Gene Green gone. Can TX-29 do better?

Another little bit of scalding truth you'll never read at Off the Kuff.

Gene Green is one of the worst Democrats in Congress; very conservative and very corrupt, a pairing that you often find together. And he's retiring early. No realistic explanation why, since he's been raising money hand over fist all year. He raised $474,164 so far this year and has a campaign war chest with $1,272,398 as of the September 30 FEC filing deadline. TX-29 is a strongly blue district -- PVI was D+12 in 2015 and is D+19 this year -- and Obama won it in a walk both times. A 77% Hispanic district, it wraps around Houston (north, east and south) and includes much of the Ship Channel area, South Houston and Pasadena. Green has promised to help solve the endemic pollution problem at election time while taking massive bribes from the oil and gas industries the rest of the time and helping push through their agenda. He should have been replaced years ago.

The only Democrat brave enough to take him on this cycle has been progressive activist and public school teacher Hector Morales. Hector has been one of the few progressives challenging an entrenched incumbent conservaDem anywhere in the country, the toughest job in politics (please contribute to his campaign here). When the Republicans, with Green's help, passed a fracking bill last July, we asked him about Green's vote and he told us:

"This should not come as a surprise, as Gene Green is one of the founding members of the Congressional Oil & Gas Caucus along with Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, to name a few. Green was also one of the scarce Democrats that voted in favor of the Keystone Pipeline... Perhaps the Congressman should look no further than the Manchester neighborhood, deep in the heart of the 29th Congressional District, where all the refineries are located. After all, the low-income, heavily Latino community has high rates of childhood leukemia, asthma, and bronchitis, an observation that has been backed up by data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the University of Texas, which found “unacceptable” levels of cancer-causing pollutants in Manchester’s air.

"Gene Green is nothing more than a corporate shill who has gotten away with representing the oil and gas companies while claiming to look after the well-being of the community he has sworn to protect. But with $260,000 worth of campaign contributions in this quarter alone from special interests, what more could you expect?"

As an editor's note, I performed several corrections, mostly of punctuation, to the above and added the embedded links that appear.

It will be worth watching Green to see if he doles out that money to some Democrats (and whether they're mangey Blue Dogs like him or somewhat to the left of that), or charities, or whether he just walks away with it.  Maybe Charles will do a spreadsheet for us.

Here comes more hot water.

The Houston Chronicle called Green "a fixture in the Texas Legislature and Congress for nearly half a century." What a terrible, terrible waste of a seat!

Until now, Green's longevity in city politics helped preserve Houston's status as America's largest Hispanic city without a Hispanic member of the U.S. House. Aware of that status, Green worked assiduously to serve constituent needs through job fairs, immunization drives, and town halls. He also worked to court the city's top Latino activists.

A pretty wretched bunch of opportunists jumped right into the race yesterday, starting with anti-charisma state Senator Sylvia Garcia and state Rep. Armando Walle, both Green disciples who seem to have had advance notice.

I actually think a little higher of both Garcia and Walle than DWT; they're both to the left of Green, though that bar is so low it's about three feet under ground.  Morales' biography might be too wordy for Chuck to get through, but let's give him credit for at least noticing Morales, even though he probably hasn't gotten a press release in his inbox.  DWT has been writing about Morales monthly since last July, as noted in the excerpt above.

Wrapping up the slapping of the Donkeys for this morning, I'll predict that Walle drops out* and re-files for his seat in the Lege before December 11, the last day to do so, and that Sylvia Garcia, not Adrian, ultimately goes to Washington.  Carol Alvarado does not enter this race**; she waits for Senator Sylvia's seat to open and runs for that (a special election perhaps not happening until the spring of 2019; Kuff is already offering his nonspecific speculation).  Clinging like remora to the future Congresswoman Garcia are her staff of neoliberal millennial trust fund babies, seeing a political future for themselves by staying in her orbit.

If I had a vote it would be for Hector Morales.  I just can't count on the citizens of CD-29 to be so enlightened as to send some fresh progressive blood to Congress.  Prove me wrong, please.

*Too easy.  If Charles read this blog he'd have known it, too, but he's reading Campos blogging about Dwight Boykins jacking off in front of everybody (figuratively only).

