Monday, February 03, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle


The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates Black History Month and the many Texans to be feted: Bessie Coleman, Barbara Jordan, Hattie Mae White, Juanita Craft, Curtis Graves, Wallace Jefferson, Beyonce', Simone Biles, Dr. Thomas Freeman, S. Lee Merritt, and many, many others.


We'd also like to congratulate the former Dallas Texans -- and the Hunt family of Dallas -- on their Super Bowl victory yesterday.  And with the Iowa caucuses on the calendar this evening, Democrats will "soon" have some actual White House front-runners as opposed to polling ones.

In his regular Update of the Democratic presidential primary, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs tried not to get too excited about the Bernie surge taking place.  (FiveThirtyEight.com is currently projecting delegate counts in IA, NH, and NV as winners for the Vermont senator.)  Berners have been out in force across the Lone Star State ...



PDiddie also got a momentary thrill out of the Texas Lyceum poll, but last night's UT-Tyler/Dallas News survey splashed a little cold water on that.


Meanwhile Kuff examined that Lyceum poll.  SocraticGadfly, having seen the Chomskyites beg Howie Hawkins to run a "safe states" strategy if he's the Green Party nominee, loudly applauded Hawkins for essentially telling them to STFU.

Two weeks prior to the Texas primary, Jolt Action is hosting these presidential candidates in Pasadena (presuming none of them drop out before then, of course):


Unfortunately Jolt is not doing the same for John Cornyn's challengers, as they have already endorsed their founder in the US Senate primary.


That would be in concert with their candidate's continued disingenuousness about her surname (something she has apologized for, but continues to say).


The TexTrib's Patrick Svitek tweeted some polling about the Senate Ds.


In the wake of the HD-28 Democratic debacle, everybody had a take.  Some were hot; some were not.  Some were lukewarm.


Mustafa Tameez, blogging for the Houston Chronicle, says the road to the majority in the Texas House goes through the middle of the electorate.  ('Middle' is the wrong label for independent voters as Tameez describes them.  Using his research, a better label would be 'seldom' or 'sporadic' voters; certainly not 'low information' or 'non-voters'.)

In last week's Wrangle, this blogger ranted about misuse of the word 'progressive'.  This week, both Gadfly and Jaime Abeytia picked up on that with rants of their own.

Robert Rivard at his Report noted that SBOE member Ken Mercer (who represents a district Hillary Clinton carried in 2016) is big ol' peddler of wingnut dishonesty.

Nonsequiteuse thanked the Houston GLBT political caucus for listening to members who asked them to hold lawmakers credibly accused of sexual harassment to account.  The Caucus made several surprise endorsements at their weekend meeting.



As is often the case at these meetings, a few took offense.



Houston Justice Coalition showed how they're registering voters currently in county jail.

Some developments in recent chemical plant explosions:



Houston Public Media reported that the Houston and Dallas metro areas both suffered over 100 days of poor air quality in 2018, according to a report from Environment Texas.

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast has the police blotter.



And a second helping of Grits.

The Justice Collaborative has launched The Ogg Blog, providing background on various criticisms vs. embattled Harris County DA Kim Ogg as she faces a bevy of opponents in the coming March primary. Grits is grateful; I'd intended to compile a long, greatest-hits post for Ogg as a bookend to this one about Travis County DA Margaret Moore, so they've saved me the trouble.


Closing out another week with some Great State items on the lighter side of the news.

The battleship Texas will be relocating from its longtime berth at the San Jacinto State Historic Site following repairs to its hull.  Where it is going is still to be determined.


This book review from Justin Miller at the TO regarding El Paso politics is revealing.




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Sunday, February 02, 2020

Super Bowl Sunday Funnies












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Friday, January 31, 2020

The *Updated Election 2020 Update: Attack of the #NeverBernies

Millennials form human shield around Bernie

No need to expend many pixels on the latest smear (though if you blinked, you might have missed it); here's the debunk in a five-count thread.


Here's what's so remarkable about the age in which we live.


And no story is complete without a little snark.


You simply cannot be up to date without being plugged in (and Facebook ain't where it's at).  This full episode unfolded, was punctured and deflated, and then mocked within 24 hours.


Tune in tomorrow to AM Joy and see if he's right.

Biggest shock of my week was the Texas Lyceum poll.


My dreams seem to be turning into reality.  Trying hard to curb my enthusiasm (Shelly Kuffner is outlying there for me.)

