The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrated the imminent announcement of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign -- and that of several Texans who are in for 2020 in downballot contests -- with Our Revolution Texas, Jim Hightower, Nina Turner, Sema Hernandez, Steve Brown, and about a hundred others at Saint Arnold's Brewery last Saturday evening.

(click for a clearer look)

Off the Kuff blogs about some of those not named Beto considering a Senate bid next year.  Down With Tyranny did him several points better, mentioning Sema (even as he discounted her prospects).  Not even the mighty TexTrib has managed to notice her campaign yet.

MJ Hegar lost her bid for U.S. Congress in 2018.

Wendy Davis lost her bid for Texas Governor in 2014.

Yet both aren’t closing the door to a U. S. Senate campaign.

It’s very strange to not mention @_SemaHernandez_, someone who has announced that she is running for U.S. Senate. https://t.co/3PuGos7dUM

— Samuel Ulises Carrillo (@samuelucarrillo) February 17, 2019

Meanwhiile PDiddie at Brains and Eggs rolled out his weekly 2020 update, featuring Amy Klobuchar's snowblind announcement, Kamala Harris' Rap Genius on display, and the Beto Waffle.  And David Collins still doesn't care about the early horse race.

DWT also anticipates that Texas -- like California in 2018 -- could elect seven new Democratic Congresscritters in 2020 (although that strikes this blogger as extremely wishful thinking, especially if they're more like Henry Cuellar and less like Mike Siegel).

Texans for Public Justice points to the TexTrib's piece about Dennis Bonnen's huge cash haul right after he clinched the race for Speaker.

“The Austin lobby, by and large, gives for influence and access, it doesn’t give due to ideological affinities,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist. “When it was clear that Dennis Bonnen would become speaker, Dennis Bonnen became one of the three most powerful politicians in Texas and therefore someone that every lobbyist — from the left to the right, from clean energy to oil and coal, from beer distributors to craft breweries — everyone wants to be on his good side.”

Case in point: The Border Health PAC, closely tied to McAllen multi-millionaire Alonzo Cantu — a major fundraiser for former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton — was Bonnen’s top donor for the period, giving him $100,000 in two separate contributions.

The second highest donor was Charles Butt, chief executive officer of the H-E-B supermarket chain, and a billionaire who has poured money into the fight against taxpayer-funded voucher-like programs, a priority issue for top Republicans last session.

Better Texas Blog calls the signature bills in the Lege to cap property tax revenues the "wrong approach" to the issue.

Ty Clevenger's Lawflog details his lawsuit regarding Sen. John Whitmire's quashing of a DPS investigation regarding a female state trooper that the senator was having an affair with.

In this week's criminal justice news, the latest developments in the Houston drug bust that took the lives of four police officers and two suspected drug dealers prompt Grits for Breakfast to explain why we know so little about the bad cops on some *cough* HPD *cough* police forces.  Progrexas writes about the Lege's evolving views on state jails.

In the run-up to the 2019 legislative session, the leaders of both the House and the Senate asked committees to study the state jail system, which holds around 21,500 inmates in 17 jails, according to the House Committee on Corrections. That led to a report from the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence that referred to the system as a “complete failure,” and lawmakers in both chambers listed bolstering local pretrial and probation initiatives as a top priority.

In its 2020-21 funding request, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice asked for $8 million in addition to its base budget to expand pretrial services offered in counties across the state. Pretrial programs divert defendants from traditional criminal justice processing and provide rehabilitative substance abuse and mental health treatment to offenders. Advocates say such rehabilitative treatment is missing from state jails today and is largely to blame for the problems in the system.

And Harris County commissioners denied the request for additional prosecutorial staff for DA Kim Ogg, a surprising rebuke from her fellow Democrats on commissioners court.

The rejection appeared even more pointed a little later when the court voted to nearly double the budget for the county public defender’s office, the most significant investment in that office’s nine-year history.

It also came less than 24 hours after a former assistant district attorney filed paperwork to challenge Ogg in next year’s primary, a sign criminal justice reformers may have lost patience with the self-described progressive after helping elect her in 2016.

