The Friday 2020s update

This weekend's official kickoffs include Liz Warren and Amy Klobuchar.  Cory Booker's declaration fizzled pretty quickly.  Sherrod Brown is going to wait until next month to tell us what he's doing.

-- Let's get the GOP out of the way at the top: former Libertarian vice presidential candidate William Weld is making all the right moves to challenge Trump in the Republican primary.

The clerk’s office in Canton, Massachusetts, confirms on Tuesday that Weld recently changed his party registration to the GOP. If he runs for president as a Republican, he could be Trump’s first challenger within the party. Weld has not returned messages from The Associated Press. He recently told WMUR-TV in New Hampshire that he would discuss his potential political plans during a Feb. 15 visit to the first primary state.

-- Now let's look at the Daily Kos Straw Poll, which the Interweb's most notorious Bernie-hater always spins against Sanders.  Here's the full results; here's the manipulated results.  There's more OCD vitriol from Markos at that second link, which you're welcome to read on your own.  Warning: It's clearly Bernie-Derangement Syndrome in full manifestation.

Kamala Harris is still the Kossack's chosen one despite having no issues pages posted to her website yet.  Lots of platitudes, plenty of swag, no policy.  I find that kind of ridiculous at this point.

-- Warren tripped again over her heritage.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is once again apologizing for claiming Native American ancestry after the Washington Post reported that she filled out a registration card for the State Bar of Texas in 1986 and wrote "American Indian" in the line asking her race. 

Her inability to resolve this matter obviously keeps it teed up for Trump to ridicule, and will be the chink in her armor until she can get it patched.

-- Bernie delivered a rebuttal to Trump's SOTU for which he drew bouquets from his supporters and brickbats from his detractors.  Not because of anything he said, mind you.  Just that he had the audacity to say it.



-- Joe Biden is lining up endorsements on Capitol Hill.  Recent polls favor his entrance.

Biden was the top performer in a Monmouth University poll gauging presidential preferences among registered Democrats. The former vice president received 29 percent support, with the next-closest finisher earning 16 percent. He also earned the highest net favorability rating, with 80 percent of registered Democrats viewing him favorably to 9 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

A CNN poll Wednesday showed that a majority of Democrats — 62 percent — wanted Biden to enter the presidential race.

Politico reported Thursday that Biden was nearing a decision on a run, and was reaching out to Capitol Hill allies including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Chris Coons, D-Del., as well as Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

They like him in Iowa, too.  Uncle Joe would be the establishment's choice, perceived as having some ability to attract white blue-collar workers in Midwestern states back to the Donkey barn, which is viewed in the autopsy of Hillary Clinton's epic fail as her weakest link.  Some of us aren't so sure about Joe, including kos (from above).

Biden has his Anita Hill problem, authorship of that hated crime bill, and sell-past-date feeling. He can exit stage left a winner, or go out a loser.

Howie Klein:

Biden has started -- and aborted -- four runs for president in the past. His brand of Republican-lite centrism is worshiped Inside the Beltway. Outside? Not so much. He never polled outside single digits -- low single digits. Early Monday, Atlantic columnist Edward-Isaac Dovere asserted that as Biden contemplates a 2020 run, he is focused on whether primary voters will support a centrist septuagenarian. He's riding very high in the polls right now, but the overwhelming majority of people who back him don't know his sexist, racist corporate, pro-war record. And if he runs, they'll find out who the real Joe Biden is. Most of the low-info voters selecting him in polls, just see him as a stand-in for Obama ...

Within this Axios piece about Howard Schultz -- his CNN townhall is in Houston next week -- there was this, which was the most revealing thing I read about Biden's potential candidacy.

If Biden runs, look for (billionaire and former NY Mayor Michael) Bloomberg and (former VA Governor Terry) McAuliffe to bow out, the sources tell us.

-- In 'News You May Have Missed' Department, Marianne Williamson also jumped in.  See these posts from Democratic Underground and Down With Tyranny.



Still think she'd make the perfect successor to Jill Stein, running under the Green Party banner.

-- Finally, the Dithering of Beto reaches another crescendo.

O’Rourke admitted to “thinking about running for president” during a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in New York City Tuesday and said, of the prospect of helping to unify the country, “I’m so excited at the prospect of being able to play that role.” He said he would announce his decision about a run “before the end of the month.”

His Hamlet-esque ruminations have prompted much speculation, as well as heaps of unsolicited advice.  Let's go back once again to Nasty Markos.

Beto isn’t someone who will take the fight to the enemy, preferring to run as an eternal optimist. He wouldn’t even attack Ted Cruz, who was so attackable! I don’t criticize. There’s a place for that kind of politics, particularly in a red-to-purpling state like Texas. But for a Democratic presidential primary? I have doubts. And clearly, so does he.

