Showing posts sorted by relevance for query 2010 green party. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query 2010 green party. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, November 05, 2012

Day-before developments

-- Townhall.com and Drudge riled up the local True the Vote pasty thugs with this.

Friday afternoon at an early polling place located at 6719 W. Montgomery Road in Houston, NAACP members were seen advocating for President Barack Obama according to volunteer poll watchers on location at the time.

According to Eve Rockford, a poll watcher trained by voter integrity group True the Vote, three NAACP members showed up to the 139 precinct location with 50 cases of bottled water and began handing bottles out to people standing in line. While wearing NAACP labeled clothing, members were "stirring the crowd" and talking to voters about flying to Ohio to promote President Barack Obama.

The Houston Chronicle reported the following on Sunday.

A disturbance at the busy Acres Homes early voting location Friday night was related to representatives of the NAACP protesting long wait times for disabled voters, county officials said Sunday.

An article on the website Townhall.com, linked on the widely read Drudge Report, stated that people wearing NAACP shirts "took over" the Acres Homes polling place, electioneering and voicing support for President Barack Obama while poll workers "did nothing."

Assistant County Attorney Doug Ray disputed that account.

 "It wasn't like they were taking control of the place. It wasn't like we did nothing about it. That's just not true at all," Ray said. 

You can read more about the he said/she said bullshit at the link (and don't miss the comments). Here's Rep. Sylvester Turner's account, via Carl Whitmarsh's e-list.

On Friday, the last day of early polling, I received several calls from people at the Acres Homes Multi-Service Center that seniors and disabled persons who were not physically able to walk and stand in the voting line and who requested a portable voting machine be brought to their cars were told to go to another voting location or come inside because the clerks were too busy. I had my chief of staff call the Secretary of State's office for them to advise those persons at the Acres Home Multii-service Center that the law required them to offer curb-side service to those persons unable to come inside to vote. Once I got there, I was also told that poll watchers with True the Vote raised complaints about persons wearing NAACP shirts being inside the polls giving people water and assisting those elderly persons who did come inside. The True the Vote poll watchers argued that the NAACP was a political organization that endorsed candidates and demanded that they remove or cover up their shirts.

Those of you familiar with the NAACP know that it has never endorsed political candidates and neither were the persons at the center advocating for any candidate or party. These so-called poll watchers also had problems with me being outside talking to voters. True the Vote is a political entity with a political agenda who has trained individuals to come into areas like Acres Homes, in my district, to attempt to intimidate and harass voters be they young or old.

Tuesday is the final day to vote. I am asking voters in Acres Homes and across Harris County to exercise your democratic right to vote and not allow anyone to intimidate or prevent you from voting. 

And so it goes...

Update: Isiah Carey reports that the HCGOP has filed suit. This should be as much fun as Gerry Birnberg's attempt to get Lloyd Oliver off the Harris County ballot.

-- Mailed ballots are likely to be 2012's hanging chads.

Sloppy signatures on mail-in ballots might prove to be the hanging chads of the 2012 election.
As Republicans and Democrats raise alarms about potential voter fraud and voter suppression, mail-in ballots have boomed as an uncontroversial form of convenient, inexpensive voting.

In the critical swing states of Ohio and Florida, more than a fifth of voters chose the mail-in option 2010. In Colorado, another battleground, the number was nearly two-thirds.
But there may be controversy to come. For a variety of reasons, mail-in ballots are much more likely to be rejected than conventional, in-person votes.

With the razor-close presidential election Tuesday between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney potentially riding on a few tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states, the election could be decided by election officials' judgments about mail-in ballot signatures.

"You would worry that in Florida, in particular, the new hanging chad becomes whether you count this absentee ballot or not based on whether the signature is right," said Charles Stewart III, co-director of the Voting Technology Project and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

I have a personal account about this to share.

I was appointed by the Harris County Green Party to serve on the Early Voting Ballot Board last month, but the presiding judge (a Democrat) had me (and other Greens) removed in a parliamentary procedure. He called a vote on our fitness to serve based on the fact that we voted in the Democratic primary. When the County Clerk informed him that the Texas Election Code deemed that procedure illegal, the presiding judge resorted to having us dismissed because there "wasn't enough work for us to be needed".

You may recall that I mentioned Charles Kuffner's (and the County Clerk's) numbers here for Harris County mailed ballots: a total in excess of 66,000, almost 14,000 more than in 2008. That's as of last Friday; more are arriving in the mail over the weekend, today, and tomorrow. The ballot board's charge is to have these all counted by Election Day. Some ballots arrive afterwards and are added in the final canvass, but all votes arriving before ED must be counted by ED.

Normally an EVBB judge like myself would be bound by oath not to reveal deliberations of the board like this. The reason I am writing about it is because the presiding judge neglected to have me sworn in.