**Update (11/30): Prediction #2 comes to pass.

The Moore-ons in al-Abama

They are by no means unique or exclusive.  To begin, let's watch as Sharia Christian clerics are reminded by Chester the Molester's wife that they endorsed her husband just six weeks ago.

The wife of embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore sought Monday to draw attention to an August letter from 53 Alabama pastors supporting him in the GOP primary as allegations of sexual misconduct build ahead of next month's special election.

The letter, published on AL.com and highlighted on Kayla Moore's Facebook page, praises the candidate for his “immovable convictions for Biblical principles” and says he suffered “persecution” for his faith by opposing gay marriage as Alabama's chief justice.

“For decades, Roy Moore has been an immovable rock in the culture wars — a bold defender of the ‘little guy,’ a just judge to those who came before his court, a warrior for the unborn child, defender of the sanctity of marriage, and a champion for religious liberty,” the letter reads.

Two of the TaliBaptists did, to their credit, withdraw.

... Tijuanna Adetunji of the Fresh Anointing House of Worship in Montgomery, said she was not contacted about the letter and did not give permission for her name to be used.

"I was not asked about this story or allegations," Adetunji said.

[...]

Pastor Thad Endicott said he was not contacted about the most recent post from Kayla Moore.

"The list that has recently circulated was evidently copied and pasted from the August endorsements without checking to see if I still endorsed Moore." Endicott, pastor at Heritage Baptist Church, asked that his name be removed from the Moore endorsement.

Moore's campaign did not respond to questions related to the letter or why it was posted with the date and identifying information removed. At least one of the pastors listed as supporting Moore is no longer at the church listed on the letter.

Be it the primary, runoff, or general election, these Cotton State churches have listed themselves as unsafe for children.  The percentage of self-appointed disciples of Christ bailing out, mentioned above, is too low but still a good start.  Like their shepherds, the flock is experiencing a wide degree of cognitive dissonance.  Polling results in recent days have Chester down by four and up by ten.

Update: As HuffPo (hat tip Eschaton) notes, the concept of forgiveness for any and all sins is another one of the grand excuses made by Christians for Christians.

Bruce Register, 87, a retiree from Dothan, Ala, said that spiritually, the whole controversy was moot.

“I really don’t think someone of his character would have done that. And if he had done it, it doesn’t matter in God’s eyes because he’d have been forgiven ...”

Meanwhile DC Republicans, more mindful of how this might influence their 2018 prospects, are keeping all options on the table, including the nuclear one.

Alabama has been right there alongside Mississippi as the worst of these United States for several generations now.  The plague of ignorance has spread, however, and can no longer be contained.

Whatever happens -- whether Moore is elected or not, seated in the Senate or expelled in a vote by his peers -- is of little consequence at this point.  Oh, Democrats may be able to make political hay of it in 2018, but they would fare better if they did not have their own Harvey Weinstein/Kevin Spacey/Hollywood, etc. problems to try to distract from.

The takeaway is that this scourge is not confined to the Heart of Dixie.  It's a feature of Christian extremism, and we in Texas and much of the rest of the country have our own terrorist cells.  They're stronger in the South, but no region of the country is immune.

Amidst shocking allegations that Roy Moore pursued relationships with girls ranging in age from 14-18 years old when he was in his 30s, a new poll shows that 37% of evangelicals are “more likely” to vote for Moore, while another 34% say that these allegations make “no difference.” Some of his supporters have upped the ante by saying that even if the allegations are proven true, they won’t think Moore did anything wrong because they didn’t actually have sex and “he was single” at the time.

[...]

Incredulous observers won’t be able to make sense of Moore’s supporters while seeing the allegations only in terms of inappropriate behavior, or even alleged statutory rape. They will miss the point that the problem is actually far more insidious; a feature, not a bug of this subculture.

The allegations are being read by Moore supporters through a lens shaped by the courtship-purity movement promoted by the Biblical Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements widely influential in Christian homeschooling circles. ...

As Kathryn Brightbill tweeted: “It’s not a southern problem, it’s a fundamentalist problem. Girls who are 14 are seen as potential relationship material.”

