were included with flood photos from Houston's most recent monsoon at PDiddie's Brains and Eggs.

Asian American Action Fund writes about the 2016 Asian vote with references to Alexander Hamilton and the Fair Housing Act, and Egberto Willies also passes along news that the community is moving toward the Democrats in record numbers.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says that when it comes to the Texas electricity website, all we really have is the Power to Complain.

The Lewisvlle Texan Journal reports that the fish are biting, but you may have a little trouble finding a place to put your boat in.

Texas Leftist praises Mayor Sylvester Turner for getting his municipal budget passed quickly and unanimously by Houston city council.

In his ongoing efforts to demonstrate that life is fun and hopeful, Neil at All People Have Value posted a photo of some Kroger shopping carts aligned with palm trees in the parking lot.  APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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Think Progress reports on Rep. Louie Gohmert's contention that Matt Damon's movie "The Martian" proves that anti-gay bigotry is justified.

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers keyboards an open letter to the Sanders campaign challenging their characterization of a meeting with HIV/AIDS activists.

Marian Wizard Vasquez at The Rag Blog, in her first dispatch from Belize, gets a glimmer of the 'colonial fatalism' that decrees "that's just the way things are".

Prairie Weather takes a look at the Clintons' "none of your business" trap.

Space City Weather examines the two days and two massive storms that hit Texas last week.

The Dallas Morning Views asks whether we should question the public reputation of Chris Kyle by considering his resume' plagiarism.

LawFlog takes a look at another alleged threatening e-mail from US Judge Walter Smith, Jr.

And Pages of Victory fondly recalls attending the kiddie matinees with his brothers.