I'll have more to say about this in the future, but it's going to have to wind its way through a handful of lawyers first.

-- On a last and lighter note, here's a slideshow of some of the memes of the 2012 campaign. They left several out IMHO so it's hard to pick a favorite among these, but I'll go with this...


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Monday, December 23, 2019

The Festivus TexProg Wrangle

Christmas Eve Eve is a time of panic for shoppers who've procrastinated (pro tip: a gift card from Kroger earns you gas points), the start of a long holiday week certain to be filled with high caloric lack-of-activity, and the much-anticipated airing of grievances.


Here comes your round-up of the best of the left from around and about Deep-In-The-Hearta for the next-to-last week of the decade.



First we have some political posts (the Alliance is foremost about politics, after all).




David Collins updates the list of Texas Green Party 2020 candidates.  Kuff published three interviews with SBOE candidates: Michelle Palmer, Kimberly McLeod, and Debra Kerner.  John Coby wraps up the Houston elections.  And Stace at Dos Centavos posts about a Harris County judicial filing controversy.


And statehouse Republicans will make every effort to continue the legacy of ultraconservative oligarchy in Austin.


PDiddie at Brains and Eggs caught up his Democratic presidential primary updates with four posts leading up to, and then after, the sixth debate last Thursday.

DC politicos like Chuck Schumer want to keep chasing the Republicans being left behind by the careening Right; the DSCC chose to endorse the Libertarian who voted in the GOP primary in 2016 for US Senate, to the outrage of ... well, pretty much everybody.



(T)he Democratic Senate Campaign Committee endorsed former U.S. House candidate MJ Hegar in her bid to run against Republican incumbent Senator John Cornyn. The decision to back Hegar -- who is running in a crowded, diverse field -- strikes at the heart of an intra-party debate: how to run (and win) in red states on the brink of political realignment.

The endorsement drew swift backlash from Hegar’s fellow candidates, who condemned the national party’s Senate campaign arm. Although the committee has played primary favorites in other priority Senate races, many people in Texas politics were surprised that it waded into a race more than three months out. “We had no idea that was going to happen,” said Abhi Rahman, the communications director for the Texas Democratic Party, which is running a multimillion-dollar operation aimed at defeating Cornyn.


Lite Guv Dan Patrick and Commissioner of Land George Pee Bush kicked off their Festivuties a few days early.


Lone Star political podcasts are all the rage these days.



A smattering of posts about the homeless at Christmastime always seem to tug at the heartstrings (not Greg Abbott's, but Texans who actually have hearts).




There are some environmental justice -- mostly injustice -- developments to report.






This Wrangle caught several Tweets about immigration and border news and opinions.






SocraticGadfly, with background on Muenster teacher-relationship conviction and other such cases, talks about how issues of philosophy play out in the courts.

Thanks for reading this elongated-for-Festivus Wrangle.  Wrapping it up and putting a bow on it with a few lighter items.



The Webb County Heritage Foundation will celebrate the 180th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of the Rio Grande with a cocktail reception on January 11, 2020 in the historic capitol building of that independent nation -- the Republic of the Rio Grande Museum at 1005 Zaragoza St. in Laredo.

The San Antonio Current provides solid advice about tamales.

The Bloggess is starting a book club.




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Friday, September 21, 2018

So what can Texas Democrats do to save 2018 before it's too late?

I don't think success is going to depend on more people like me holding their noses and voting for Democrats who are busy chasing disillusioned Republican crossovers.  I expect the black vote will be there for the Donks, more so than it was in 2016.  Not in cumulative, this being a midterm, but in percentage and intensity, partly driven by the castigation -- or remorse -- from sitting out the presidential election two years ago, and partly by circumstances of the past few years: #BlackLivesMatter (from Texans Sandra Bland in 2015 to Botham Jean this month), Colin Kaepernick's protest twisted out of context, efforts to end the practice of cash bail gaining steam because of the deaths it is causing, and similar issues of concern to POC.

And this.


Find them all here.

So that leaves one large, mostly untapped demographic.  The ones Democrats have been waiting on for several election cycles now.
Note this cartoon was first published in 2010.

-- Take this, from Rafael Medina, the Senior Media Coordinate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and posted at Latino Rebels, to heart.

The 50th anniversary of Hispanic Heritage Month kicked off this week. It is a commemorative month during which the United States celebrates the diversity, heritage, and accomplishments of Hispanic and Latinx Americans.

The Hispanic and Latinx community that I know is vibrant and thriving; through our deeply embedded, rich histories and culture, and through a relentless faith in the American Dream, we keep our nation’s legacy as a beacon of opportunity for all who live. We drive the economy with our entrepreneurial talents, enrich the arts and humanities, and have had a lasting impact in defending the nation’s most cherished ideals, leading the way for social and political progress.