Forget for just a moment about Roy Moore and Alabama and Dan Patrick and Texas and all the rest of the sanctimonious Christian hypocrites and places one could name, and ponder: Why did the majority of white women vote for Trump, when almost no black women or Latinas did so?  (Clue: it wasn't the Russians, or Facebook, or even the damned liberal media.)  The same question holds for Wendy Davis in 2014; how does the champion of women's reproductive rights, under assault like no other in this day, get 32% of the white women's vote running against Greg Abbott?

It is not nearly all the fault of these women, to be certain; most of them were simply voting the way their husbands told them to.  Similarly, it would be too convenient to heap all the blame on the Jesus Freaks, or even the demise of the Fairness Doctrine that gave us Rush Limbaugh in 1988 and Fox News in 1996, which has poisoned the minds of people living in Alabama and rural Texas and elsewhere, convincing them that voting for a child-molesting Republican is better than voting for a Democrat.  Even that is a bit of a cop-out.

I would submit that there is a longstanding culture of toxic masculinity in this country that only a majority electorate of people of color, and most specifically women of color, can deliver us from the evil thereof.  Testosterone poisoning pervades the rationale for war, corporate competition (take note of the battlefield jargon in your memos and email) and in recreational activities, notably bloodsport like football and WWF.  It's quite obviously behind the menace of rape culture and the unspoken, unreported sexual abuse contagion that's finally being outed all across the nation.

It's at the root of homophobia, bullying, and gun violence.

This is an extremely complex issue with so many layers going back thousands and thousands of years through history and evolution. There is no right answer to solving it and I don't think there ever will be. Education is a powerful tool, teaching boys to be kind and not violent is the step in the right direction.

Too often we define masculine strength by who can blow away the most people, who can flex the most muscle, who can impose their will and inflict the most damage. But this cheapens the real definition of strength and toughness. We respect the toughness of firefighters who rush into burning buildings when others are rushing out.

Police officers and first responders who put their lives on the line, and the men and women of the armed services who show courage under fire, do so not because they're out to prove something but because they steel themselves in the face of danger and face down their fears in service to others. For the same reason, we should respect the toughness and strength of men who challenge the myth that being a real man requires putting up a false front, disrespecting others, and engaging in violent and self-destructing behavior.

Cultures take a very long time to fix.  Maybe we've taken a few halting steps down that road to recovery in recent days.  There will be some bumps, and those who fear change will push back and fight back.  It's always been that way.

Change we must, and there's no time to waste.

Update: "Methinks thou doth Brotest too much".

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's lefty blog post and news roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that the victories won by a broad and diverse slate of Democrats around the country last Tuesday -- and with the special election for the seat in the US Senate representing Alabama starting to turn their way -- is the start of something promising.

Although there is still some close-mindedness and hypocrisy to overcome.

Off the Kuff analyzed the Houston-area election results from last week.

SocraticGadfly talked about Veterans Day and stupid wars in light of the World War I centennial.

Democrats turned it up, out, and on in last Tuesday's elections, wrote PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Texas Freedom Network's Insider blog declares that it's long past time for a Mexican American textbook and curriculum in our state's public schools.

In his collection of criminal justice news, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast points to the Mother Jones piece that indicates TDCJ spokesperson Jason Clark might not be telling the truth about the Beaumont-area prison that flooded during Harvey.

The "new" Music City Mall in Lewisville addresses its planned installation of a Ten Commandments monument, reports the Texan Journal.

The tenth annual green (not Green) Holiday Party in Austin is announced by Texas Vox.

Neil at All People Have Value said folks should vote for Elizabeth Santos in the HISD District 1 runoff on Saturday, December 9. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

And from other blogs and news sources ...

An explosive account by Olivia Messer in The Daily Beast reveals the men in the Texas Legislature behaving badly toward women.  It's not the latest breaking news in the ongoing and unreported-but never-to-be-forgotten incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace; only the most statewide.  RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog knows it's a long and sordid tradition at the Capitol.

Public records researched by Melissa del Bosque at the Texas Observer disclose the planned route of the proposed southern border wall.  Fifteen segments would bisect three wildlife areas in the RGV, and put more homes and structures in jeopardy than previously known.

DBC Green blog also analyzes the election results from last Tuesday, and understands -- more clearly than most -- that they weren't the changes establishment Democrats could believe in.

