Monday, August 31, 2020

The Once-Again Weekly Wrangle


Back after a week's break!  Let's open with a lame joke.


Ha. Ha. Ha. But seriously ...


Our fellow Texans in Beaumont and Port Arthur, mostly spared the worst of Laura, evacuated to Austin but still found a reason to fight about something.


And our neighbors in Orange and Lake Charles probably aren't feeling the joke or the lessening, so if you're feeling charitable ...


There's still 42 days remaining before the start of early voting for the November elections, but Greg Abbott is giving SD-30 a head start on replacing Pat Fallon, who replaced John Ratcliffe in TX4 when he joined the Trump administration as DNI. (You may have heard Ratcliffe's name taken in vain over the weekend.)


Luther is the beauty shop owner who defied Greg Abbott and re-opened her salon while the COVID ban was still in effect, drawing headlines, armed supporters, and a brief stint in the pokey.  Springer is the Texas House representative for HD68, and the establishment choice to thwart Luther's bid to join the anti-Abbott Caucus in the Texas Senate.  The other Republicans -- Carter, Hopper, and Watts -- and Democrat Minter are mentioned in this TexTrib piece.

Expect a runoff, with the D and one of the Rs advancing.  The game to watch is whether Dan Patrick -- or acolytes of his that may want to cause trouble for Abbott -- come out publicly for Luther, work behind the scenes, or stay on the sidelines.  Activity like this signals the intensity of GOP primary scuffling in 2022, which the Govnuh is keen to avoid but won't shy away from.

If Springer wins the primary or the runoff, there'll be yet another special election to fill his Texas House seat at some point, in December or January.

Socratic Gadfly also blogged about Abbott, Fallon, and Springer and had some prognostications on the SD-30 race.

TXElects has analyzed Central Texas and Harris County statehouse races.


Who do the newly homeless plan on voting for? Do you think there will be poll watchers challenging their registrations, who've been keeping an eye on the public eviction records?


We know that they -- and everybody else who gets to vote -- won't be able to vote for many Green candidates, thanks to Texas Democrats.


But it's not like the TXGOP is making sure that everyone who wants to vote can do so.


This must be that "lesser evil" stuff I keep hearing about. Remind me again which is which? Oh yeah; I remember now.


There's cruel, and then there's just plain stupid.


Glenn Melancon at Living Blue in Texas points out that some have wasted their entire summer chasing conservative conspiracy theories. (Not this blogger.)

"Cops Behaving Badly" is still news in Texas.


Perhaps there's going to be some room made for improvement.


Here's some environmental headlines over the past week.


With a couple of educational updates:

Dos Centavos points you to a post by researcher Angela Gutierrez regarding a Latino Decisions survey of Latino parents and the challenges they face as schools reopen.


Should I wrap this Wrangle here? Yes, I should. Let's rock (in remembrance).

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Sunday, August 30, 2020

Sunday "Right to Remain Silent" Funnies


(Ed. note: My, what a relaxing week off.  Regular posting to resume in course.  If you missed anything over the past week, Matthew Dessem at Salon has a nice summary.  I must admit that finding humor in this environment is more than the usual challenge.)


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Sunday, August 23, 2020

Sunday "The Choice" Funnies

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Wednesday, August 19, 2020

TexProg Blog Wrangle, Hump Day edition


Ed. note: Looks like the left hip is due for a replacement.  When and how long blogging becomes more sporadic than it is currently is still to be determined.  It's probably for the best; I feel so radicalized by the gaslighters in the Democratic Party that I'm ready to join the revolution, if not start it.  Tweeting and reTweeting will continue at the regular pace, so those BidenTimers among my remaining readers and followers might not want their hopes and dreams punctured with the increasingly acidic truth coming down the pike.  You've been warned. -- PD

Catching up with a few things about the Latinx bloc in Texas.  We might be waiting awhile longer for them to save the Donks from the eevil GOP.


The community may have even bigger problems than not being motivated to turn out for Biden and the Democrats in November, if you can imagine.


On a brighter note, the AAPI electorate is highly charged following the selection of Kamala Harris as VP, and that likely bodes well for Sri Preston Kulkarni in TX-22.


Mustafa Tameez interviewed Ilhan Omar after she won her primary last week.

In yet another threat against local control, Greg Abbott said he would support laws in the next legislative session that would limit the raising of property taxes by budget-strapped communities that defund their police departments.



Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast was among the many bloggers who weighed in.


... I thought conservatives believed revenue caps were a good thing, not a sanction applied to liberal cities for doing something they don't like.

Indeed, I'm old enough to remember when conservatives favored less spending and smaller government. Now the governor wants to punish cities that reduce spending. We've passed all the way through the looking glass, it seems.

Austin cut its police budget by less than five percent. By contrast, Gov. Abbott, the Lt. Governor and the House Speaker recently told state agencies they all must cut their budgets by 5% because of declining tax revenue in the COVID era. Isn't what's good for the goose good for the gander?