While it’s true that the Trump administration presents an exceptionally challenging moment, we are resilient, and our collective voice is powerful. And what better way to celebrate this great truth than to leverage our tremendous potential to influence policy by registering to vote? In the face of constant attacks, we cannot afford to leave our power on the table.

Donald Trump’s presidency is marked by attitudes and policies that disregard our contributions and dehumanize our communities. This was very clear from the day he announced his presidential bid, immediately characterizing Mexicans as criminals and rapists.

While still on the campaign trail, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly belittled congressmen, judges, and journalists of Latino descent. And after losing the popular vote, he falsely accused millions of people of voting illegally against him and even created a voter fraud commission that was later disbanded with nothing to show for it because he had no evidence of this.

All the while, Trump’s statements and policies have only become more inflammatory and racist under his benighted presidency.

Just ten days before the President proclaimed Hispanic Heritage Month last year, his administration announced plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, upending the lives and livelihood of more than 800,000 Dreamers. The Trump administration then decided to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, resulting in the loss of status for 250,000 immigrants that have been living and working in the U.S. lawfully for approximately 20 years and are parents to more than 246,000 U.S.-born children. And although the administration may be hoping people will forget about its decision to take more than 2,600 children away from their parents at the southern border, today more than 400 children remain separated, including children under the age of 5. And in place of separating children, the administration last week issued a proposed rule that it hopes will allow it to incarcerate children with their parents indefinitely.

And we now know that Donald Trump manipulated the budget process to divert nearly $10 million in hurricane preparedness funds so that he could continue his racist abuse against immigrant families. This came only hours after saying the response to Hurricane María “was an incredible, unsung success,” and after it became public that his administration’s FEMA has approved only 75 out of 2,431 requests for funeral assistance from victims of María. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for Puerto Ricans by claiming to the American public that María was not a “real catastrophe,” and lobbing rolls of paper towels as if he were shooting baskets, and as if they were sufficient to remedy the lack of real aid for which his administration was directly responsible. Since then, thousands of displaced Puerto Ricans have come to the mainland because of the administration’s criminally neglectful and morally corrupt response to María’s enormous devastation, and nearly 3000 American citizens in Puerto Rico died as a result—a figure that Trump shamefully questioned.

From immigration to Puerto Rico to criminal justice to voting rights, the Trump administration has acted in direct opposition to our shared interests. And while the Trump administration may continue to disregard our livelihood, vilify and dehumanize us, it will never diminish our self-worth. We are bigger and more determined than his callous indifference to our pain and suffering.

It’s time for a change in leadership.

This Hispanic Heritage Month, we will celebrate by reminding each other of all the elected officials who treated us like second-class citizens under Donald Trump’s watch and by making plans to vote only for those who have our best interests in mind.

It is our legacy of perseverance in the face of adversity, of fighting and securing success for our families and communities in the future, that we celebrate this and every Hispanic Heritage Month. And that legacy will live on.

That’s why, this cycle, we are seeing an unprecedented number of Latinos running for office. But this is not enough. If we do not register to vote, we will never be able to hold the Trump administration accountable.

National Voter Registration Day is September 25, and it’s the perfect opportunity to demand leaders who recognize our tremendous contributions to this nation. Our community deserves leaders who are firmly committed to supporting and fighting for policies that open doors for us to realize all our talents and succeed, treat us with respect and dignity, and carry on our legacy to build a brighter future.

Together, we will overcome the constant threats from Donald Trump and his allies.

Pa’lante.

It's true that Harris County's Latin@ turnout almost tripled over 2014 (based on surnames, which is a tenuous proposition; absent better measurements, the best we have), but that does not appear to be enough to crest the blue wave.  Democrats need RGV Latinxs in the worst way, and it's also true that there are unregistered Latinx voters in every corner of the state.  Texas is officially dead last in voter turnout and any path to victory starts with getting more people of every age and color and gender registered to vote.

So here's some unsolicited advice for all you people working hard to get your Democrats elected from a former Democratic precinct chair (in three different southwest Harris County precincts), the 2006 statewide coordinator for the David Van Os for Attorney General campaign, a former election judge on the Harris County Ballot Board, a volunteer on too many campaigns to remember and a financial contributor to even more, but since 2014 a gradually greater disillusioned Democrat, to the point of being a Harris Green Party member and supporter.  Take it for it's worth to you.

-- Note Stace's resentment as a clue and act on it; Latin@s are going to have to be begged to vote for Democrats.  So if you're a candidate, or working for a campaign, or just a precinct chair trying to turn out your neighborhood's vote, and up to the deadline to register to vote in the November election -- October 9, thirty days before Election Day -- start begging.  Statewide candidates and campaigns should take all the money they have and run ads on Spanish language media, beginning if possible with the Beto-Cruz debate this Friday night on Telemundo, TeleXitos, or any of the other the Spanish-language media outlets across the state broadcasting it (courtesy Mike McGuff).  The same goes for Lupe Valdez's debate with Greg Abbott on September 28th.  If all that can be afforded is a few radio spots in the RGV, then do that.

