Sunday, November 01, 2020

Sunday Frightful Funnies


13 toons to scare the wits right out of you.





News item: Presence of water confirmed on sunny side of the moon



Tom Toles, formerly of the Washington Post, has retired. Matt Bors had a comic suppressed by both social media and his print clients this past week. The climate (pardon the pun) for political cartoonists grows ever bleaker. Here's a list of cartoonists’ Patreon and other support sites. As newspapers and media companies continue to shed staff positions, direct support from readers becomes ever more important. Please check it out and consider giving support where you can.
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Friday, October 30, 2020

Your Halloween/Blue Moon/Fall Back/4 Days Away from Election Day Round-up


How well are you coping?


This Halloween's full moon is also a blue moon. While the moon won't actually look blue, a blue moon refers to the second of two full moons occurring in the same month, which happens once every 2.5 to three years, or "once in a blue moon."

A full moon appears on Halloween roughly every 19 years, so of course tack it up to 2020 for one more rare feat. Take note when the full moon rises on Saturday as it won't happen again on Halloween in many time zones until 2039, 2058, 2077 and 2096.

I'll be ghosting those future dates. Literally.


-- What to watch for, and what you can ignore, as the returns roll in Tuesday night (TexTrib via Progrexas):

Beyond (the) marquee statewide races, there are 12 U.S. House seats being seriously contested by both parties this year -- a far higher number than usual. Two -- Congressional District 7 and CD-32-- are seats Democrats flipped in 2018 and that Republicans would like to win back. The other 10 — CD-2, CD-3, CD-6, CD-10, CD-21, CD-22, CD-23, CD-24, CD-25 and CD-31— are GOP-held seats.

And perhaps the most consequential races on the ballot are the ones that will determine who controls the Texas House. Republicans hold the majority, but Democrats are looking to flip the chamber. If you’re interested in tracking that battle, keep an eye on these seats:

  • The 12 Democratic seats that Republicans hope to win back: House District 45, HD-47, HD-52, HD-65, HD-102, HD-105, HD-113, HD-114, HD-115, HD-132, HD-135 and HD-136.
  • The 22 seats held by Republicans that Democrats hope they can flip: HD-14, HD-26, HD-28, HD-29, HD-32, HD-54, HD-64, HD-66, HD-67, HD-92, HD-93, HD-94, HD-96, HD-97, HD-108, HD-112, HD-121, HD-126, HD-129, HD-133, HD-134 and HD-138.
If Democrats can add a net of nine seats, they will break the Republican monopoly on control of the levers of state government.

-- Definitely put Dan Patrick on ignore. He's as bad as Trump.

-- MAGAts are going to be screaming like banshees throughout Election Night, Wednesday morning, and for some undetermined length of time thereafter. The question is whether some group of significants -- like say, the Supreme Court -- hears them, and worse yet, pays attention.


This is one of the best things about no longer being invested in the status quo; I voted my conscience, my hopes and dreams, not my fears, and while I'm as interested in the outcome as you are, I just won't sweat it (and that has nothing to do with white privilege).



“We have two political parties, and each one is telling us that (if they don’t win) it’s all over,” (American Solidarity Party candidate Brian) Carroll, a former history teacher, remarked ... “If any of us thought that for a minute, we wouldn’t be here tonight."

[...]

“This isn’t about what happens this year. It’s about what happens in the future,” said (independent candidate Brock) Pierce, who is already planning on running in 2024.

“This is really about the American people winning. It’s really about our country winning. Any time that we can hear more ideas from thoughtful, engaged citizens, we should be listening,” he said about why he decided to move forward with hosting the debate so close to the Nov. 3 election.

[...]

“Independents are the majority. We’re bigger than the Democrats and Republicans,” he said. Indeed, 42% of registered voters in 2020 are independent, according to independent political analysis group Gallup.

“I think we’re doomed if we don’t do something different.”

Expanding the pool of viable presidential candidates is something (Howie) Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, has wanted since he was a young voter in the 1960s.

“I’ve been looking for an alternative my whole life,” said Hawkins, who characterized the Commission on Presidential Debates’ requirement that candidates meet a popularity threshold to participate as a “scam.”

