Rethugs debate tomorrow, Dems on Saturday

I'm starting to get a little full.  You?

Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto will moderate the network’s primetime GOP debate set for November 10, along with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker. FBN’s Trish Regan, Sandra Smith, and WSJ’s Washington bureau chief Gerald Seib will moderate the kids’ table debate. The two-hour debate will be presented live, at 9 PM ET, from the Milwaukee Theatre in Milwaukee, WI.

FBN announced, on the eve of tomorrow night’s CNBC GOP debate, that its Q&A will focus on jobs, taxes, the economy, and domestic and international policy issues.

As you may have already heard, Huckster and Fat Bastard move down, and Pataki and Miz Lindsey move out.  I think I'll just watch the Twitter feed.  Speaking of...

Twitter is looking to capitalize on the traction that presidential debates are having on TV, partnering with CBS News for coverage of the Nov. 14 Democratic face-off in Des Moines, Iowa.

Twitter will serve up data, reactions and voter questions to CBS News in real-time during the debate, to be held at Drake University and moderated by “Face the Nation” anchor John Dickerson. CBS News’ CBSN streaming service will incorporate Twitter data and reactions into its live coverage.

“Our people have worked with Twitter’s unique curator tools to measure changing responses to what viewers will see on the screen. Twitter integration will inform our coverage and integrate seamlessly with CBSN, our always-on digital network,” said CBS News president David Rhodes.

'Curating' and 'integrating'. Sure sounds corporately important.

Twitter is most certainly more fun for the play-by-play on the designated hashtag; Facebook is pathetic in this regard.  Anyway, I expect to have better things to do on Saturday evening than either watching or Tweeting this debate.  I certainly did not watch Trump on SNL, which seems to have gotten lackluster reviews but high ratings.  The late night comedy show spoofed the Democratic forum from the night before, hosted by Rachel Maddow, which was a big hit among blue partisans (but you probably knew that already).

I'll have something the morning after if anything happens to generate buzz, but I'm ready now for the voting, and Iowa is still about 90 days away.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hates seeing Christmas decorations for sale in stores already as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff gives his advice for how to re-approach the Houston equal rights ordinance.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos and contributing to Daily Kos wishes to thank Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, former Harris Co. Republican Party Chair Jared Woodfill, eminent homophobe Dr. Steven Hotze, Republican smear artist Jeff Norwood and the Houston area's prominent minister, the Rev. Dr. Ed Young, for bringing out the absolute worst of Houston. How the good ol' boy Republicans, bigots, and preachers sold hate in Houston.

Stace at Dos Centavos has his take on last Tuesday posted.

SocraticGadfly takes a look at recently-revealed Chinese cheating on carbon emissions claims ahead of Paris climate talks.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sick of Republicans making life miserable for everyone but their rich friends. Destroying sanctuary cities and the war on public education just to name two idiocies.

Egberto Willies caught Dr. Dean Baker's lecture at Lone Star College on economic inequality, and how it was aided by governmental policy.  Video of his speech at the link.

TXSharon at Bluedaze has the bottom line on PBS Newshour's methane segment.

The Travis County judge who was threatened by Rick Perry was shot in her driveway late Friday evening. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs believes the former governor should be considered a suspect in the attempted assassination.

Neil at All People Have Value said that everyday kindness and right behavior can be a revolutionary course of action. APHV is part of NeilAquinio.com.

=================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

TrailBlazers had the softball interview of Dubya with his father's biographer, and while Cheney and Rumsfled didn't come up, author Jon Meacham suggested that GWB understated his dad's influence on his own presidency... and Dim Son did not disagree.

Lone Star Ma supports Sustainable Development Goals.

The San Antonio Current highlights Rep. Diego Bernal's ability to deal with bullies.

jobsanger graphs a poll that shows 93% of Americans support closing background check loopholes for potential gun owners.

David Ortez recaps the Houston elections, and Moni at Transgriot takes note of the transgender community's efforts to start pushing back against the rejection of HERO.

Blues for Food, the annual drive to target hunger in H-Town, happened yesterday and Chris Gray at the HP had the advance.

Carson Lucarelli explains how he lives carless in Houston, and Pedestrian Pete (aka former city councilman Peter Brown -- joins FPH to report on a more walkable Bayou City.

Randy Harvey remembers his sportswriting colleague, transgender pioneer Christine Daniels.

Maybe it was just Halloween, but Fascist Dyke Motors feels empowered to be a Grim Reaper.

Judge that Rick Perry threatened found shot in her driveway

Not hyperbole. (Some links below via Reverb Press.)

A manhunt is underway after a Travis County judge was shot outside her home. Austin police say someone opened fire on District Judge Julie Kocurek in the driveway of her Tarrytown home around 10:30 p.m. Friday.

Kocurek had just pulled up to her home in West Austin with some other people when the shooting happened, according to police.

She was taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge where she is currently in stable condition. Sources tell KXAN she was admitted into ICU for observation. Sources also say that the judge received injuries to the upper body–left shoulder and face area–but that it was not a direct hit.

Police are searching for the shooter and interviewing witnesses.

By the way...

Kocurek, a former prosecutor, was appointed to the 390th District court in Travis County, which includes Austin, by then-Gov. George W. Bush in 1999. Later, she became the only Republican elected to a state district judgeship in the left-leaning county, but switched parties and became a Democrat in 2006.

[...]

She is perhaps best known for her statements after former Gov. Rick Perry was indicted on felony coercion and abuse-of-power charges by an Austin grand jury in August 2014.

Perry held a news conference where he vowed: "This farce of a prosecution will be revealed for what it is" adding that "those responsible will be held to account." Kocurek responded that that could be interpreted as a threat against members of the grand jury, and that they would be protected from Perry or anyone else since "no one is above the law."