In the Houston media market, Telemundo was the highest-rated television station in the last reporting period among adults from sign-on to sign-off (somewhat on the strength of World Cup coverage) regardless of language spoken.  I have little doubt that the same is true of the local Spanish language broadcaster in every single MSA across the state.

-- Mobilize ground troops to register voters.  This event is a must for every campaign, statewide and local, in Houston.  HCDP has a million things you can attend this weekend, but if you're smart about it you'll go where the mostly non-voters are and not where your friends are going.  There'll be time to chat and brunch in about seven weeks.  Leave it all on the field or cry about it in November.

Get voter registrars in Fiesta stores, the local mercados, Catholic churches, the East End in Houston (and typically other Texas cities as well), the barrios in cities large and small, up and down Texas.  Hook up with another Latinx candidate -- or anybody who speaks Spanish, but a brown face is recommended -- and knock on doors.  NO phone calls, please.  A desire for worn out shoes and calloused knuckles are what's needed.

Once the registration deadline has passed, then it's all hands on deck for GOTV.  For the next 2.5 weeks, the electorate must be expanded.

It's now or never.
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Thursday, March 08, 2012

Three to challenge Culberson in Democratic primary

With her filing today at HCDP headquarters, 2010 write-in Congressional District 7 candidate Lissa Squiers joins Phillip Andrews and James Cargas in a May 29th showdown for the right to face incumbent John Culberson in November (there will also be a Libertarian and a Green on the ballot in this contest).

Squiers is the progressive in this primary battle. She's an officer in TDW and has performed a litany of volunteer activities, including the start-up All Kids Alliance (see more here), and as mentioned before was so irritated that no challenger stepped forward in the last cycle to challenge Culberson that she ultimately did so herself as a write-in. (The Texas Political Almanac on CD-7 has maps and is up to date through 2010). Here's her campaign video from that match:



Andrews had "Blue Dog" in bold at the top of his website until recently and is president and CEO of a company that, to my examination, does the same thing as Blackwater. Cargas (that's Greek, not Latino) is a well-connected -- very well-connected -- oil and gas attorney. Additionally, two of my bloghermanos have declared support in the race: lightseeker at Texas Kaos for Squiers, Stace at Dos Centavos for Cargas. Both Cargas and Squiers have earned the AFL-CIO endorsement for the primary.

Having been drawn -- through the festering Republican redistricting morass -- first into Sheila Jackson Lee's 18th and then Al Green's 9th before being returned to the 7th, this race is, as it has been in the past, of personal interest.

Primaries are for picking your favorite among the challengers in a single party, and if you read here to any degree you know I usually support either the most progressive candidate or the underdog. In Squiers' case that's likely both, especially where campaign funds are concerned. I burned out long ago on evaluating the strength of Democratic candidates based on their fundraising prowess. That only serves to feed a broken model of paid consultants telling Democrats how to win and continually losing, and it's a particularly bad idea if you believe money is corrupting our democracy (see: Citizens United).

So attend her signing this evening at HCDP HQ at 5 p.m and then join her at Tecate on Ella from 5:30 to 7 and see if she fits your profile as grassroots progressive. She certainly fits mine.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The non-Wendy Davis Wrangle

I'm confident there will be more conservative poutrage in their full-court press to try and stretch out the not-so-much-a-story for another day.  The rest of us can move on.

-- Dewhurst: Texas teachers are paid "a very fair salary".

"At the end of the day, we're paying our school teachers — when you count in cost of living — a very fair salary," Dewhurst said. "We need to have better results. We need to make sure that we're not just paying more money and we need to look at more choice for parents."

Texas consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in average teacher pay according to many groups that track classroom salaries, including teacher unions. One expert testified in the state's pivotal school finance trial last year that Texas' average teacher pay was about $47,300 in 2009-10 dollars — lower than the national average of nearly $55,000, and less than what 32 other states pay educators.

That trial ended with a state judge determining that the system Texas uses to finance public education is unconstitutional. New testimony is set to resume in Austin on Tuesday.

For a guy who grew up in River Oaks and likely sent his children to private school, this is rich.  It never ceases to amaze me how clueless the 1% can be.  And in a Tea Party stronghold like Texas, this dude is still leading the polling for lite guv.

And guess who's defending the most recent multi-billion dollar cutback of Texas public education in court?  Greg Abbott.  Thank goodness he's such a shitty lawyer.

Update: Charles digs deeper into the public school finance trial.

-- Todd Staples and Dan Patrick have hitched their wagon to the Ill Eagles.

(Patrick) pounded the need for border security by citing "hardened criminals we arrested from 2008 to 2012 -- not illegals who were here for a job, who got four speeding tickets, but hardened criminals -- 141,000 we put in our jails just in four years in Texas."