SocraticGadfly looks at the dustup between AIPAC and Rep. Ilhan Omar and says she shouldn't have apologized.  Pages of Victory had similar thoughts.

Steve Russell at The Rag Blog pleads mea culpa on three of Trump's appointees he thought would be something less than horrible.

Juan Cole blogs about Trump's proposed wall at the southern border as an ugly scar across a thriving zone of biological diversity.  Gus Bova at The Texas Observer has the latest on the National Butterfly Center's lawsuit seeking a restraining order on construction of the wall through its property.

Fourteen Texas counties have groundwater that is contaminated by coal ash dumps.  Texas Vox passes along the link to the Environmental Integrity Project's recent report.

Texas Freedom Network sees the push for Bible courses in public schools getting a White House endorsement despite some very serious problems.

Somervell County Salon wonders how what Google did in Midlothian could be considered transparent.  Backstory:

To win a $10 million tax break from a small Texas city, Google quietly set up a shell entity called "Sharka," forced city officials to conceal from the public that Google was behind it, & didn't come clean until after the tax breaks were locked in.https://t.co/lJjeYOWRs7

— Avi Asher-Schapiro (@AASchapiro) February 15, 2019

Therese Odell talks about her personal connection to gun violence in America.

The Lunch Tray highlights the untold story of school food reform.

Paradise in Hell provides some other national "emergencies" for Trump to deal with.

Elise Hu takes the O.J. tour.

And Harry Hamid declares that quitting smoking and drinking has nearly killed him.

Sunday Funnies

Butterfly refuge in south Texas files restraining order to stop border wall construction

Abuse of Faith: Investigation reveals 700 victims of Southern Baptist sexual abuse over 20 years

The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

It's quite thin, as nobody jumped in or dropped out and those who were in -- or not in yet -- had little but stumbles and speculation for the media, corporate and social, to report and feud over.

-- Let's note that with a very large field of candidates, the DNC is already laying down debate rules well in advance of the first scheduled tilt, in June.

“As many as 20 Democratic presidential candidates will be invited to the party’s first sanctioned debates this summer if they can meet new polling or grass-roots fundraising thresholds to qualify,” the Washington Post reports.

“Candidates can qualify either by attracting campaign donations from at least 65,000 people, including at least 200 people from at least 20 states, or by registering at least 1 percent in three state or national polls from a list of surveys approved by the party.”

-- After launching her campaign during a blizzard, Amy Klobuchar had to speak to allegations about bullying her Senate staff.

“Yes, I can be tough, and yes I can push people. I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work for me, but I have high expectations for this country.”

The matter seems quelled, but look for questions about it during the next CNN townhall on Monday.

-- Speaking of Howard Schultz, his was a complete faceplant.  But guess what?  In our glorious democracy oligarchy/idiocracy, it doesn't matter.

On Tuesday night, CNN hosted a live town hall with former Starbucks CEO and potential presidential candidate Howard Schultz. It didn’t go particularly well. Schultz’s answers were largely vague, with occasional lapses into absurdity (“I didn’t see color as a young boy and I honestly don’t see color now,” Schultz said when asked about race).

But more interesting than the town hall’s content was its existence. Lots of people with no base of political support would like to run for president, but they can’t, because the media wouldn’t take their candidacies seriously. So why is Schultz, a political newcomer who “had the worst numbers of any potential candidate tested” in CNN’s own poll, getting such red-carpet treatment?

The answer, of course, is money. Schultz is a billionaire, and in American politics, money is a shortcut to legitimacy.

“Schultz doesn’t have to do the hard work of building a mass movement or representing a genuine constituency to get attention in our politics, because the media uses ability to spend money as a proxy for seriousness of campaign,” says Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America. “And when the media bestows seriousness on a candidate, the public follows along.”

This, as everyone with a functioning brain understands, is exactly how Donald Trump came to be the 45th POTUS.  What's unfortunate is that many of those who voted for him -- unlike those in the executive offices of our corporate media, which just needs to cash the checks -- do not have functioning brains.  Zombies vote, y'all, and they vote a straight GOP ticket.