-- I'm devoting more of this week's Update to the folks running for the White House who simply don't get enough publicity.  Let's begin with the US Green Party and to a lesser extent Howie Hawkins, whom I believe will be the nominee.  The GPUS posted a rejoinder to the call from nine people --including Noam Chomsky -- to stand down in 2020.  Background from Louis Proyect:

On January 24, an open letter appeared on various leftist websites urging the Green Party to follow a “safe states” strategy in the 2020 presidential elections. It argues that if Howie Hawkins or any other Green Party candidate runs in contested states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, there is a danger that he or she would steal votes from the Democrat. Needless to say, if that candidate is Bernie Sanders, there will be that much more pressure on the Greens to tamp down their campaign.

Although formulated as recommendations to the Greens in general, the open letter is actually a polemic against Howie Hawkins’s CounterPunch article “The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem.”

There's much more there, but before you go ...


(At the risk of repetition: I'm #BernieorBust, which is to say more specifically #BernieorYellowVests in Milwaukee this summer, and #BernieorGreen if he gets cheated out of the nomination again.  I like the Green Party and many of its candidates and will vote for them if they don't make it plainly impossible -- just as with many Democrats and damn near every Republican and Libertarian.  Party affiliation and identity politics mean nothing to me.  Policies exclusively.)

Now you can finish reading Louis Proyect for the full story.  He (mostly, with the conditions expressed above) speaks for me.  Couple more things.


And from Howie himself:


I'm grinning in anticipation of the pending "Jill Stein" recriminations.  Maybe someone will Photoshop Howie's head onto her body at that dinner table with Putin and Mike Flynn.

Direct your questions to the comment box.  Please don't bother with any #VotePooNoMatterWho, #RussiansHackers, and related Re-Insist-Ants nonsense.

-- Rocky de la Fuente, and everybody in his family, appear to be morons.  I have no clue any longer as to what his strategy to be nominated for some party, any party's president may be.


-- The latest in town hall and debate news:



How may times must it be said?  #CNNisTrash


-- And briefly, the straggling Donkeys, but first: This Week in Joe Biden Lies.



By this time next week, Klobuchar is on the sidelines with Delaney.

-- Though 538.com says there haven't been enough Iowa polls -- and the ones there have been may be of low quality due to our ever-changing lifestyles --  by these indications both Yang and Tulsi appear to be encouraging their supporters to move to Bernie as second choice next Monday night.  Biden seems to be striking out in these same efforts.


Update: Amy Minnesota Nice might be making an upward move in the Hawkeye State, according to the same fellow at 538, but all of this cautiousness and anticipation for more polling seems like a hedge against more of the kind of damage they self-inflicted from 2016's debacle.

-- A few words about Money Bags.

Why is it that the Jackasses still bitching about Bernie "not being a Democrat" don't ever mention the decades Bloomberg was a Republican?  This is his record:

  • Endorsed George W. Bush and spoke on his behalf at the RNC
  • Endorsed Susan Collins
  • Endorsed Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren
  • Endorsed Pat Toomey, giving him credibility with enough suburban moms in 2016 to cost Katie McGinty the election

By these actions alone he has completely prevented meaningful gun safety legislation, as well as any of the other democratic reforms he claims to care about.  And yet ... Democratic 'consultants' are cashing his checks by the assload.

"Welcome to politics", Cillizza?  This is the politics we're ending when Bernie gets elected.


Update: The DNC just let this oligarch buy his way into the presidential debates.

-- Desperate times call for desperate measures, and BootEdge is desperate.

"I hear Vice President Biden, saying that this is no time to take a risk on someone new," Buttigieg said. "But history has shown us that the biggest risk we could take with a very important election coming up is to look to the same Washington playbook and recycle the same arguments and expect that to work against a president like Donald Trump, who is new in kind." Earlier this month the Biden campaign released an ad in which a narrator tells voters, "This is no time to take a risk."

Buttigieg then went after Sanders.
"Then I hear Senator Sanders calling for a kind of politics that says you got to go all the way here and nothing else counts," he said. "And it's coming at the very moment when we actually have a historic majority, not just aligned around what it is we're against, but agreeing on what it is we're for."

[...]

Buttigieg then continued with the thrust of his argument: The debate between Biden and Sanders, the two Democrats leading in most statewide polls in Iowa, are too focused on the past.