"They threaten your family. They threaten your life. They threaten your business. They threaten our state," he said, adding that they were charged with 447,000 crimes including 2,000 murders and 5,000 rapes.

(Staples') office in 2010 launched the website ProtectYourTexasBorder.com, which features first-hand accounts of confrontations with violent drug traffickers in videotaped interviews. When a message board on the state-run website quickly filled with postings calling for vigilante justice and killing immigrants entering the country illegally, Staples removed the posts and condemned the remarks, but that episode remains one of the biggest embarrassments of his tenure.

But Staples persisted. He published the book "Broken Borders, Broken Promises" in 2012 and continues to reject federal crime data that show decreasing levels of violent crime and Democrats who accuse Republicans of wildly exaggerating the danger for the sake of politics.

Staples said his office hasn't put a financial number on the losses that encroaching violence has cost Texas crop owners.

"I haven't tried to quantify the cash losses," Staples said. "What we have done though is shown that the violence is real, that we have a failed immigration system that is aiding the drug cartels and giving them cover to come into our nation."

What did I say about fear being a primary motivator of human behavior?  Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or independent... are you scared yet?

Update: Charles Kuffner calls Patrick a liar.

-- Speaking of the Libs, they lost a gubernatorial candidate over the weekend.

R. Lee Wrights has ended his campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of Texas. From the former candidate’s website:

We would like to thank the donors who gave when they honestly didn’t have the spare income to justify investing in Lee and his message of Peace and Prosperity. They will always be our beloved friends and family.

[...]

No candidate can persevere unless he has the support of those who wish him/her to run. Unfortunately, I found I had far more broken promises than I had genuine support. Thomas Hill, and Cindi Lewis Maidens before him, are absolutely correct. As nice as they all are I, nor any candidate, can run a campaign on “likes” and “shares” on Facebook. It takes “dollars” and”cents”. Again unfortunately, I had far more of the former than I did the latter.

There are some highly entertaining comments there if you are so inclined. The ones I took note of were those disparaging 2010 nominee and presumptive 2014 front-runner Kathie Glass.

I'll update this post with whatever sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity erupts later today from the mind and mouth of some conservative.  Sure hope they don't keep me busy.

Update: Jerry Patterson, being the least dumb among the four RLGs.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, one of four contenders for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination, Tuesday reiterated his support for creation of an immigrant guest worker program, allowing students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses and policies to promote "smarter building" on the state's barrier islands.

Patterson, a former state senator who has been land commissioner since 2003, dismissed immigration hardliners' calls to "build fences, no amnesty, deport 12 million people."

While Patterson opposes amnesty for undocumented workers and supports border barriers "where tactically called for," Patterson told the Houston Chronicle editorial board "it's stupid" to implement mass deportations. "I don't want to live in a country with that kind of police power, especially at the federal level," he said.

[...]

Patterson will face incumbent three-term Lt. David Dewhurst, Texas Sen. Dan Patrick and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples in the Republican primary.

"There are three good choices ‑ anyone but Patrick," he said. Asked how he would function as speaker of the House, Patterson replied, "Like (former Democratic) Lt. Bob Bullock without the tantrums."

See?  He's only crazy, not stupid.  (Except for the guns part, of course. That's crazy AND stupid.)
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Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Quick updates on Houston municipal elections

As we wait for Charles' manifesto...

-- Via Stace once more, the Democrats are crowding into AL1 (Costello, term-limited, running for mayor) and AL4 (Bradford, term-limited).

Laurie Robinson, Amanda Edwards and Larry Blackmon will all run for the at-large city council seat to be vacated by C.O. “Brad” Bradford, according to campaign treasurer designations filed in recent weeks.
Bradford, a former chief of the Houston Police Department, was elected to at-large position four in 2009 and is now term limited. The seat in recent years has been held by an African American.

Robinson, who leads a management consulting firm, lost her race for an at-large seat in 2011, and considered, but declined, a repeat run in 2013. Edwards is an associate at the law firm Bracewell and Giuliani, and Blackmon is a retired school teacher active in local politics.

The other open-seat at-large race more quickly drew names: Lane Lewis, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party; Houston Community College trustee Chris Oliver; Trebor Gordon, who successfully challenged Houston’s campaign blackout period; Philippe Nassif, a local Democratic activist; and Jenifer Rene Pool, a leader in Houston’s transgender community are all running to succeed Stephen Costello, who is running for mayor after being term limited.

Not mentioned here is the candidacy of Jan Clark, an attorney/Realtor and the vice-president of the Oak Forest Democrats, who purportedly intends to run in At-Large 5 against Jack Christie.

It seems a shame to let Kubosh in AL3 just skate back in; maybe somebody will grow a pair and take him on.  Christie seems notably the weakest incumbent on council after managing just 55% two years ago against two hapless Democrats (sorry, Noah's dad).