(The election outcomes) demonstrated amply that 1) mainstream Democratic candidates and strategies don't get it done; 2) progressive and populist ideas and candidates win, and 3) people will turn out mostly to express their utter revulsion at our alleged president, not because they have any great love for—or knowledge of—the candidates.

Paradise in Hell is more than ready to draw a line on automatic weapons.

The Texas Living Waters Project is not afraid to use contested case hearings to fight for our state's rivers and bays.

Juanita Jean at The World's Most Famous Beauty Salon needs your help to get mail ballots for 2018 to people who need them, especially in counties affected by Harvey.

Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher grapples with the revelations about Louis CK.

Monica Roberts at TransGriot documents the history of transgender candidates running for legislative offices.

And Harry Hamid crossed a street yesterday.

Sunday Funnies

Democrats turned it up

Voters delivered their first forceful rebuke of President Trump and his party on Tuesday night, with Democrats exploiting Trump’s deep unpopularity to capture the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and make significant inroads into suburban communities that once favored the Republican Party.

Gillespie, the former RNC chair and Bush-ite, went for the Trump faction without invoking Trump's name.  The Commonwealth wasn't going for it.  The race was close but not as close as the polling predicted.  Gillespie is a two-time loser after getting eked out by Sen. Mark Warner in 2014.

Northam isn't at all progressive, and almost fumbled this win away in the closing days, so to exceed polling expectations reveals a superior ground game.  In other neoliberal news, Goldman Sachs replaced Fat Bastard.

In New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, won the governorship, according to The Associated Press, by a vast margin that brought an unceremonious end to Gov. Chris Christie’s tumultuous tenure.

In both Virginia and New Jersey, voters rebuffed a wave of provocative ads linking immigration and crime, hinting at the limitations of hard-edge tactics in the sort of affluent and heavily suburban states that are pivotal in next year’s midterm elections.

The blue team extended the gains down the ballot in Virginia.

Democrats won legislative races across the Old Dominion, putting control of the House of Delegates—not generally expected to be up for grabs—within Democratic grasp. Bob Marshall, a particularly outspoken anti-LGBT conservative, was defeated by Danica Roem, who becomes the first openly transgender legislator in state and U.S. history.

The guy that introduced a bill that would allow anyone who held a Virginia state license to be able to refuse service, on moral or religious grounds, to an LGBT person ... was defeated by a trans person.  By ten points.  I believe that's called karma.

Once more from the NYT.

Representative Scott Taylor, a Republican from Virginia Beach, said he considered the Democratic sweep in Virginia a repudiation of the White House. He faulted Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” for propelling the party to defeat, and said he believed traditionally Republican-leaning voters contributed to Northam’s margin of victory.

“I do believe that this is a referendum on this administration,” Mr. Taylor said of the elections. “Democrats turned out tonight ... "

... and in many other states.  The diversity of those elected was heartening.

A Sikh man was elected mayor of Hoboken.
An African-American woman was elected mayor of Charlotte
A trans woman was elected as a state rep in VA
An African-American man was elected mayor of Helena MT

I'm so down with this America

— Andy Lewis (@andyblewis) November 8, 2017

Seattle also elected their first female mayor since the 1920s, a lesbian.  And this:

A candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates whose fiancé was shot and killed on live TV ran and won on gun violence prevention.https://t.co/74vn4y79Q2

— CAP Action Guns (@CAPActionGuns) November 8, 2017

Houston and Texas' ballot initiatives passed with flying colors.  There'll be a runoff in my HCC trustee race between the Republican-voting auto broker, Gene Pack, and my choice, Pretta VanDible Stallworth.  If you want more on the local angle you probably know where to find it.  Of greatest significance to me, hyper-locally, is the result in The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, Place 7, which was won by Carol Stromatt over incumbent Laura Fillault.  Here's the report:

Stromatt, who fended off a fake campaign flier falsely attributed to her and a barrage of robocalls from the Texas Right to Life PAC during the last week of the race, said she credited her victory to "integrity, hard work, [and] people who care about this community."

[...]

Fillault, who lost by 312 votes, was emotional after the loss and refused to comment for this article. The incumbent was ousted from office after serving only one term. Fillault had drawn unwelcome attention to herself in the past several months after posting a series of questionable Tweets on her Twitter account, using foul and abusive language towards other Twitter users.