Finally, cities around the state face budget shortfalls because of COVID combined with revenue caps the Legislature already approved. "Austin bashing" is one thing -- folks in the capital city have come to expect that -- but are you really going to punish every small town that must cut its police budget because tax revenue declined thanks to the virus?

Ten years ago, Texas Republicans were all about "less government" and "local control." Now Abbott wants to micromanage municipal budgets to keep spending high. This debate is becoming downright surreal.


D Magazine summarizes and links to the DMN's report on the City Council's loss of confidence in the leadership of their police department.

It's not just local cops, as we know.


And because so many of these issues are being managed by Democrats in big cities, the question is begged: what good is voting for them actually doing?


Democrats are busy removing any options to their left from your ballot.


Is that democratic? Is it progressive?


More later (possibly).
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Monday, August 17, 2020

The TexProgBlog Wrangle (DNC Week)



The leftists in the Texas Progressive Alliance won't be tuning in to the DNC convention this week (not even to Bernie and AOC).  The DSA and progressive Democrats in the Alliance may or may not be, depending on how strenuously they define 'progressive'.  The Blue Dogs, shitlibs, Blue MAGAts, neoliberals, establishment Dems and their paid consultants, lobbyists, pollsters, and associated lickspittles -- and of course the RINOs and the Never-Trump Republicans -- will have their eyes glued to the screen every single night.


Lone Star Latinxs in particular seem a little put out about it ...

"I think that we could win the battle and lose the war," (Julian) Castro told "Axios on HBO" of Democrats' chances this fall. "We could win in November, but you could see a potential slide of Latino support for Democrats."

... even Stace, reverting to his milquetoasty form.  But the Texas Signal, your home away from Kuffner with all the insidery establishment goodness you can tolerate without any clues to what's actually going on with the Donkey Party's eroding youth base, is there for you.  Their opinion editor -- a Latina -- even managed an English-only interview with the "Spanish press secretary" for the TDP.  Somebody let me know if they get around to posting a transcript en Espanol.  At least they mentioned "the" chancla.

And all this time I thought Texas was a swing state ...

Updates:

-- Can Joe Biden win over the young Latinxs that flocked to Bernie Sanders?

Houston PD chief Art Acevedo apparently spoke last night.  Acevedo, who's welcoming furloughed cops from other cities to come to Houston, probably delivered a real puke-a-thon about law and order and Blue Lives Mattering and such.  I didn't look too hard to find anything about his talk.  If you did, hit me up.  Update: Stace, coming a little stronger.  Judge Hidalgo, by contrast, belonged at the top of this schedule.

Then there's Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, who resurrected his ten-year-old grievance with the Texas Green Party.


And sure enough:

Charles Waterbury, the Green Party candidate for Texas Supreme Court chief justice, has dropped out of the race after an opponent questioned his eligibility to run.

Waterbury’s withdrawal notice was submitted to the Texas secretary of state’s office Monday after being notarized Friday, the same day his Democratic opponent, Amy Clark Meachum, sought a court order declaring his candidacy invalid.

Meachum’s emergency petition to the Supreme Court, the same body she hopes to join, argued that Waterbury is prohibited from appearing on the ballot as the Green Party nominee because he voted in the March 3 Democratic primary.

State law prohibits candidates for state or county office from representing one political party in the general election if they voted in another party’s primary in the same election cycle.

I have three things to say about this.

1. If you search the archives of this blog hard enough (yesyes, I should have tagged posts long ago) you'll find one where I actually agreed with Angle on this point of his. Along about in 2009 when I became disillusioned with Obama's capitualtion on health care and began to look at the Green Party more seriously, I asked them about this business of having the TXGOP fund their ballot access. The response was quick and certain: "no permanent enemies, no permanent allies". That's kind of how it it with Donkeys and Elephants, too yes?  Isn't John Kasich demonstrating precisely that premise by speaking at the DNC, endorsing Joe Biden, but declaring he's not abandoning the GOP and has been assured that Biden "isn't moving left", toward AOC, as the Jackasses applaud?

2. Amy Clark Meachum just lost my vote in November.

3. If this affects any other Texas Green Party candidates' eligibility, then that's on them, too.  As a member of the Harris County Ballot Board in 2010, the presiding judge disqualified me for the exact same reason (voting in the D primary and serving as a Green judge).  It's a chickenshit play, and in that case, it did not withstand scrutiny; the County Clerk -- Stan Stanart at that time -- asserted that his office selected HCBB judges and that nobody other than him had authority to disqualify them.  (I chose to say off the Board anyway, FWIW, until a new presiding judge took over.)  I have not blogged about this until now for many reasons, as you might suspect.

We're still waiting for that court ruling.

Since I turned this post into a rant, I'll have an actual Wrangle in short order.


(Here's the original for a bigger view)

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Saturday, August 15, 2020

Sunday "The Election is in the Mail" Funnies


Bald eagle attacks gov't drone, sends it to bottom of Lake Michigan
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