Update: Texpate expands a little on the above.

-- A rarely-cited source of local political news is Aubrey Taylor's blog; he's got the take on the three African American men bidding for mayor (Sylvester Turner, Ben Hall, and Sean Roberts).  HBCM is difficult to read because of its style and graphics, but he has insights into the black community not found elsewhere online.  Taylor sees some obstacles to Turner's front-running status at this early juncture, but goes out of his way to warn anybody from extrapolating that into his disfavoring the state representative's bid for mayor.

Methinks too much warning.

Noteworthy there is Congressman Al Green's early and second-time endorsement of Hall.  As a sidebar conversation, there's a lot that could be blogged about Representative Green (who represented me before 2010 redistricting).  My first falling-out with him was his support of the bankruptcy re-org legislation favored by the big banks in 2005; he's more recently voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.  He might be best known outside of Houston for being a rail hog at SOTU speeches.


He's a big-time holy roller and probably has been friends with Hall since divinity school, the most likely motivation for his crossing the aisle and supporting this Republican in the mayor's race.  While he's been a decent liberal on many issues, including gay rights, when he slips occasionally, they're doozies.  Somebody needs to get the congressman on record in support of or in opposition to the city's equal rights ordinance, and contrast that with his support of Hall, who will no doubt be prevaricating on the topic again.

More as it develops.

Update: Marc Campos has crowned Bill King the monarch of potholes.  That's the best thing that guy has blogged in years.
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Sunday, August 04, 2013

2014: a year for female political candidates

And not just because of Hillary Clinton or even Wendy Davis. Here's an update on the Kentucky Senate contest, where Mitch McConnell is flailing. Charlie Cook:

In the wake of two polls that show the race between Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes within the margin of error, the race moves to the Toss Up column. Grimes was ahead of McConnell in both surveys; one was conducted by the Mellman Group for the Grimes campaign, and the other was taken by Public Policy Polling.

And from Grimes' Wiki page...

In 2010, Grimes announced her candidacy for the office of Secretary of State of Kentucky, left open by term-limited incumbent Republican Trey Grayson. When Grayson resigned to accept a position at the Harvard Institute of Politics, Governor Steve Beshear appointed Bowling Green Mayor Elaine Walker over Grimes to fill the rest of Grayson's term in office. Despite this, Grimes stayed in the race and defeated Walker by a double digit margin in the May primary.

She went on to face Republican businessman and former Senate candidate Bill Johnson. A main aspect of the campaign was Grimes' opposition to Johnson's proposal to require photo IDs in order to vote. Grimes argued this would take away voting rights from the homeless among others. She also became well known through commercials that showed her elderly grandmothers.

Grimes defeated Johnson with over 60% of the vote. She received a higher percentage of the vote than any other Kentucky statewide Democratic candidate during the 2011 elections and has received much speculation over her possible political future.

Keep in mind that 2010 was a red wave election cycle. Democrats got washed out all over the country (not just in Texas). Grimes' election to KySoS came a year later, when the Tea Party antics were just starting to be felt and understood. So she's good -- it took some sand to run for office as a Dem in a southern state in 2011 -- but she's also lucky. Timing being everything, Alison Grimes is certainly smart enough to put herself in the right place at the right time. That could very well hold true again in 2014. Here's a Politico article with more.

“The goal is not just (to keep it) close, the goal is to win,” Grimes told POLITICO.

And Grimes warned that she is “not going to be bullied” by McConnell’s tough campaign tactics, adding that she is prepared to fight the onslaught of GOP attacks attempting to link her to President Barack Obama, who is deeply unpopular in the Bluegrass State.

“I think the voters of Kentucky are tired of that play,” Grimes said, speaking on her campaign bus. “It seems as if Sen. McConnell wants to run against anyone but me, including the president, the Senate majority leader, leader (Nancy) Pelosi. And, unfortunately, I’m the one who filed my paperwork.”

That's exactly how every single Democrat running against a Republican running against Obama -- which is all of them -- ought to strike back. I'm just hoping Wendy Davis is watching Alison Grimes and her campaign closely.

FWIW, I am reading from KY Dems on another discussion board that they think the wealthy TeaBagger challenging McConnell in the GOP primary has a better chance of winning that Senate seat than does Grimes. That's the usual defeatist attitude we see so often from Texas Democrats. I think it's a dynamic still in play, as Texas Ds have just one candidate for statewide office at this posting.

Women elected to office in 2013 and 2014 are going to make the difference in the kind of state and nation we live in going forward. At least so that we don't have to read any more stories like this.

Update:

"If the doctors told Sen. McConnell he had a kidney stone, he would refuse to pass it."

By God, that's how you fight back.