Hawkins, whose platform includes implementing the proposed Green New Deal, addressing systemic inequities and cutting military spending, said that even though he expects “Biden to win by a landslide,” he’s still committed to building his party and pushing harder for the policy issues he’s prioritized.

“We don’t have to win the White House to have victories for the Green Party,” Hawkins said. “There’s a historic role of third parties in this country. They put issues on the table that have been excluded.”

(Gloria) La Riva, the (Party for Socialism and Liberation) candidate who called capitalism “unsustainable,” echoed Hawkins’ and the two other candidates’ core message of the evening: “People’s voices need to be heard, whether you can win or not.”


Still so much left to get to, but will pause here for now.

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Friday Texas Turnout Tweet Wrangle


Much more -- on topics other than turnout -- on the way.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Hump Day Far Left Hustle

I won't limit today's post to Lone Star Wrangling, but blend a little of what I've been doing all year with my White House and Election 2020 Updates into it, especially since our beloved Texas is now considered a tossup, and that has Team Blue a-tizzy.


The truth -- as we all should know by now -- is that there has really been no mystery about the outcome of this race for a long time.


I thought for most of 2020 that Trump would find a way to pull it out.  He's not going to, and I acknowledged that three weeks ago.

Biden has managed not to screw things up, which is all he had to do.  Oh, he has shot his mouth off a few times lately.  That's as reliable as the sun coming up in the east.  But it's also baked into the sympathy he has manufactured around his 'stutter', and while Trump has spewed bile with more fury than ever since "recovering" from COVID, Joe's foibles just haven't moved the needle.




Nobody's relaxing, of course.


Since Joe's playing with house money, he's pushing Trump to the edge in states that Democrats haven't flourished in awhile, like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, where electoral mischief will surely run as rampant as it did two years ago.  (Wisconsin is being shoved into the red column by the Supreme Court, but that's a blog post for another day.)

Barring some weird 2016 retro combo of poll dysfunction and Republican chicanery -- yeah, I know; it's Halloween and there's a lot of scared donkeys running around because of reports like this one -- Biden's got it.  And unless the latest Lone Star polling is just missing something -- which could be the case, after all -- I still don't see either Uncle Joe or MJ Hegar carrying Texas.


A University of Houston Hobby School poll shows (Trump ahead of Biden) roughly 50% to 45%. In contrast, a Dallas Morning News/UT Tyler poll shows the opposite -- Biden leading Trump -- 46% to 44%, though 8% were still undecided.

That amount of undecided voters is surprising at this point in the election, according to Lonna Atkeson, a political science teacher at the University of New Mexico.

"Eight percent seems like a lot of undecided voters at this time," Atkeson said. "Maybe they're not undecided. Maybe they really know and they're just not telling."

That could be a result of the poll's methodology, according to Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.

The way a poll is conducted or how the questions are framed could make people feel uncomfortable answering the question of how they voted, Stein told Houston Matters host Craig Cohen on Tuesday.

Go on reading there for Stein's elaboration if this polling methodology stuff is of interest to you.  I find him delving into pyschobabble, but YMMV.

While Biden is keeping it very close in Deep In The Hearta, One Tuff Motorcycle Mama can't say the same about her poll numbers.  Her moneybags are bursting at the seams, but she isn't making it translate.  I would peg her ceiling at 45%, which means she will underperform Beto two years ago, and Democrats can only whine about the 'what ifs' associated with having his name instead of hers on the ballot, or one of the Castros, or even Royce West.

Hegar's flop won't be mourned for long by Senate Democrats if they indeed wind up with 54 or 55 seats this time next week, as Real Clear Politics and 538 are projecting (via Medaite).

Which is why, once more, you can vote Green without fear.


"But I like voting scared and full of rage and hate, PDiddie".


Yeah, the Texas House of Representatives.  That one is going to be very close.


I count 75-69 Red Team, with the six in the middle on the fence, if you trust Jones' chalk.  He's a Republican; there's a little bias in there for his side.  TXElects showed it closer to flipping earlier in the week, but the PACs have been making it rain like the Great Flood on these races, and for my money -- not to mention my sanity -- this is the only thing worth staying up late for next Tuesday night.


No we won't, Manny.  It will be a few days after Election Day, maybe a week after.

