The Special Weekly Wrangle

As the Texas Legislature is poised to reconvene for its special bathroom session, the Texas Progressive Alliance has the mega-blog post roundup from last week and also wants to know where it can buy one of those "Sunset and Sign, Die" pins.

Off the Kuff highlights a spate of LGBT candidates running for office in the near future.

SocraticGadfly tells any Texas Greens who are thinking of skipping 2018 in working to restore party-line ballot access to stop entertaining such thoughts because next year will be a good opportunity.

Got any Democrats in mind to run for governor in 2018? Drop a line to the TDP if you do, says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Stace at Dos Centavos watched as the Harris County commissioners pollo'ed out on joining the lawsuit against the anti-sanctuary law.

Grits for Breakfast examines what police reform looks like from the conservative (specifically the representative from Empower Texans) perspective.

Texas Vox posts some of the videos of the Center for Nonprofit Studies at Austin Community College's series of “civil” discussions of the significant social issues Austin is facing, entitled Civil Society.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notices that the war on immigrants is taking a toll on the shrimping industry.

The Texan Journal reports that a federal judge has denied the request of a Title IX plaintiff for a new trial, after a jury found the Lewisville ISD not guilty.  The case will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

jobsanger links to a New Republic piece on Trump and Russia, quoting 'Deep Throat' of Watergate infamy: "Follow the money."

McBlogger laughs at the religious left's attempts to gain relevance.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston thinks we really need a bathroom bill.

Neil at All People Have Value attended the Medicare For All town hall sponsored by the Bernie Sanders/Our Revolution group and also by Houston socialist organizations. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More Lone Star lefty blog posts and news!

The Rivard Report says it's Greg Abbott's special session and the rest of us are just livin' in it, but San Antonio lawmakers have other ideas.

PoliTex reports on Abbott's prolific use of social media, particularly Facebook Live, as he kicked off his re-election campaign last Friday.

Melissa del Bosque at the Texas Observer has the story on Trump's southern border wall already taking shape, running through an environmentally sensitive South Texas wildlife refuge.

Better Texas Blog keeps digging into how bad Trumpcare would be for our state.

Juanita Jean has some fun with a Republican neighbor.

Paradise in Hell wonders what town hall meetings Ted Cruz goes to, and High Plains Blogger sees "Lyin' Ted", of 2016 GOP primary fame, making a comeback.

DBC Green Blog previewed CD-36 Green Congressional candidate Hal Ridley Jr.'s event in Clear Lake over the past weekend.

Chris Ladd at Political Orphans is here to remind us, as a former 'GOPLifer', that Democrats are not going to save us from Trump and extremist Republicans. 

Michael Li demonstrates how easy it is to draw minority opportunity districts in Deep-In-The-Hearta, and Gabriella Dunn at Burkablog documents the many requests for Texas voter data.

Somervell County Salon carefully documents a recent appellate court case in North Carolina that found that county commissioners cannot say a prayer before their meetings.

Ashton P. Woods at Strength !n Numbers asks: is loving a black man a revolutionary act?

And Harry Hamid retells a children's tale as "Gabble, Rabble, and Ross".

Sunday Funnies

The Chronic cans their best asset

Nick Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist at the Houston Chronicle, must update his resume' to 'formerly' at the Houston Chronicle.



Always the class act, here are his parting words:

I have an unfortunate announcement: Today is my last day at The Houston Chronicle. My position was eliminated. Much has been written about the reduction of staff editorial cartoonists at newspapers (along with print journalists in general) and today, the odds caught up with me. Ironically, thanks to social media, my cartoons are seen more widely than ever.

One cartoon I posted during the heat of the presidential election campaign last year was shared around 550,000 times on Facebook alone, and those were just the ones I could track. I was at a wedding in New York around that time. The woman sitting next to me asked me what I did for a living. I told her, and she said, "Oh, I saw your cartoon on Facebook today." She pulled out her phone and there it was. Thanks to the internet and social media, the reach of editorial cartoons has never been greater.

While the internet and social media help spread my work widely, they also have made it harder for anyone in the news business to make a living. I was able to drive significant traffic to my employer's web site at times, but not on the same scale as the Facebook traffic. And traffic alone isn't enough anymore. Newspapers are moving to a subscriber/paywall model. Unfortunately, the powers that be decided a full-time cartoonist was not going to be a part of that model.

I've had a good run, and I'm grateful to been a political cartoonist for so long. I've been extremely fortunate in my professional career. I really want to thank my readers for their encouragement, comments, and feedback. Even the insults and disagreements have been appreciated.

But you're not rid of me yet. I'm still syndicated with The Washington Post Writers Group. I’ll continue to draw 3 to 4 cartoons a week for the foreseeable future and, hopefully, for many years to come. Meanwhile, please feel free to let me know of any opportunities that you think would be a good fit, inside or outside of journalism.