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Monday, December 14, 2009

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers dug themselves out of the snow, went to the polls and voted (in Houston, anyway), and then crawled back in bed. But not before rounding up the best of last week's postings.

TXsharon @ Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS helps you follow the money to see why Governor Perry and others want Texans to keep breathing toxic air.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is proud to give a hat tip to Houston – Annise Parker inherits a City of Progress.

The Stonewall Democrats of Denton County denounce Rep. Michael Burgess for his recent actions against openly gay Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennnings, at the Texas Cloverleaf.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy covers the dispute in Waco between the McLennan County Republican Party and the Hispanic Republican Club of McLennan County over whether or not the Republicans needs to reach out to minority voters. Also, the tradition of homophobia continues at Texas A&M and the Coalition for Life invites anti-choice and anti-woman Jeb Bush to speak at their annual fundraiser. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

While Houstonians took great pride in the election of Annise Parker as mayor, it was discouraging to see -- despite his company's multi-million dollar contracts with the city and his apparent misunderstanding of their value -- that Stephen Costello was elected to city council over a good Democrat, Karen Derr.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme hopes Silvestre Reyes gets primaried for his vote against a women's right to choose. Beto O'Rourke may be just the one to do it.

Off the Kuff gave a rundown of the Houston runoffs.

Over at BlueBloggin, guest writer Len Hart of the The Existentialist Cowboy has been connecting some dots with the CIA efforts to control world distribution of ‘illicit’ drugs. If the US/CIA hoped to control this lucrative trade, the Taliban had to go. I wonder how many CIA ‘black ops’ have been financed ‘off the books’ (as was Iran/Contra) with the proceeds of its various drugs.

At the very moment that leaders from around the world are meeting to come to an international agreement to save the world from catastrophic global warming, Texas gives the green light to build another mercury-spewing, asthma-inducing, planet choking coal plant. Read more at Texas Vox.

Neil at Texas Liberal does not understand why the Burger King on Houston's Harrisburg Blvd. needs to be open on Christmas Day. Neil is certain that the staff at Burger King wants to be off on Christmas and that a Xmas Whopper is a depressing thought. The picture in the post features a rare snowfall in Houston.

WhosPlayin finds that once again the Lewisville ISD is trying to shut out citizen involvement. This time, they're trying to supersede state law and charge more for public information requests.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on a discussion about where the Democrats in Texas stand heading into 2010: Pragamatic party building.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog has a guide to the historic Houston runoffs.
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Saturday, June 12, 2010

RPT Convention crazy is spewing like BP's oil disaster

Thank God the Texas Tribune is there to document the atrocities.

Here's Joe Holley at the Chron with the quotes.

"We embrace fiscal disciplineship." -- Rick Perry

"My husband really does like coyotes." -- Anita Perry

"The world will be right when the Pope is a Texan." -- Rick Perry, speculating on the future prospects of Archbishop Jose Gomez, who recently left San Antonio to head the Los Angeles diocese

The rest read like any of the Chron's comment sections: 'ObamaMessiahsocialistkeepthechange' is your executive summary.

They're brewing some awfully bitter tea in the back of the hall, too.

The San Antonio Tea Party's booth is tucked in the back of the Dallas Convention Center's exhibit hall.

To find it, you must wind your way through a maze of commerce and ideology — power scooter rentals, John Birch Society videos, T-shirts backing hard-rock guitarist Ted Nugent for president in 2012, magnetic therapeutic jewelry and campaign buttons proclaiming “Hot Chicks Vote Republican.”

Don't you wish you were there?

If you were, you could have seen Kay Bailey holding Rick Perry's hand while pinching her nose shut with the other. Or the governor's $18-million-dollar elephant in the room. Or his double-wide.

Parked outside Eddie Deen's Ranch on South Lamar Street was a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom green-and-white mobile home that the Texas AFL-CIO is generously offering Governor Rick Perry for $1 a month.

It's the same home they offered to Perry in Austin last month, minus the furniture, issues of Food and Wine magazine, a supply of hair spray, and a 50-year-old stuffed German shepherd "that has sentimental value to me," said the group's president Becky Moeller. Those were tossed out to make the home easier to transport here and later to drive to Corpus Christi for the Texas Democratic Party convention at the end of June.

But the pure, unadulterated insanity belonged to one of the lesser lights down the GOP ballot, Todd Staples -- who has chosen to libel Hank Gilbert in a manner so vile it defies description.

Really, it's so unhinged it is incoherent. Rabies doesn't hold a candle to this kind of crazy. This isn't just garden-variety Obama Derangement Syndrome, but some South Carolina strain of shit-that-doesn't-fall-too-far-from-the-bat so divorced from reality that all you can do is point and laugh at it before the men in white coats carry it away in a straitjacket.

