The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progessive Alliance hails yesterday's May Day celebrations around the world...

... and anticipates more celebrating with Cinco de Mayo next up...

... as it brings you this week's blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff looks at new polling evidence showing a shift in partisan preference towards the Democrats in Harris County.

Socratic Gadfly moves outside of politics to ask if recent injuries may give Timmeh, Manu (and Pops?) a Los Spurs retirement gift.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos insists that Texas Republican leadership and its obsession with public bathrooms -- while it ignores crucially important health and environmental challenges -- is a literal threat to our lives. Houston: Hurricanes, Frequent Flooding and now Zika too?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows that Republicans run the Child Protection Services, but still.  Blaming the victim in domestic abuse cases?   Still?

Egberto Willies thinks Larry Wilmore went too far with the one-black-man-to-another shoutout to President Obama at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston covered Satan's press conference announcing that he would file suit against former speaker of the US House John Boehner for defaming his character (specifically comparing the Lord of the Underworld to Sen. Ted Cruz).

The Lewisville Texan Journal spent a stormy evening with the local emergency operations management crew as they went into action during last week's storms.

Texas Vox took note of the most recent (high contamination-level) nuclear waste storage application to be filed in Andrews County.

In the wake of the adverse effect of revisions under Republican appointee Ron Hickman, Dos Centavos reports that November Democratic opponent Ed Gonzalez challenged the interim Harris County sheriff to reinstate the county jail's inspectors and diversify staff.

The passing of the legendary Texas sports reporter and editor Blackie Sherrod was noted by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value made a small donation to help with recent flooding in Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More posts from other Texas blogs!

Just as the Texas Observer mentioned that the state Supreme Court unanimously blocked the city of Houston's ordinance to improve its air quality, Culture Map Houston posted the American Lung Association's State of the Air 2016 report, which showed Dallas surging into the lead for the worst breathing in Texas.

Grits for Breakfast has your police blotter updates, from the Harris County grand jury that was never told by the DA that an LEO was drunk when he shot two men, to the continuing miscarriages of justice in the Waco biker shootings.

Trail Blazers takes note of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's dip under the waters of the River Jordan.

Prairie Weather questions the worshipping of a certain type of person.

Tory Gattis at Houston Strategies does the Chamber of Commerce's work for them.

 Robert Rivard considers Julian Castro's place on Hillary Clinton's VP short list.

The TSTA Blog cites actual statistics experts on the subject of using statistical methods for teacher evaluation.

Space City Weather puts Houston's recent flooding into historical perspective.

Paradise in Hell advises Ted Cruz to listen to himself.

Andrea Grimes would like to know who will protect us from the likes of Dennis Hastert and Johnny Manziel.

Offcite gives a tour of Houston's new clinic for the homeless.

Adam Briggle, father of a transgender son, calls out Denton County Sheriff candidate Tracy Murphree for a transphobic post on Facebook. Murphree then agreed to meet with the Briggle family to talk with them and get a better understanding of the issue, but as Equality Texas reports, he abruptly backed out before their meeting could take place.

Sunday Funnies

Revolution news update

With Hillary Clinton’s emergence as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, online chatter about Green Party candidate Jill Stein as a November alternative for supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders is getting louder.

[...]

Bill Boyarsky writes at Truthdig that Sanders’ supporters “would be welcomed by Dr. Jill Stein. The physician-activist is favored to win the Green Party presidential nomination this year after heading the party’s ticket in 2012.” Stein told Boyarsky, “The whole reason for having an independent third party that cannot be silenced is there are 25 percent of Bernie’s voters who are not going into that dark night to vote for the No. 1 cheerleader for Wal-Mart, for Wall Street, for an endless war. They are looking for another place to hang their hat.”

Inquisitr reports on Stein’s outreach to Sanders, writing that Sanders has “refused the Green Party’s courting in the past, and he says he won’t play the part of the spoiler. Still, supporters of the idea point out that the Green Party National Convention takes place in August, following the Democratic National Convention in July. On social media, many have said that superdelegates should consider that hundreds of thousands of Sanders’ supporters might demand that he accept Stein’s offer” to join a Green ticket.

Sputnik News reports that according to journalist Sam Sacks, “If Sanders lost the Democratic nomination, millions of his voters could opt out from supporting Clinton, possibly seeking another candidate.” Dave Lindorff of Op-Ed News also writes about a possible Sanders spot on the Green ticket.

Stein has offered to allow Sanders to run as the Greens' presidential nominee, stepping back to V-P herself.  That can be heard in this interview.

It's probably nothing for ignorant corporate war-loving Democrats -- you know, the ones who still believe Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election -- to worry about.  Yet.  For the moment it's important for #BernieOrBusters to clearly understand how the election laws for write-in candidates in each of the 50 states very probably nullify their attempts to get him elected in that fashion, to say nothing of the chances of that happening on its best day, or the futility of trying to send a message when the telephones lines are all down (so to speak).  That part of the system is also rigged against them, you see.

In the meantime, I'll just refer to "#5", or "#2", or whatever number is appropriate every time a neoliberal gets his or her wings on social media.  I need some people to self-deport from my timeline and this seems like the best way to get the heavy trash to the curb.

Still going to need your ID to vote in Texas

Supreme Court says 'no' ... but might reconsider before the fall.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal to stop Texas from enforcing its challenged voter ID law. But the court said it could revisit the issue as the November elections approach.

The law has been in effect for recent elections, even after a trial judge struck it down in 2014 and an appellate panel found last year that the law had a discriminatory effect on minority voters.

The challengers in the ongoing lawsuit argue there is no reason to allow the requirement to show picture identification at the polls to remain in place.

But justices rejected the plea in a brief order Friday. The full New Orleans-based appeals court will hold a new hearing on the Texas law in May.

The high court said that it is aware of "the time constraints the parties confront in light of the scheduled elections." If the full appeals court has not issued a ruling by July 20, the court said, it would entertain a renewed emergency appeal over the voter ID law.

Gerry Hebert, who runs the public interest law firm that represents Texas voters challenging the law, said Friday's order gives his clients a chance to again ask the Supreme Court for help if the appeals court does not rule quickly. "This order gives us the opportunity to protect Texas voters if the 5th Circuit fails to rule in time," said Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center.

Some of this delay by the 5th Circuit is because of Antonin Scalia's death early this year.  He oversaw the rulings for this appeals circuit; Clarence Thomas -- the weirdest dude you can imagine -- inherited that workload from his deceased pal.  The slow-walking of Merrick Garland's nomination has put the remaining eight justices in a bind.  Have you signed the petition telling the Senate to do its effing job yet?

Matt Angle at the Lone Star Project shines up the silver lining.

The Texas voter ID law has been ruled discriminatory by three previous federal courts. Yet Texas Republican leaders have continued to appeal the case and demand its enforcement despite previous rulings that it discriminates against hundreds of thousands of eligible Texas voters. The case is currently pending before the full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals awaiting a formal hearing on May 24th. The Supreme Court’s ruling today should force an Appeals Court decision by July 20th, which will likely be immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the losing side. 

It's on track to be settled before we vote this year.  Photo ID is probably DOA once we get a ninth justice, whether that is Garland in December on recess or someone President Hillary Clinton appoints in January of 2017.  Either way, there's no need to allow yourself to be bullied onto the Clinton bandwagon by some neoliberal with a SCOTUS bat.  (The Notorious RBG is just short of being bulletproof, and speculation about the health of SCOTUS judges is rude at any time.)