One last note: I called our Human Resources department earlier this year to see about getting more vacation time -- be careful what you wish for...

As you may know, the Chronic is owned by Hearst, which long ago employed yours truly as an advertising executive.  I prepared budgets for three of their smaller newspapers at a time (mid- to late Eighties) when they were running profit margins between 30 and 40%.  Newspapers don't make that kind of money any more, but they don't lose money unless they're going head-to-head in a single market, which is how joint operating agreements came into being back in my day and before.  Even those legal and political machinations don't make enough cash for their corporate overlords any longer, and many of the weaker papers have died or gone paperless, like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which Hearst also owns).

The Chronic has laid off staff a few times over the past ten years, sold their downtown office for its high real estate value, watched costly talent like Ken Hoffman bail out for objecting to the paywall model, and now has eliminated the last reason for reading that newspaper.  Truly the best thing they had going, in their last-gasp quest to maintain what is probably only a 10 or 15% profit margin.  Their Austin/Lege coverage has face-planted, their DC bureau is invisible; it's like they've given up on reporting in exchange for photo slideshows on the free site.  I find it embarrassing to have watched the paper fall so far as the result of the decisions made by their consistently weak and excessively staffed management.  There's at least three times the number of managers that there was thirty years ago.  For what?  To do what?  Drive the business further into the ground?

Positively disgraceful.  My subscription has already been canceled.  Nick Anderson will be just fine, but the Houston Chronicle is sinking faster than Hillary Clinton's poll numbers on the day before Election Day.

Starring Sylvester Turner as Donald Trump

And several of the Democrats on city council as Republicans (you pick which ones) in Congress.

Karun Sreerama (l), Chris Oliver (r)

Houston's public works director will vacate his post temporarily following revelations that he made unlawful payments to a Houston Community College trustee now awaiting sentencing on a federal bribery charge.

Karun Sreerama paid $77,143 to longtime HCC trustee Chris Oliver in three installments between late 2010 and mid-2013, when Sreerama owned a private engineering firm. Federal authorities say Oliver was leveraging his power to influence the awarding of HCC business contracts.

Wait for it ...

Mayor Sylvester Turner said (on July 12) he was unaware of the criminal case or Sreerama's involvement prior to this week. Turner added that he spoke with the public works director during a "brief telephone call" before placing him on paid administrative leave.

"I am taking this action so that I may thoroughly review the information to make sure there are no further related implications for the city and him," Turner said in a written statement. "It is against everyone's best interest for a public servant to have to operate under a cloud."

The mayor, who is traveling in Europe on city business, added, "I continue to have confidence in Karun and look forward to his return."

Wait for it ...

City Council members widely praised the mayor's decision to place Sreerama on leave, but largely were reticent to say whether they thought he ought to remain as director of the city's largest department, with a $2.1 billion budget.

"At this time, I can't say one way or the other," said Councilman Larry Green, who chairs the council committee that reviews public works issues.

Wait ... for ... it ...

Over the years, Sreerama has been a prolific political donor, predominantly to Democrats, and was a key supporter of Turner's 2015 mayoral bid. His family contributed a combined $20,000 to Turner's runoff campaign. He also has contributed to the campaigns of seven of the 16 sitting council members: Green, Ellen Cohen, Amanda Edwards, Brenda Stardig (a Republican), David Robinson, Jack Christie (also a Republican), and Jerry Davis.

Oliver has been reprimanded (!!!) by his colleagues on the community college board, but further action such as removal from office awaits ... something more serious and external than his pleading guilty to felony bribery charges, I suppose.  Sentencing, perhaps?  Sreerama awaits Turner's return from Europe for additional judgement, if any.  The mayor pro tem doesn't think it's a big deal.

Cohen said she could see Sreerama resuming his leadership role with the city.

"As far as I'm concerned with the information I have to date, I believe that he's in a position, once everything is discussed, to continue to do a credible job," Cohen said.

No.  Just no.  Even Marc Campos gets it, and he can't find his asshole without using a mirror.  Oliver should have been gone long ago, and Sreerama should follow him right out the door, along with his firm being barred from receiving further municipal contracts for an extended period of time.

It's almost as if these people know they're not going to be standing for re-election for a long time -- if ever again -- and are grabbing all the money they can, with both hands, while the grabbing's good.

Now do you understand why Houston's Democrats strike me as the kind of thing we used to refer to as moderate Republicans?

Friday Scattershots: Beto's 2, Abbott's 34, and the special session

Normally I leave the fundraising reporting to those that groove on it.  But occasionally it's newsworthy, and this is one of those times.

-- Beto O'Rourke out-raised Ted Cruz, and he did it without PAC money, or big donors, or out-of-staters, like that Blue Dog loser Jon Ossoff.  He merits kudos from The Intercept for his Bernie Sanders-style fundraising, also his (finally) unqualified support for single payer.  Let's pick out just a little of Ryan Grim's piece for consideration.