Congratulations, Todd. It takes a lot of work to top Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and even Jerry Patterson. You win the the 2010 RPT Convention's Chock Fulla Nuts Award. And there's a whole 'nother day ahead.
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Monday, June 14, 2010

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance salutes that grand old high-flying flag as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a look at an alternate universe in which the DeLay-engineered re-redistricting of 2003 never took place.

Captain Kroc at McBlogger is not at all impressed with all the cross-Atlantic chatter regarding British Petroleum and their oopsie in the Gulf.

Bay Area Houston has photographic evidence that the Republican party convention was invaded by dickheads.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why a Hidalgo election is allowed to stand after so many fraud allegations.

The Republican Party of Texas is either under siege or on a crusade, depending on the POV of Dave Mann at the Texas Observer and Wayne Slater of the DMN. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs just thinks they're a bunch of gun-and-Bible-clinging bed-wetters.

TXsharon has a video of water from a private well that was contaminated from hydraulic fracturing a Devon Energy Barnett Shale gas well, at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

WhosPlayin has been analyzing discipline data obtained via open-records request from Lewisville ISD, and find finds that the data reported to TEA through the PEIMS system regarding fights and assaults might be vastly under-reported. (0 reported last year, but 750 so far this year by mid April.) TEA explains that districts may choose to report some of those incidents as "violation of local code of conduct".

Three Wise Men takes another look at the current outlook of national and state races in the midterms.

Libby Shaw over at TexasKaos shines a light on an article that really should get more attention. "....37 of the 64 judges in the Gulf region from Texas to Florida, have financial ties to big oil and gas." Check out the rest : Most Judges in Gulf Region Have Financial Ties to Oil and Gas.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about Renew Houston. This proposed ballot initiative for the 2010 Houston ballot would dedicate money for wastewater removal. Yet it is funded by regressive means, and appears to add no progressive green solutions to Houston's wastewater removal strategies.
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Monday, May 18, 2009

The Weekly Wrangle

Here's this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog post round-up.

At Bluedaze, TXsharon asks: What are the chances that an industry in charge of conducting its own testing to determine waste disposal methods will find toxin levels too high if that means disposal of the waste will be more costly? Read Landfarms: Spreading Toxic Drilling Waste on Farmland (with video).

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees lessons never learned ... it is NOT about religion, ya'll! How does it fit that US military crusader evangelists want to save these souls right before we blow them away. How can we justify putting Muslims on death row, by their own people, just because we convinced them to become APOSTATES?! General Order Number One, Forbid Proselytizing -- Evangelists Cannot Protect Murtads. Wars fought using 12th-century religious mentality means that civilization has taken two steps backwards!

Mean Rachel is reminded on Mother's Day of children, the lack thereof and why the pill should be available over the counter.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know how can Rick Perry brag about how well Texas is doing when over 22% of our children face hunger every day?

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News showed a video from the Texas Freedom Network of our own Texas Department of Miseducation in action.

WhosPlayin covered the Denton County Democrats' election of a new county chair, after previous chairman Neil Durrance resigned to run for U.S. Congress in District 26 in 2010.

The bad news is that unemployment keeps rising in Texas. The good news is that means there's more federal stimulus money available for unemployment insurance, if the Lege and Governor Perry take it. Off the Kuff has the details.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the latest stunt by our member of Congress, AusChron asks a question about Rep. John Carter -- is he a nutball?

Neil at Texas Liberal is very glad that the left won a big election victory in India: Strong Victory For Center-Left Congress Party In India --World's Two Largest Democracies Now Firmly Reject Conservatives.

Harry Balczak is a little upset. Come by McBlogger so you to can understand how much he hates the idea of Texas becoming so $%@*$%%^ puritanical.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says it is time to sunset Bob Perry's Builder Commission.

This week Teddy at Left of College Station covers President Obama's decision to continue to use the Bush administration commissions to prosecute detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Also, Wednesday Teddy will be a co-host of Biased Transmission, a progressive talk radio show on the community radio station 89.1FM KEOS. This week Jim Olson, Texas A&M University senior lecturer and CIA-officer-in-residence, will return to the show to discuss the "enhanced interrogations" used during the Bush Administration.

Over at TexasKaos, liberaltexan takes on the Obama administration's decision to continue the military Con-Missions. He seems to believe we should, like, trust our own judicial institutions and not make up new, untested ones with no demonstration of necessity or superiority. See his diary, President Obama to Continue Con-Missions.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men takes heed of journalist Ahmed Rashid's warnings about Pakistan, which teeters on the brink of chaos.

Good ol' boy Gene Green got real scared by some progressive activists who came to his office this past week. PDiddie recounted the poor Congressman's terror at Brains and Eggs.

And lastly but not leastly, Citizen Sarah over at Texas Vox, one of the newest members of TPA, celebrates a victory for renewable energy as the Senate passes through a non-wind renewable portfolio standard. Translation from green geek speech: Lots more solar power for Texas!
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