Yeah, Pete doesn't want to hear about anybody's past.  Especially his own.


I'd rather Sneaky Pete stay in the race awhile longer, as I feel his supporters fall in behind Goofy Old Joe once he falls out.

-- Elizabeth Warren did have a nice moment at the impeachment trial.

"The question from Sen. Warren is for the House managers," Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, began.

"At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?" he read.


The question appeared to create discomfort for Roberts, whose role as the trial’s presiding officer requires him to read senators’ queries aloud — even those raising questions about potential damage to his own legitimacy, or that of the judicial institution he has assiduously sought to shield from the political fray.

It was unclear if the question was a dig at Republican obstruction, Roberts’s unwillingness so far to take a position in the witness fight or both.

Who's ready for a little snark?




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Wednesday, January 29, 2020

HD-28 and Democrats' irrational exuberance

Alan Greenspan's catchphrase about the 1996 stock market dot com bubble certainly applies to the nationwide hype that built up around the special election in Fort Bend County, concluding yesterday with a very predictable result.


How predictable was it?


A container ship full of establishment Democrats should have seen it coming, but didn't.  The orgs with too much money shot their wads like it was Pride Week.

Up through the final days, the race is attracting a remarkable amount of money for a state House contest, starting with Gates himself, who has loaned his campaign over $1.5 million and been able to easily outspend Markowitz. To be sure, though, the Democratic effort has been well-funded, with Markowitz raising over $800,000 since July 1 and benefiting from six figures of outside spending.

A majority of Markowitz's money has come from state and national groups with an interest in flipping the Texas House. Her biggest donors have been the House Democratic Campaign Committee and its national counterpart, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which have each given her well over $100,000. The DLCC's investment is nearing $200,000 after it infused $125,000 into her campaign last week to help pay for a last-minute ad buy on broadcast TV.

Markowitz has also been massively boosted by Forward Majority, a national Democratic super PAC focused on flipping state legislatures. The group has been easily the biggest known outside spender in the race, unloading over $400,000 on TV and digital ads, mailing and polling.

A dozen of the highest-profile state and national Dems -- Beto O'Rourke, Julian Castro, Texas House minority leader Chris Turner; and presidential hopefuls Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Mike Bloomberg -- spent their political capital for ... another long-shot gamble in November?

All three House specials held serve yesterday.  Anna Eastman replaces Jessica Farrar and Lorraine Birabil steps into Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson's old chair, so the magic number for Pink Dome Donks is still nine.  The real change happens with a right-wing freak like Gates taking the place of John Zerwas, who was, in my own experience, as principled a Texas Republican as you could find.  He understood in 2013, for example, that expanding Medicaid was the right thing to do (he's a anesthesiologist, after all).  He could have been Speaker instead of Dennis Bonnen had he wanted the job.  I would think there are very many in Austin today who wish that he was.

Gary Gates can't carry John Zerwas' jockstrap.  He's a Trump Republican.  And as Michael Li of the Brennan Center noted, HD28 was drawn for the "vote red no matter who"-- be it Zerwas or Gates -- constituents who live there.


It would be best if Team Blue focused its efforts elsewhere than here.  Because if they can't take the statehouse back in the autumn, this district will have to wait several more years as it purples up into 'more competitive'.
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Monday, January 27, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance will be looking for signs of blue waves or red firewalls in the outcomes of tomorrow's special elections to fill empty seats in the Texas House.


To open: TXElects.

Tuesday is Election Night for voters in HD28, HD100 and HD148. We will have live coverage beginning at 7 p.m. CST at txelects.com/live.

COPE Endorsements: The Texas AFL-CIO COPE released its primary endorsements (yesterday). Candidates needed two-thirds support in order to earn the group’s endorsement, and in a few cases, two candidates in a race were endorsed. The group also endorsed a handful of Republicans, including a couple in contested primaries. Highlights include:
  • No endorsement for U.S. Senate because no candidate obtained the necessary support, which was seen as “a sign of group strength among the candidates.”
  • Primary challenger Jessica Cisneros over U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) in CD28
  • Primary challenger Amber Medina over Rep. Alex Dominguez (D-Brownsville) in HD37
  • Primary challenger Jerry Davis over Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) in HD142
  • Xochil Peña Rodriguez over Rep. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) in SD19
  • Republican Mitch Thames and Democrat Patrick Henry in HD25 (open); and
  • Endorsing both Democrats vying to succeed the retiring Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) in HD92.