Yes, that is a threat that the former governor let slip from his loose lips, and it's possible some right-wing freak with too many guns and ammo took his protest against justice literally.

Kocurek was in serious condition on admission to the hospital but has stabilized; her wounds are not considered life-threatening at this time.  Judges and prosecutors in Texas have often been targeted for reprisals from deranged people who believed they needed to settle an old score with a gun.  I'd like to think that's not the case here, but the fact is that when an assassination attempt is conducted -- and Rick Perry and Texas Republicans and threatening language are mentioned in the same breath -- you just can't rule anything out.  Because Rick Perry likes to kill people.  He especially likes to kill innocent people, sometimes letting them die slowly. 

Let's be fair: as massively stupid as he is, the former governor probably isn't so stupid that he pulled the trigger of the gun that fired the bullets that hit Judge Kocurek.  But he may have, unwittingly or otherwise, encouraged someone to do so.  And until we know differently -- once the gunman is apprehended and questioned -- he should remain a suspect.

That's. Not. Exaggeration.

Sunday Funnies

An update to "Clinton will win because of the Latino vote"

I still stand on this premise, but a couple of things require me to revise and extend my remarks.

-- Adrian Garcia ran such a laughably awful campaign that he probably set back the caucus of Tejano Democrats a cycle or two.  This from his campaign manager, who sounds like la gabacha estupida (though I have no idea as to her nationality):

"There was no way to anticipate the dramatic influx of voters in this election," Garcia campaign manager Mary Bell said.

Riiiight.  No one could have predicted that terrrorists would hijack planes and fly them into buildings despite a PDF saying exactly that two weeks previous after the Texas Supreme Court ordered the City of Houston to vote on people's civil rights, it would turn 2015 into a bathroom election.  Except for everybody.  That is as powerfully stupid as you can find in the free range.

Despite the dire straits in which Latinos and Democrats find themselves, in Houston and throughout much of Texas outside of the RGV, Clinton will still do far more to mobilize the Latino/Hispanic bloc than anyone else running for president, and by a long measure.

-- As a gabacho with a lot of learning to do myself, I finally get the difference between 'Hispanic' and 'Latino'.

The words "Hispanic," "Latino" and "Spanish" all have different meanings, and Kat Lazo is here to clear it up.

In a video from Bustle, the YouTube personality, who frequently discusses feminism and social norms in her videos, took to the streets of New York to ask people if they knew the difference before giving her explanation. Spoiler: not many people did.

Luckily, Lazo explained how the terms differ. In short, "Hispanic" focuses on Spanish-speaking origin. This means Spain is included, but Brazil is not because Brazilians speak Portuguese. "Latino" refers to people of Latin American origin. This includes Brazil and excludes Spain.

"Hispanic is ... based on whether you or your family speak the language of Spanish whereas Latino is focusing more on geographic location, that being Latin America," Lazo said in the video.

One man on the streets of New York helped Lazo with her explanation when he talked about his experience with the term "Spanish." "I hate when people call me Spanish because I’m not," he said. "If you’re Spanish it’s because you’re from Spain."

Portugal is neither Hispanic nor Latino, and Hispaniola (thanks again to the Italian Scallion, Cristoforo Columbo, although Peter Martyr might be most directly fingered for the name being Anglicized) is very precariously Latino despite being more Caribbean than Latin American, and because the languages spoken in the two countries of the island, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, are mashups (Haitian Creole and Dominican) AND despite the French influences as well.  If you think that's confusing, Google Malta.  (I've been, and it's cool.  But pretty much every European and African power through the centuries has taken a piece of Maltese ass and called it their own.)

NOW I get it.  I'm slow but I'm thorough.

RIP, KXL

Unless Hillary Clinton revives it in 2017, when oil prices rebound because of the war she starts with Iran.  New Middle East war or not, she might need to kickstart her 2020 re-election campaign with some Big Oil Super PAC lube.

Somebody get that polar bear a sandwich

Today is a day to celebrate, however, so I'll pause the snark.  From Vox:

• The Keystone XL pipeline was formally declared dead (yesterday) at 11:45am Eastern Standard Time.
  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• The cause of death is currently under review. Possible diagnoses include:

• Ritual sacrifice by the Obama administration in order to preserve "global leadership" (in President Obama's words) going into the UN climate summit in Paris next month.
  [AP]

• Chronically low oil prices. Under current prices, Keystone's investors might have struggled to break even.
  [Los Angeles Times / Christi Parsons and Paul Richter]

• A deflating jobs argument: the State Department's finding that the pipeline would create only 35 permanent jobs in the US was a pretty big blow to Keystone supporters who argued it was a job creator.
  [Washington Post / Glenn Kessler]

• An attack of activism: Climate change activists have had the Keystone XL pipeline in their sites since Obama's first term, and helped make it a serious partisan issue. They probably do deserve some credit for killing the pipeline.
  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

Let's remember that Canadian tar sands oil is still flowing through the US at a rate somewhere between 300,000 and 700,000 barrels a day since January 2014 via Keystone South, which runs from Cushing, OK to Houston and mid-Jefferson County, Texas, where it is being refined.  And that tar sands oil rides the rails from Alberta to Cushing in what has become colloquially known as "exploding bomb trains".  And that there are at least five other pipelines which never required State Department approval to pump tar sands oil directly from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast right from the jump, several years ago.

So... a victory against Big Oil, but a somewhat hollow one.

The truth in pictures, from last Tuesday

ICYMI:

I feel certain that Republicans -- and some Democrats -- just won't ever understand.  Here's eight maps that explain where the mayor's race, HERO, and term limit changes were won and lost.

"I am a man who goes into women's bathrooms in Houston":

Your city, your state, your country...

Update: Where HERO went wrong