He is far from the centrist mold that power brokers in Washington might recruit to run for Senate in Texas, but then again, power brokers in Washington don’t spend much time thinking about running for Senate in Texas.

But the way O’Rourke is raising money changes the game. The El Paso congressman does not have much in the way of a national fundraising network, has refused corporate PAC money, and is known among his colleagues to be a less-than-enthusiastic fundraiser. That’s the kind of lawmaker who often had little future in Washington — but exactly the kind many grassroots Democrats would like to see rise. The type of person who is good at spending hours a day with doctors, bankers, lawyers and other professionals who can write four and five-figure checks is a) probably not hard-wired to be a conviction politician and b) vulnerable to have their politics diluted just by virtue of the conversations they’re having day in and day out.

Former Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., said that spending so much time on the phone fundraising winds up creating “an enormous anti-populist element, particularly for Dems, who are most likely to be hearing from people who can write at least a $500 check. They may be liberal, quite liberal in fact, but are also more likely to consider the deficit a bigger crisis than the lack of jobs.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Greg Abbott announces for re-election today with gobs of money in the bank and no challengers.

His lips are ready to smooch the backsides of the big check-writers.

Despite criticism, Abbott remains a popular figure among Republicans statewide and has a campaign kitty that will be daunting to any potential challengers. He had more than $34 million in his campaign account in January, and that number is expected to grow when new fundraising totals are announced shortly.

Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that we're not going to be rid of Helen Wheels until he decides to run for president.  And since he can do so and remain governor after losing a White House bid, perhaps not even then.

If the special session does not go his way, will it damage him politically?  I think the opposite, candidly.  First, note that Texas is already losing commerce to other states for the first time in over a decade (that's at least two oil slumps ago, not counting the current one) and if he and Dan Patrick ram through the bathroom bill, that will hurt the state's reputation for a welcoming bidness climate even further.  But it is the capitalist titans inside and outside Texas that are going to have to make him pay the price for his governmental intrusion and over-reach into our private lives: in corporate or branch relocations reconsidered, in conventions and events like the Final Four canceled, and in their reduced, or embargoed, or eliminated campaign contributions to him.

To the GOP base, though, he'll be martyred on a toilet in a transgender-friendly restroom.  He'll have fended off the primary challenge from Lite Guv Goeb, and he'll have the Christian Soldiers marching onward as to war for him.  He wins by losing (if he loses, and Joe Straus has to be feeling pretty lonely these days).

-- Did the Russians try to hack Harris County's elections website?  Stan Stanart's IT guy isn't saying yes, isn't saying no.

Despite widespread alarm over the breadth of Russian cyber attacks on state and local election systems last year, including revelations of Dallas County being targeted, Harris County officials are refusing to say whether hackers similarly took aim at the nation's third-largest county.

Releasing information on whether Harris County election systems saw attacks from Russian hackers would threaten the county's cyber security by emboldening hackers to further target local systems, county officials said this week.

The county's argument was dismissed by experts, who said the secrecy is unnecessary, and could actually downplay the seriousness of the threat and the resources needed to combat it.

So ... 'don't ask, don't tell, maybe it will go away' seems to be the strategy.  This strikes me as pluperfect Stanart.  Did you know that a number of voters greater than one out of every four say they are considering not voting because of fears of the elections being hacked?

More than a quarter of recently polled registered voters say they will consider not casting ballots in future U.S. elections because of hacking concerns, with 27 percent saying they may stay home from the polls when the 2018 midterm elections roll around.

That number could mark a challenge during the midterms, with the possibility of as many as 58.8 million of the more than 200 million eligible voters choosing to stay home, according cybersecurity firm Carbon Black. The June survey of 5,000 people found a lower level of confidence in the overall voting process compared to data collected prior to most recent presidential election.

This is what Democratic paranoia hath wrought.  So in a perverse way, maybe Stanart's office is on to something.  We certainly don't need any more vote suppression efforts, especially not those borne out of Clinton Democrats' fever dreams.

There has been a lot of Moscow-on-the-Potomac to digest this week.  Maha has a good summary, including that McClatchy piece that Gadfly has already skewered.  But her lede is slightly buried.

To those who are certain the Trump/Russians stole the 2016 election, I would like to point out that if the Clinton campaign hadn’t been so brain dead, there would have been fewer vulnerabilities to exploit. Ultimately, it was Clinton’s election to lose, and she lost it. She might very well have lost it had the Russians done nothing at all. Historians will probably be arguing the point for the rest of eternity. But this is about something bigger than who won the election.

Yes it is.  More on that later.

-- I also have some thoughts coming on the dispute between Caitlyn Johnstone and Yoav Litvin (and some who have responded ahead of me) over the potential direction and alliances of the Green Party, specifically David Cobb's role in said, in the middle of it all.  BTW, the Greens' national meeting is happening right now in Newark, NJ.