All of the group’s endorsements have been incorporated into our Crib Sheets. (sub. req.)

AG: A Friday hearing in a Harris County court to determine whether the criminal security fraud trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton should be moved back to Collin County was postponed. The case was moved to Harris County from Collin County nearly three years ago. Paxton was indicted on three felony counts of securities fraud and acting as an unregistered investment adviser by a Collin County grand jury in July 2015. A similar federal case has been dismissed twice.

CD28: American Workers for Progress, a newly formed dark money group, has purchased $720K worth of TV advertising in support of Cuellar [...] An ad running in several district markets asks viewers to call Cuellar’s office to thank him for supporting lower prescription drug prices, which exempts the ad from disclosure under Federal Elections Commission rules. The group’s web site is a single page with a single sentence of text.

TXElects also provided some deeper analysis of the HD28 battleground.

Special elections are strange animals, and anything can happen in them (e.g. Laura Thompson becoming the first independent to win a House since 1936), but an Eliz Markowitz victory on Tuesday must be considered an upset were it to occur. ...

In the November special election, the six Republican candidates collectively received 61% of the vote, led by Gates’s 28%. Markowitz, the lone Democrat in the race, received the other 39%. Turnout was 19.7% of 148K registered voters. Markowitz received a majority of votes in 11 of the district’s 35 precincts. We expected Markowitz to be the clubhouse leader after the first round, but also thought her best chance of flipping the seat was winning outright then, when Republicans’ support was divided.

While this Fort Bend County district has gone from 14 points redder than the state as a whole in 2002 to less than a point redder in 2018, it was still nearly 3 points redder than any House district won by a Democrat that year. The majority of this observed partisan shift has occurred since 2014, when the district was 8 points redder than the state and the average statewide Democratic candidate received 30% of the vote head-to-head against the Republican. The average statewide Democrat fared 15.5 percentage points better in 2018 than in 2014, but still lost by an average of 9 points.

And following up, GOP political consultant Derek Ryan breaks down the early vote.



Kuff did four of Dem candidate interviews in HD26: Sarah DeMerchant, Lawrence Allen, Rish Oberoi, and Suleman Lalani.

SocraticGadfly invited people who claim they live in the land of the biggest wingnuts to visit the 13th Congressional District, the most GOP-friendly in the nation, where Sahara law is apparently even worse than sharia law.

Texas Lawyer (reg. req.) flooded the zone with (mostly Harris County) judicial race coverage.

If Republicans lose so much as one or two seats in the Texas Senate this November, Lite Guv Dan Patrick is ready to change the long-standing rules of the upper chamber.  Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib doesn't see anything wrong with that.

Greg Abbott didn't exactly roll out the welcome wagon for all of the newly-transplanted Texans, and some of us called him out for his nasty comments.


PDiddie at Brains and Eggs documented the Bernie Sanders surge in his regular weekly update of the Democratic presidential primary.

Houston Berners joined the Lone Star Barnstorm ...


... and Our Revolution Texas hosts its summit this Saturday in HTX.


There was a US Senate candidate debate/forum in Austin over the weekend, hosted by the Texas AFL-CIO in conjunction with their membership's primary endorsements election.


Things got a little spicy.



There remain some lingering questions as to whether the Libertarian and Green Party's candidates will be able to appear on the November ballot without having to pay the same fees that the Democratic and Republican parties pay (for the state to conduct their primary elections).



Progress Texas offers a list of Texas "certified progressive" Democrats, most of whom aren't all that progressive.  Rant: This is the problem with the usage of the word 'progressive'; it's lost all meaning due to bastardization by Blue Dogs and neoliberals who long ago got shamed out of using 'liberal' to refer to themselves.  Consider this, from their questionnaire to candidates:

Health Care for All

Health care is a right and all Texans deserve access to affordable health care. The State of Texas should expand Medicaid, which will save lives and bring home billions of our own federal tax dollars, and it is imperative that Congress protect the Affordable Care Act.

This is not the progressive position, and the good folks at Progress Texas are all smart enough to know it.  The same holds true for their education statement (click on the link above and see for yourself).  They don't parse their declarations with weasel words like "access" on women's rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, etc.  What would you think about a Democrat who said: "voters deserve access to the polling place", or "women deserve access to reproductive choice".  I'll use their words so that they can clearly understand: You have access to my vote, and your co-pay is supporting Medicare for All.  End of rant.

