Hard times in the land of plenty

-- Baker Hughes increases their oilpatch layoffs to 10,500.  Halliburton cuts 9,000.  Schlumberger slices another 11,000.  The freshly-unemployed will be blaming Obama at some point.

-- Blue Bell is recalling ALL of its ice cream products in the United States, because it cannot pinpoint the origin of the listeria outbreak in its supply chain.

Brenham-based Blue Bell Creameries is pulling all of its products from the shelves after more ice cream samples tested positive for a life-threatening bacterial infection.

The voluntary decision, announced Monday, is the latest and most sweeping development to plague the Texas business icon since a recall last month, the first in the company's 108-year history.

It came after an "enhanced sampling program" that found half-gallon containers of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream produced on March 17 and March 27 contained the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, company officials said.

[...]

The latest tests mean the company had several positive tests for listeria in different plants.  On Monday, company officials said they "cannot say with certainty" how listeria was introduced into their plants.

This is the sort of disaster that usually devastates a company.  Blue Bell has indeed been a Lone Star staple almost all of my life, but what happens to them from here is likely either bankruptcy or acquisition by another food conglomerate for pennies on the dollar.

Houston and Houstonians are in for a world of hurt in the months ahead.

Scattershooting some worthwhile Houston events

Over the past few days, some of my blog brethren have worked a couple of things that tend toward making a difference.  Their efforts deserve additional mention.

-- I couldn't attend yesterday's luncheon, but Brother Neil was present for California attorney general (and likely successor to Barbara Boxer's seat in the US Senate) Kamala Harris' speech to Annie's List at the Westin Galleria.  He has a few reports about it on his FB page.

Neil is often more hopeful about things than I find myself these days.  A real port in the storm.

-- Last Saturday morning, Stace MC'd the Kingwood Democrats event with several local politicos appearing and raising funds for the club.  Houston mayoral candidates Sylvester Turner and Marty McVey, along with city council challengers Lane Lewis, Durrel Douglas, Laurie Robinson and dozens more all said a few words.  You've got have a lot of faith to be a Democrat in Kingwood, let me tell ya, and those folks have been going strong now for a decade or more.  A few pictures.

-- Over at the Meyerland Democratic Club last night, my friends Art Pronin, CJ Yeoman, Jill Moffitt, and Silvia Gederberg were all re-elected as officers, and their program featured environmental attorney Terry O'Rourke, who -- among many noteworthy accomplishments on his CV -- served the Carter administration, ran for Texas Railroad Commission in 1976, and currently is special counsel to county attorney Vince Ryan on environmental law issues.  (We've had a few, you know.)

Fighting the good fight and keeping the faith is an important function in these challenging times.  My hat's off to all these folks for doing the heavy lifting during the political offseason, and preparing for the campaigns to come.

Even the attorney who won Citizens United at the SCOTUS thinks the system is broken

James Bopp.  The problem is that his ideas for fixing it don't sound much like improvement.

Bopp: You have to have as few rules as possible, and those rules need to be vigorously enforced. If they are not enforced, they are pointless.

Center for Public Integrity: Do you think the number of people trying to game the system has increased in recent years?

Bopp: No, there are always corrupt people, and they will always try to game the system. The more rules there are, the more opportunities they have to do that … This is the reason the Soviet Union collapsed — because of all the rules on the economy that people were flaunting with black markets and bribes and everything [else] to get around all these rules. And, of course, the response by the Communists — just as the response by campaign finance reformers — always is more rules.

Ah, we're Communists now.

Center for Public Integrity: How would the 2016 presidential race be different if candidates could accept unlimited amounts of money or higher amounts of money?

Bopp: They wouldn’t need to set up six or eight different organizations to raise money. They would have one … [Now] your last option is a candidate committee because it is the one that has the most severe contribution limits of all the potential options.

[...]

Center for Public Integrity: What sort of boundaries or lines do those groups have to worry about?

Bopp: Each has their own unique set of rules, and you just have to make sure that you follow those. It’s a very complex dance now ... And it requires very sophisticated legal advice. It advantages the rich and the sophisticated, but all these rules always do. The more rules, the more money it takes, the more sophistication it takes to navigate them.

Center for Public Integrity: Is there a level of anonymous money in the process that would be concerning to you?

Bopp: It’s really pretty hard to get anonymous money effectively into a campaign … I am concerned about the system generally right now because it has been distorted, and it has been rendered so non-transparent and non-accountable.