The rest of my Wrangles and Round-ups posted between now and the end of the weekend will include some Halloween and Dia de los Muertos and other scary Tweets and posts to close out.


Horrifying.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Leftist Wrangling every day until Election Day


And beyond!



A few words in Tweets about the polls that broke yesterday.


DfProg being a Democrat-funded poll, both the result and Collins' observation reveal its bias compared to the other two. I am more inclined, as I have been for a few weeks now, that Biden and Hegar cannot pull off a win here. I could be wrong, natch, and the money pouring in to both top-ticket races will at least make it close. Maybe not as close as Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rurke two years ago.

As for Greens ... yes, they have suffered the predictable slights this cycle. Once again this morning, "Jill Stein" is a trending Twitter topic.


A couple of weeks ago Bill Maher set off the Stein Derangement Syndromers. It was just yesterday that I read Digby, who put the blame back on James Comey. Once more, since this 2016 parlor game is like fucking Groundhog Day: Bernie would have beaten Trump four years ago, his Justices would be on the Supreme Court, and he would be running for re-election. Probably against Ted Cruz.


Yes, the 'what if'/alternate timeline fantasy can be fun, if you're not forced to play it with the dumbest mfers on Earth. Couple more things about the Texas polls, and then the TX Greens.

Ben Wermund, noting that these tightly contested races up and down the ballot are uncharted waters for Texas pollsters operating in a difficult environment on their best day, asks: how much trust should we place in their conclusions?


Probably just a coincidence. In other news ...

Jim Henson and Joshua Blank at the Texas Politics Project examined the shift of independent voters away from Republicans in recent statewide elections. Matt Mohn marvels at the extreme variance in polling preferences of Texas Latino/as in this cycle. Kuff tried to make sense of some recent polls that show Biden with a slight lead. (He failed. Dude has made multiple mistakes in trying to keep up this year. It's understandable, but his blogging needs to evolve to something more relevant. Discussions aimed at Lone Star Donkey political consultants -- budding, over the hill, and whatever detritus lies in-between -- is a gossamer-thin market.)

Here's some environmental news, agua being the focal point (some places have too much, some not enough): the Texas Living Waters Project tries to imagine what our state would be like without water. Schaefer Edwards at the Houston Press looks at a Bayou City plan to fight flooding and climate change by planting a ton of trees.


Now for some social justice posts.


Jacob Vaughn at the Dallas Observer writes about Fort Worth city council's approval of the new name for a stretch of road between I-35W and US 287: the Atatiana Jefferson Memorial Parkway. And Grits for Breakfast collates four stories that lets us gaze into the soul of the Houston/Harris County criminal justice system, as well as a round-up of cops behaving badly in Waco, Nacogdoches, on social media, and several other Lone Star jurisdictions.

To wind this up today, here's some funny.

Reform Texas is amused by John Cornyn's delicate ears. Jen Rice categorizes Harris County drive-through voting locations by their fast food counterpart.

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Monday, October 26, 2020

The Daily Texas Far Left Wrangle

Unless you like these loooong (and not posted until late).

I'll start with the pandemic blowing up again.  The second wave is here; global, national, state, and local.  El Paso is already getting hit bad.


Twelve days ago, epidemiologists noticed the uptick and called it a 'warning signal'.  Some experts attributed it to "fatigue", a psychological reaction to six-plus months of quarantine, masking up, and otherwise having our 'freedumb' curtailed, for those Darwin Award winners on the right.

The sticks, the boondocks, and the outback are catching it now.


I got nuttin' but love for all y'all out in the country, but ya need to stop voting red.  They're gonna kill a lot of you this winter.

DosCentavos is worried about the 'rona, so he posted a good Q&A with the COVID hunter, Dr. Varon from UMMC.  And the details released last week surrounding the Garland woman who died from the coronavirus last July -- on a Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to DFW, diverted to Albuquerque -- remain unclear.

Most of my election-related posts will be in a subsequent Wrangle later today tomorrow, as there is some fresh polling due later today.  Here's some items that make the segue for me.


Stopping here with some musical comedy.

Joshua Brown at The Rag Blog has a cartoon animation starring Trump as Covid Man, to the tune of The Beatles' "Nowhere Man".