-- Turns out Kamala Harris is a Rap Genius.

Imagine being so high you listened to music that didn't exist yet. #KamalaHarrisRapGenius https://t.co/MwnWQfhxQk

— Adam Ullian (@adamullian) February 13, 2019

Charlemagne: you like Eminem?

Kalmala: yea my favorite ones are the Green#KamalaHarrisRapGenius pic.twitter.com/Kf8xBwvxfv

— DKT (@darleneturner53) February 13, 2019

Yeah, my favorite rap song from Fresh Prince was Purple Rain.

Quickly recovering, Senator Copmala announced the endorsement of progressive lioness Barbara Lee, which instantly became a bone of contention for the Berners.

-- Beto O'Rourke trumped Trump's rally in El Paso and then fueled speculation about a potential US Senate race by meeting with Chuck Schumer this week.  Politico also quoted someone anonymously saying that US Rep. Joaquin Castro would run against John Cornyn if Beto decided not to.

"Joaquin believes Beto could beat John in 2020, and if Beto decides to see this thing through and do that, then Joaquin will give him his full support, just like he did against Ted Cruz,” a source close to Castro told POLITICO. “Otherwise, Joaquin will absolutely consider jumping in and finishing the job."

This smells like twin peaks of Castro bullshit to me.  Here's a few reasons why.

1.  Beto hasn't even decided whether to jump in the presidential scrum, yet he's polling considerably stronger than Julián, and will move into the top five front-runners when he announces.

O'Rourke's e-mail network of small donors, at 743,000, is only one-third that of Bernie Sanders' -- whose 2.1 million base is larger than all other Democrats in the hunt -- but is still double that of his closest rivals (Warren, Gillibrand, Harris).  Castro has fewer than 900.

2.  It's Julián who is more likely to drop out and run against Cornyn, because he's not currently employed in government like Joaquin, his campaign is unlikely to gain traction among so many other cautious centrists, and he doesn't want to be anybody's running mate this time around.  He said so just last week (scroll to the end).

3.  Joaquin not only has some tenure in the D caucus -- he's already been a deputy whip and a chair of the Hispanic Caucus -- he sits on the House Intelligence Committee, which is a plum job for anybody with a base of representation that includes so many service members and veterans, like San Antonio's 20th District.  (Candidly, he or his brother could have defeated both Beto and Ted Cruz in 2018 if they hadn't been too fucking scared of losing.  Their reticence let Beto zoom right past them.  Don't take my word for it; read the third graf at Joaquin's Wiki.)

There's no good reason for Joaquin to give up all he's earned in a Dem majority in the House to shoot for a seat in the minority in the Senate.  Julián, on the other hand, has nothing left to wait around for if -- when -- his 2020 bid peters out.  Governor in 2022?  Not a chance if he's at 1% or less in the presidential polls in December.

And by the way: either Castro scares Wendy Davis and MJ Hegar right out of the Senate race, because even white centrist Democratic women can't compete with a Latinx of the same ideological stripe.  If neither Castro runs and one of Hegar or Davis does, look for Sema Hernandez to win the primary on the strength of the Latinx effect in statewide Donkey primaries.  She got 24% of the vote against Beto in 2018 spending just $5K, and similar to Maria Luisa Alvarado in 2006 and Linda Chavez-Thompson in 2010 -- who mashed their Caucasian establishment counterparts -- Hernandez can win the Senate primary with some reasonable fundraising even as the corporate media pretends she doesn't exist.

Beto's running for the White House in 2020, and when he comes up short will gladly be somebody's running mate.  Julián Castro could -- perhaps even should, but may still be too afraid to -- run against Cornyn in 2020.  Joaquin Castro needs to stay in Congress.

That's my reading of the cabrito entrails this week.

Nina Turner, Jim Hightower at St. Arnold's this weekend

Take care of your Valentine before Saturday night because the Revolution needs some planning.

Get your tickets here.