The First Debate Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance passes along Heat Street's exclusive betting guide, Moms Rising's bingo card, and the drinking game rules for the first presidential debate this evening.  But before it begins, Houston-area partisans, show up at the Harris County District Attorney debate, between Kim Ogg and Devon Anderson, from 6:30 until 7:30 p.m. on the near southwest side.

Socratic Gadfly "invites" members of Anonymous to hack the TV feed of the presidential debate on Monday, and John Coby at Bay Area Houston has the media's guide for delivering a win to Trump.

Off the Kuff marvels at the latest order from Judge Nelva Ramos in the voter ID lawsuit.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is thrilled by the poll that shows Hillary Clinton ten points ahead of Donald Trump in Harris County: Hot Damn, Houston! We can do this.

A discomfiting conclusion about Ted Cruz folding to Dan Patrick and endorsing Trump was drawn by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

As the Republican Congress fiddles, the Zika virus marches on Texas. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is continually appalled at the Republican war on health care and the well being of citizens.

Neil at All People Have Value pointed out that Ann Harris Bennett would be a far better Harris County Tax Assessor-Voter Registrar than failed incumbent Mike Sullivan. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Asian American Action Fund advances a fundraiser later this week for one of its favored candidates, Rep. Tammy Duckworth (IL-US Senate).

State Rep. Ron Simmons will address the Lewisville Chamber of Commerce regarding the forthcoming legislative session and various transportation matters, reports the Texan-Journal.

Texas Leftist is a little taken aback by the number of teachers slated to lose their jobs under Trump's education plan.

And Dos Centavos humble-brags about the two albums he reviewed that were nominated for the Latin Grammys.

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More blog posts from around Texas!

The Houston Communist Party, in coordination with the Houston Socialist Movement, plans a counter-protest against the "White Lives Matter" protest next Saturday, at the Anti-Defamation League's southwest Houston office.

Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer laments the state of the media, but not that of journalism.

Karisha Shaw at Strength in Numbers has a view of intersectionality through the lens of a queer black woman.

Grits for Breakfast offers a suggestion to the Texas House committee contemplating a racial profiling aspect to police stops: limit searches to reduce public dissatisfaction.

Swamplot updates the court room battle between two oyster harvesting companies over Galveston Bay's reefs as the bay recovers from the spring flooding.

Pages of Victory explains why the Trans-Pacific Partnership exemplifies his loss of respect for the Democratic Party.
  
Lone Star Ma focuses on the twelfth of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Colleen Aune (a former member of the Rice Marching Owl Band) and Dan Solomon have their say on the MOB's controversial halftime show during the Rice-Baylor game.

Raised On The Rail provides a handy map of Houston restaurants near light rail stops.

The Lunch Tray alerts us to a disturbing report about teens and hunger.

The Austin Chronicle and the Texas Freedom Network both remind us that SBOE member David Bradley is a huge jerk.

And the TPA wishes Tom "Smitty" Smith a happy and healthy retirement.

Sunday Funnies

Ted Cruz, Trump, and Dan Patrick

I don't care whether Ted Cruz has suffered any damage -- any at all, in any way -- with his endorsement of Trump.  It's obvious to me that the man cares about nothing except the next election he's running in.

But it's instructive that it was our lieutenant governor who pushed him off the fence with notice that he would be "left in the rearview mirror" if he didn't endorse the Republican nominee.  What that tells me is that Cruz was intimidated by the realization that he might be primaried in 2018 by someone running to his right.  (Fear is a mutha, ain't it?)

But.  Someone running to the right of Ted Cruz.  Who could win.

Let that sink in.

"Keep Calm and Vote Green: Fascism is not coming"

Thanks to Paul Street at Truthdig for telling it like it is, using the boy who cried 'wolf" analogy:

Every four years, liberal-left politicos scream wolf about how the Republicans are going to wreak plutocratic, racist, ecocidal, sexist, repressive and war-mongering hell if they win “this, the most important election in American history.” The politicos conveniently ignore the plutocratic, racist, ecocidal, sexist, repressive and military-imperial havoc that Democrats inflict at home and abroad in dark, co-dependent alliance with the ever more radically reactionary Republicans.

Democrats fail to acknowledge their preferred party’s responsibility for sustaining the Republicans’ continuing power, which feeds on the “dismal” Dems’ neoliberal abandonment of the nation’s working-class majority in service to transnational Wall Street and corporate America. They commonly exaggerate the danger posed by the right-most major party and (especially) the progressivism of the not-so-left-most one.

It’s not that the liberal and progressive politicos lie about the presence of wolves. The wolves are out there. But they include Democratic wolves in fake sheep’s clothing joined with Republicans in what Washington journalist Mark Leibovich calls “the ultimate Green Party.” The nation’s capital, Leibovich notes, has “become a determinedly bipartisan team when there is money to be made. … ‘No Democrats and Republicans in Washington anymore,’ goes the maxim, ‘only millionaires.’ ” 

I watched Bill Maher last night (something I haven't done much ever since he came out as one of those Paul Ryan/Chris Christie/chicken or fish fuckwads).  One of the panelists was Lanhee Chen, a Republican who cannot vote for either Trump or Clinton.  His response to Maher regarding who he was voting for began with "I live in California, just like you" before he was interrupted and attacked by World War Z author Max Brooks with "Supreme Court".