Center for Public Integrity: What about political spending by so-called “social welfare” nonprofits that are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code — where it’s unclear where the money is coming from?

Bopp: If it’s a (c)(4), you’ve got to spend half your money on activity that has nothing to do with the election. If your intent is to affect the election, half of the money is wasted. And not very many people are willing to waste half of their money.

Center for Public Integrity: Looking at the current landscape, some regulators have proposed restricting the political activities of certain nonprofits.

Bopp: If the current [vehicles] are attacked so that [their effectiveness and utility] goes down, then other ones will be used … There are organizations that I have already thought of that haven’t yet been utilized very much.

Center for Public Integrity: Like what?

Bopp: You’ve got to pay me for that. But there are several that I’ve already figured out how to utilize if that becomes necessary.

"You've got to pay me for that".

Center for Public Integrity: In your mind, how long until the entire system reaches a tipping point?

Bopp: We have reached the tipping point! It’s utterly unaccountable and non-transparent. And it’s all because the rules have made them so … This is a downward spiral until the whole system collapses, which it is very close to. The effects of contribution limits have so distorted the system that we have almost zero accountability and transparency.

Yeah, we're through the looking glass all right.  Bopp appears to believe that there are still too many laws governing campaign finance reform.

If that's true, then yes, I'm a Communist, and the revolution is coming a lot slower than I would like.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance solemnly honors three anniversaries: the fifth year after BP's offshore well Macondo exploded, which resulted in the nation's worst oil spill disaster; the Oklahoma City federal building bombing -- and its victims -- on its 20th; and the 70th annual acknowledgement of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. 

Here is this week's roundup of the best Texas lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff celebrated the city of Houston's victory in court against the petition effort to force a referendum on repealing the city's equal rights ordinance.

Libby Shaw, blogging at both at Texas Kaos and Daily Kos, wonders what a progressive Democratic grassroots activist is to do when her party's leaders turn tail and side against their constituents: Les Miserables: Texas Political Donors and Voters Bought Lemons.

Nonsequiteuse suspects it would be safer to go to the grocery store and more crowded on election day if Democrats would put down their guns and move slowly to the left.

Socratic Gadfly combines his being a history buff with being an aficionado of classical music and poetry to note how Lincoln's death has been commemorated in the arts, on the sesquicentennial of his assassination.

There's a new "Dirty Thirty" in Austin, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs pulls back the curtain on the so-called Texas House Democrats who voted with the Republicans to overturn municipal fracking bans. Surprise: it's all about the money, specifically campaign contributions from oil and gas companies.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson: It's always funny when the media tries to figure out why the GOP can't come up with a "fantastic scheme for all that cash", when cutting is all you know.

Neil at All People Have Value wrote about the $2000 ticket a San Antonio chef was given for feeding the homeless in violation of a law prohibiting the feeding of the homeless. These laws are evil. Houston has such a law. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Texas Leftist noted (a few weeks back, but who's counting) on the recent designation of Interstate 69, renumbering the former US 59 through Houston and Harris County, and the economic impact expected.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme was extremely disappointed to hear Leticia Van de Putte used a fundamental Republican talking point to blow off non-discrimination ordinances. I want my money back from her lieutenant governor's race.

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

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

HOUEquality has more on the judge's verdict that the anti-HERO contingent failed to collect enough signature to force a ballot referendum, and Bluedaze has more on the oil money greasing the palms of the members of the Texas Lege, reflected in the HB 40 vote which overturned fracking bans in Texas cities.

Paradise in Hell marvels at the hatefulness of Steven Hotze.

Scott Braddock chides the Legislature for its inaction on the problem of misclassifying employees.

Texas Watch issues a call to action against a bill that would weaken insurance policyholder protections.

Texas Clean Air Matters is on the lookout for the legislators who are seeking to gut local control.

Better Texas Blog explains how the Aycock school finance bill would increase inequity among the highest and lowest wealth districts.

The Rag Blog has an account of a visit to an immigrant family detention center in Karnes City.

Liprap's Lament declares that her Texmudgeonly attitude is melting a little after a tour inside the Astrodome with her son.

Fascist Dyke Motors, blogging from a downtown train, almost had to use Kim's watermelon gun on a man who accosted her.

Isiah Carey reports on the customer appreciation party a Houston bail bondsman threw for his customers and supporters.  Something about that is just hilarious.