The Woodlands, for anyone unfamiliar, is baboon's-ass red.  The Montgomery County Democratic Party lists Stromatt as a precinct chair.  She won 53-47 over the deranged Republican who drew support from MQS and the statewide anti-choice lunatics who played the baby-killing card.

That is yuge.

Lupe Valdez 'approached' to run for governor

She's 'listening'.

Four-term Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is considering challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott next November. If she throws her hat in the ring, she'll be the first major Democratic contender for the governor's mansion in 2018. If Valdez wins, she'll be Texas' third female governor, first Hispanic governor and first LGBTQ governor.

"Too much of one thing corrupts, and I'm a strong believer in a two-party system," Valdez, who said she's in the "exploratory process" of planning a run, told the Texas Tribune. "I'm hoping that enough people are seeing that too much one-sided is not healthy for Texas."

She'd be a lifesaver for the Donks if she chooses to run -- she's got a free shot; wouldn't have to give up being sheriff* -- and she checks all the 'identity politics' boxes.  Except as a law and order Democrat, she's likely not all that progressive.  But she would motivate their core constituencies to get to the polls, and is candidly the only person with a real shot at upsetting Governor Helen Wheels.

More from the TexTrib.

Abbott and Valdez have a history. In 2015, they clashed over her department's policy regarding compliance with federal immigration authorities — an issue that later came up in Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin. Those debates drove support behind the "sanctuary cities" bill that Abbott signed into law earlier this year. (That law is currently the subject of a legal challenge working its way through the courts.)

[...]

The filing period for next year's elections opens Saturday and ends a month later.

It's nut-cutting time and Valdez holds the clippers.  If she enters the race, watch for the landslide of D filers right behind her.  She'd be the rising tide for all of their respective boats.  Valdez thus has the whole world -- not mention the fate of Texas -- in her hands.

* The srikethrough-as-correction reflects the fact that county officials in Texas, unlike state senators like Sylvia Garcia, must 'resign to run' for another office under state law.

The Weekly Wrangle

With the weekly blog post and lefty news roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance really encourages you to cast a ballot tomorrow -- because with turnout like this, your vote is going to carry a lot more weight than usual.

Off the Kuff looks at the third quarter campaign finance reports for Texas Democratic Congressional candidates.

Socratic Gadfly offers his detailed take about the bombshell Donna Brazile dropped on the Democratic Party.

An Astros fan almost since birth, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posts his 56-year remembrance of growing up with the team and celebrating their first World Series championship.  And Houstonia has pictures of the victory parade, which 700,000 were predicted to attend, but officials estimated a million people showed up.

 Texas Vox patiently explains the difference between "weather" and "climate".

The TSTA Blog chastises educators who punish flag protesters.

jobsanger has the charts and explanations for the massive Latina pay and gender gap.

Jeff Balke eulogizes the Houston Press.

The Lewisville Texan Journal has news about that city's Vista Ridge Mall being acquired and repurposed as a live entertainment venue 7 nights a week (and still a mall).

Neil at All People Have Value attended a rally in Houston to call for the release of 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez.  Rosa was seized by ICE lowlifes as she recovered from major surgery in Corpus Christi.  Thankfully the pressure on this issue for all over the country made a difference and Rosa has since been freed. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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In other Texas news (and blog posts), just hours after the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Think Progress reports that Attorney General Ken Paxton was on Fox News suggesting that more people bring their guns to church.

(Why can't Texas Democrats find anyone to challenge this guy?)

Energy Secretary Rick Perry made the ludicrous claim that fossil fuels were the key to ending sexual assault in Africa.  The Sierra Club called for him to resign "before he causes any more damage".

Grits for Breakfast lists six states that Texas should emulate when it comes to criminal justice reform and associated solutions.

Joseph Fanelli at the Houston Press saw Russian trolls behind both sides of a protest at an Islamic Center in downtown H-Town.

The Somervell County Salon finds a few recent examples of the church and the state collaborating on a few things, and complaining about it when they can't.  Rebuild that wall!

Juanita Jean at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon has had enough of John Kelly.

Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher is all about Indictment Day.

Shea Serrano at The Ringer finally gets the allure of baseball.

The Current introduces us to the San Antonio Satan Fish.

And BeyondBones gives the science on vampires.