Chen gets most everything about policy wrong IMO, but gets it right about the Electoral College; Maher and the rest of his panel (save the odious Neera Tanden, who gets it completely and exploits the fear factor associated with not voting for Clinton) do not.

The more American liberals and progressives (vote for the lesser evil; it has a track record, after all), the more the Republican right wing is emboldened, the further the Democrats move into ideological and policy territory formerly held by Republicans, and the more dire the American and global situation becomes. LEV is a viciously circular, self-fulfilling prophecy that itself holds no small responsibility for the ascendancy of horrible Republican presidents and other terrible things like the tea party and Donald Trump phenomena. [...]

I am not so inured to the quasi-neofascistic evil of the Trump phenomenon and the ugly prospects of a Trump presidency—especially on the ecological level—that I cannot understand why many fellow leftists would mark a ballot for the hideous imperial corporatist Hillary Clinton to block Herr Trump. The intra-left bloodletting that takes place on a regular quadrennial schedule over the difficult question of how best to respond to the United States’ plutocratic electoral and party system certainly does not serve the progressive left cause. Let us join together after the latest quadrennial extravaganza to build and expand a great popular movement with a list of demands and the introduction of an election and party system that deserves passionate citizen engagement.

The debate is Monday.  Clinton's polling has gathered strength again.   Don't be one of those cowards who is too scared to vote for a better Democratic Party -- by voting for the Green Party -- in a non-battleground state.

I see your Charles Blow and raise you Ralph Nader

Blow blew it here with his lecturing, primarily aimed at African American millennials but scattershot at everybody who thinks like me.  So in corresponding piss-value response to everybody that thinks like him (and is sharing it on FB and shit), let's feed him some Nader.

"Sanders hasn’t returned a call from me in 18 years. He is a lone ranger. He doesn’t like to be pushed into more progressive action than he is willing to adhere to. As a result, millions of his voters now are in disarray. They don’t know where to go. They’re cynical. Some will go Democrat. Some will support Libertarian, Green. Some will stay home. And so this huge, wonderful effort that he launched is now aborted. It’s dissipating."

If Sanders doesn't like being pushed to the left, then why would he dare try to push his caucus to the right?  This is the entire premise set forth over a year ago, when he was rumored to be 'exploring' a run for president.  That it would end with him sheepdogging progressives onto the Clinton bandwagon.  We all saw this coming.  We hoped for something different, but no.

"And the idea of calling a third party 'spoiler,' using the First Amendment right to run for office, is a politically bigoted word and should never be tolerated by the American people, because everyone has an equal right to run for office. Everyone is going to get votes from one another. So they’re either spoilers of one another or none of them are spoilers.

[...]

"Well, it’s wrong from a First Amendment point of view, first of all. You should never tell anybody to shut up. And when you run for office, it’s free speech, petition and assembly. It’s the consummate use of the First Amendment. But here—it’s a scapegoating. The Democrats could never get over how they couldn’t beat this bumbling governor from Texas, who couldn’t put a paragraph together and has a horrible record—children and women and pollution, etc., policy, right?"

AMY GOODMAN: "You’re talking about George W. Bush."

RALPH NADER: "George W. Bush. So they scapegoat the Greens. So here’s how it goes: 300,000 registered Democrats in 2000 in Florida voted for Bush—blame the Greens. Thousands of people were misidentified as ex-felons by Katherine Harris, the secretary of state for Jeb Bush, governor of Florida—blame the Greens. The butterfly ballot, which was very deceptive and got people to vote for exactly the opposite candidate in South Florida—blame the Greens. Scalia’s political 5-4 decision, which blocked the Florida Supreme Court’s full recount in Florida—blame the Greens. The Electoral College took the victory in the popular vote from Gore—blame the Greens. Gore loses his Tennessee state, where he represented in Congress for years—blame the Greens. It’s total scapegoating. It’s disgusting that extremely smart people, who happen to be Democratic Party apparatchiks, like Howard Dean, who’s now in a corporate firm that lobbies for the healthcare and drug industry, by the way, and never identified as such by The New York Times and others who quote him—he is now reviving this 2000 nonsense."

Two things seem real easy to understand to me: Hillary Clinton is Jeb Bush, with Poppy and all of W's neocons on board.  And if Trump still manages to win, it's Clinton's fault exclusively for being a bad candidate running an even worse campaign.

The more people like Blow (and Charles Pierce) want to play hardball with a candidate drawing 3%, the harder the ball is going to get.  It might come to a head next Monday night in upstate New York.

These fucking Jackasses are wearing. me. out.