Doing his Weird Al Yankovic schtick, Socratic Gadfly taps his inner Blue Öyster Cult and offers the lyrics for “Don’t Fear the Virus.”  After all, “Donaldine and Melania ARE together in COVIDity.”

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Sunday, October 25, 2020

Sunday "Losing It" Funnies




Mike Peterson at The Daily Cartoonist has a list of cartoonists’ Patreon and other support sites. As newspapers and media companies continue to shed staff positions, direct support from readers becomes ever more important. Please check it out and consider giving support where you can.
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Friday, October 23, 2020

Friday Lone Star Leftist Round-up (updates)


Republican consultants in red counties are scared, scared.


Today's the last day to request a mail ballot.  Be sure to follow the instructions carefully, and don't let an uncareful signature cause its disqualification.


In yesterday's latest legal development:


This came as extraordinarily good news, particularly following the SCOTUS' rejection of a similar case from Alabama earlier in the week (which might portend Ken Paxton's next move).

Speaking of:


The latest Q poll shows a familiar photograph of Texas at the top of our ballots, with less than two weeks left: a toss-up between Trump and Biden, and a slight edge to Cornyn over Hegar.


Despite Trump canceling TV airtime and sharply reducing his Facebook advertising expenditures in the Lone Star State (according to the WhoWhatWhy), Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro are fuming that Biden is neglecting us.  Downballot, blue prospects were looking brighter even before Trump cashed out (as posted here Monday).


Harvey Kronberg at Quorum Report eagerly awaits a contest for statehouse speaker.


Update:


Congressional races, likewise, have received close scrutiny as the polls are tight, the campaign funds flow in and out like the tides, and excitement -- or trepidation, as the case may be -- builds.


Texas Monthly has profiled several US House elections at their "Battleground Texas" page.  David Collins, the Texas Green on your ballot for US Senate, revealed his answers to one of the more detailed candidate questionnaires he's received.

Trump and Biden's final face-off had a greater-than-anticipated focus on climate, and Texas wound up in the spotlight ... which wasn't necessarily good news.


Trump also criticized Biden for opposing fracking. Biden denied taking such a position. He did oppose fracking in the Democratic primary, but his campaign staffers walked back those comments, saying he only opposed fracking on on federal land.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC also pressed Trump on Texans living near refineries who fear pollution is making them sick.

“The families that we’re talking about are employed heavily, and they’re making a lot of money, more money than they’ve ever made,” Trump said. “If you look at the kind of numbers that we’ve produced for Hispanic, for Blacks, for Asians, it’s nine times greater the percentage gained than it was under, in three years, than it was under eight years the two of them, to put it nicely. Nine times more.”

But Biden said that workers’ health should be a priority.

“The fact is, those front-line communities, it doesn’t matter what you’re paying them, it matters how you keep them safe,” Biden said.

At one point, Trump directly asked Biden whether the former vice president would “close down” the oil industry.

“I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Biden said.

Trump called that a “big statement” and Biden call the oil industry a significant environmental polluter. He also said he wouldn’t support giving that industry federal subsidies.

“It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time. Over time,” Biden said.

Trump said that “in terms of business,” that was “the biggest statement.”

“Basically what he’s saying is he’s going to destroy the oil industry,” Trump said. “Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio?”



Update:

-- "Joe Biden's fossil fuel remarks at last debate put Texas Democrats on the defensive, even as recent poll shows Trump falling behind"

And while (US Rep. Colin) Allred and (US Senate challenger MJ) Hegar defended Biden, one Democrat in the state has already broken with the candidate.

Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, who's running for reelection in Houston, said the former vice president failed to "address the complexity of our energy needs and plan for the future."

*facepalm*

Here's a few more ecology stories unrelated to last night's debate.  First, Environment Texas writes about the "forever" chemicals in McDonald's food packaging.

PFAS is a dirty word, as one Texas airport executive recently told me.  Perhaps more than a dirty word, since even the FDA has acknowledged that there is scientific evidence that it causes serious health conditions. These so called Forever Chemicals are proven to be linked to cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease and development issues in wildlife and humans. 

So a few weeks ago, I asked McDonalds if they’d banned PFAS from their food packaging. Their customer contact center replied that they had eliminated 2 PFAS—out of the nearly 5,000 PFAS out there. Sigh! 

To be fair they also mandate, I quote, that their suppliers not use any perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).  How do they enforce this?  It remains to be seen.