We still have issues with spontaneous industrial plant combustion in our beloved Texas.



And the same old problems with follow-up and follow-through by the regulatory and safety-authorized federal and state agencies.



The second weekend of the Women's March in Houston drew another large crowd.


The first-ever Texas Hemp Convention opens tomorrow in Dallas.


Texas is poised for explosive growth in hemp and CBD. The Texas Hemp Convention has over 300 exhibiting businesses, bringing together industry experts and thought leaders from around the country. With more than 10,000 people expected to attend the convention, there are opportunities for consumers and businesses alike.

The highlight of the convention is the educational component. Featuring over 150 educational sessions from more than 130 speakers, including keynote speaker Rep. Tracy King, the Texas state representative responsible for House Bill 1325, which legalized hemp farming and the production of hemp products in Texas.

Tickets can be purchased through eventbrite and at the convention center during the event.

But both farmers and consumers are -- or should be -- treading carefully.


(The Texas) market for CBD, or cannabidiol, is exploding. Stores are popping up across the state selling tinctures and topicals. It’s being mixed into smoothies and coffee at cafes. Spas are advertising CBD massages and therapies. And much of the sudden spike in popularity is thanks to a Texas law last year that legalized hemp, the plant from which CBD is derived.

“You go anywhere now, and you find something that says ‘CBD’ on it,” said Kerver, who’s now in talks with Austin distributors interested in carrying her CBD product line, called 1937 Apothecary.

But buyer beware, experts warn. Anyone can sell CBD in Texas. Many of the products are advertised as natural alternatives to prescription medications and make unfounded claims to treat conditions like chronic pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia, diabetes and psychosis. None of these claims are recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

And because of lax labeling and licensing regulations, unsuspecting consumers may not actually know what they’re buying.

“Unless you really know that it’s something reputable, I would say to be wary because you don’t really know that it is even CBD,” Kerver said.

In 2018, the federal government passed a new Farm Bill legalizing hemp and derivatives, like CBD, with less than 0.3% of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. Hemp and marijuana are both part of the cannabis plant family, but while marijuana is rich in THC and produces a high, hemp contains only traces of the psychoactive compounds and is richer in CBD.

In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill legalizing hemp and bringing state policy in line with federal law.

Confusion on the part of law enforcement has led to the wrongful arrests of some in possession of CBD or hemp even after the Texas law went into effect. Still, the policy change is an important step on the way to allowing Texans to partake without fear of reprisal, according to Lisa Pittman, a lawyer on the Texas Department of Agriculture’s industrial hemp advisory council.

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast asks: "What do Greg Abbott, Croatia, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, ancient Hebrews, 6th century Greeks, Hammurabi, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders all have in common?"

They all implemented (or in the case of the Democratic presidential candidates, want to implement) large debt forgiveness programs that boosted their popularity and helped resolve problems deriving from intractable income inequality.


Transportation and infrastructure was a hot topic for several Texas bloggers. Mean Green Cougar Red is skeptical of fare-free public transit.  So is Tory Gattis at Houston Strategies.  TXDoT is moving ahead with its 30-year plan ...

It wasn’t that long ago – last summer – that the Texas Transportation Commission made its last major transportation decision: ceding construction of the final segments of the Grand Parkway. That’s because transportation planning is a like a Russian nesting doll: a 5-year strategic plan within a 10-year 'Unified Transportation Program' within a 30-year 'Texas Transportation Plan'.

... and the I-45 realignment/reconstruction through downtown Houston continues to generate discussion and proposals.




Let me close up another Wrangle with some of the lighter-side items.

SocraticGadfly laughed when Texas Monthly said Fredericksburg is the new Aspen, then shook his head at what TM (perhaps deliberately?) missed.

In addition to great barbecue and music, Austin has cool hiking trails and ultra-cool boutique hotels, but there's one in Nacogdoches that just might have a leg up on the capital city.

The Fredonia Hotel’s fascinating past reveals the collaborative Texas spirit behind this tourist destination and town. According to the hotel's Texas history milestones, builders sold stock in the hotel to town residents at $50 a share. It was actually named after the area’s 1826 Fredonia Rebellion when a group of settlers declared Nacogdoches independent from Mexico.


Sean O'Neal watched 911: Lone Star so you don't have to.

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Sunday, January 26, 2020

Sunday 'Elephant in the Room' Funnies

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