An investigation by the TCEQ in response to an Austin neighborhood's complaints turned up some really foul air and water issues.  And a new report indicates that the state's unauthorized air pollution has more than doubled from 2015 to 2019.

There'll be coronavirus surge updates as well as criminal and social justice posts in next Monday's Wrangle.  Here's a couple of those items that intersect with Texas public education.

Emily McCullar points out that a history textbook published in 2016 is woefully inadequate in telling the stories of Black and Latino/a Texans.


There will be a wake this afternoon, funeral services tomorrow, and a GOTV rally on Sunday to honor the life of nationally acclaimed Houston trans-activist Monica Roberts.


Cordelia Casso Flores wrote a touching eulogy for her sister, Mapy Casso Uranga, at LareDOS.

She hosted “The Mapy Casso Show” for KGNS and later worked as assistant society editor for The Laredo Times. She and (her husband) Nacho met at the newspaper, when he came from El Paso to become the editor of the Spanish section of The Times.

Update: From Friday night ...


I'd like to close with some postings about Sacha Baron Cohen's movie.  Not that one.


Judy Gumbo at YippieGirl blogged about her first-hand experience at the trial.  Nancy Kurshan for Counterpunch was also in the room where it happened.  Jonah Raskin at The Rag Blog wishes the film had been more historically accurate.  And on the theme of 'some things since the '60's haven't changed a single bit', Pages of Victory shares a few political cartoons.

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Thursday, October 22, 2020

And Iran


I ran so far away ...
I couldn't get away


As Dave Thompson has pointed out, the song was "punningly political at a time when Iran itself was making headlines around the clock".[12] The song and the band were an "irresistible" package for American audiences, and by the summer of 1982, "America was clutching Flock of Seagulls to its heart".
 
[...]

The song's apparent references to Iran were highlighted again in the fall of 2007, when the long-running American television show Saturday Night Live ran a parody version of the song that expressly mocked current Iranian policies like Holocaust denial.[17]

(So expect to see many more blogs making this pun; I'm just riding the New Wave.)

The actual point here is that you have a new boogeyman underneath your bed: beware of mullahs in your inbox, in your text messages, or -- Inshalla! -- having voted in your name before you could.

And Iranian bots on social media!  Cornell University has a paper from 2018 on it, specifically regarding Twitter and the effect on the Arab Spring.

Why, it's enough to make a Persian crap his kandys (sorry).
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Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Election 2020 Update: No Debate, No Message


Even with muted microphones to reduce interruptions, your Thursday evening is best spent on something else.  Why -- especially if you have already voted, certainly if your mind is made up -- would you watch Act II of this shitshow?

Do you need more stress in your life?  Is the current amount of drama and tension simply not enough?  Are you addicted to the anger instigated within you by Trump's repetitive displays of malignant narcissism and megalomania?  Do you cringe every time Biden opens his mouth, hoping he won't say something nonsensical, or stupid, or sexist, or racist?  Are you still functioning under the delusion that one of these two Alzheimer's-riddled rapists will actually do something for you, your family, your healthcare, the planet?


You're not Sam Goldwyn (or Western Union, for that matter).

Elect Biden and then push him left, you say?  Lots of very prominent leftists -- people I have respect and admiration for -- are recommending that route: Bernie Sanders, of course; Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, AOC, Angela Davis, John Cusack, and a number of fairly prominent DSA members.

I feel pity for them for having given in to fear and loathing.


For those in the 'Giant Meteor 2020' Caucus:


"Okay, PDid.  How about a little less snark and a little more logic, please?"


Sorry.  That little snarky cartoon just slipped out.

I'm in complete agreement with those who believe that the Republican Party as currently composed must suffer a stinging rebuke at the polls.  They all must be denied access to the levers of power for a period of time long enough to modulate themselves into something more reasonable.


So since old Joe has this one in the bag ... maybe consider voting for something you want, and not against something you don't.  Vote in favor of someone, not against someone else.  Most importantly, vote the policies you would like to see enacted, and not just the identity/gender/color/religion, or the sassy debate responses, of the person.  'Not Trump' is not a policy.


If you must watch a debate Thursday, watch this one.


There's a better presidential debate on Saturday night.

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