Witness Beto’s precipitous collapse (in the DK poll) as other candidates emerge. His announcement delay may not be fatal if he eventually decides to run, but he just got off a brutal and long Senate battle. He clearly needed to recharge. Yet the race is rich in talent, so what’s his lane? The fresh new face? (Kamala) Harris has snagged that mantle.

More goat-entrail reading from Politico, with their premise being that Beto and others are waiting to see if some of the early front-runners stumble (note Warren's Native American problems and Harris' glossing over her questionable prosecutorial record).

O’Rourke, who [was quoted saying two days before his Oprah interview that] his decision could “potentially” take months, said, “There are people who are smarter on this stuff and study this stuff and are following this and say you’ve got to do it this way or get in by this point or get in in this way if you were to get in.”

However, he said, “I think the truth is that nobody knows right now the rules on any of this stuff. I think the rules are being written in the moment.”

This leaves geniuses like Gilberto Hinojosa and Ed Espinosa of Progress Texas and Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project to offer Bob some career advice: run for the Senate against John Cornyn.  Because if he doesn't, who will?  (Clue to all of these Jackasses: there is a candidate running, an excellent progressive, and she drew 24% of the vote in the 2018 Democratic primary against O'Rourke despite raising only a few thousand dollars.  Get to know her.  Again.)

Our 2018 campaign was groundbreaking and we're just getting started.
Join our grassroots campaign➡ https://t.co/OgtcnqISpn
Donate➡ https://t.co/1nJyphRq1i#NewYearsResolution #Sema2020 pic.twitter.com/FZYu4vGatE

— Sema 🌹💋 (@_SemaHernandez_) December 28, 2018

But to answer the question: perhaps Julián Castro, if you can believe what he's saying about his no-traction presidential campaign.

Appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday night, Castro said he wasn’t interested in being another Democrat’s running mate should he not capture the nomination for himself, explaining that he’s “been there and done that last time,” in reference to his 2016 vetting by Hillary Clinton.

Frankly, I believe him.  My early money is going on Beto running for president, and staying in that race past the deadline to file for the US Senate -- which is in December of this year -- while Castro will eventually drop out and challenge Cornyn.

We'll see how it goes.

The Texas Dems I'll be voting for

The National Rifle Association has endorsed the state's top law enforcement official, who because of his felony indictments cannot own any guns himself.  Ken Paxton is the nuttiest of gun nuts anyway, declaring after the shooting at the church in Sutherland Springs that if more parishioners had been packing, fewer of 'em would have been sent to Heaven early.

Ken Paxton -- and 19 other GOP state AGs -- are asking the federal courts to end the pre-existing conditions acceptability requirement for Obamacare.  Ken Paxton's ultimate goal is to kill Obamacare altogether, and he is actually succeeding in doing so piecemeal.

Obamacare is on Paxton's list of ten things he despises (so are debates).  Paxton, with his lazy eye and slow drawl, is a caricature of a Texas Christian conservative gone badder than any cartoon villain: corrupt, venal, stupid, and built to stay that way.

Justin Nelson, his Democratic opponent, is by contrast solid and well-qualified and has done the hard work of getting publicity without a lot to show for it (although what he has earned has been very favorable).  I could pick a couple of nits over the use of 'access' to health care' on his website, maybe his clerking for Justice O'Connor back in the day, but those are minor enough for me to let slide.

We need Paxton removed, and we can't count on the Texas courts to do it for us.

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

State Comptroller Glenn Hegar hasn't written any steamy novels or left state websites unsecured for hackers to run wild and free like his predecessor Susan Combs, but I'm still voting for Joi Chevalier in the statewide race that has gotten the least attention of any this cycle.  This puts me in agreement with Ted at jobsanger, which is a rare thing.

Democratic Land Commissioner challenger Miguel Suazo just secured the endorsement of Jerry Patterson, the former GOP LC who gave up the job four years ago to run in the scrum of the LG primary.  Incumbent George Pee Bush has alienated more conservatives than just Patterson with his screwball Alamo business despite winning the March primary over "Hogleg".  (Chris Elam, mentioned in the TM link, used to blog from Sugar Land under the title 'Safety for Dummies', which he scrubbed off the Web long ago.  A devoted Tom DeLay acolyte back in the day, it seems as if Elam's mentors have all let him down.  Somebody should ask him where his support goes these days, if one can't tell from where he's drawing a paycheck.)

Suazo has made hay with Bush also fumbling Harvey relief, but the young Democrat has an "all of the above" energy strategy which doesn't particularly suit me.  It would be awfully difficult for a Texas land commissioner to stand against the fossil fuel companies and expect to get elected.  He favors wind and solar and renewables, so I'll swallow hard and click the box beside his name.

Roman McAllen is running against incumbent Republican Christi Craddick, daughter of former Texas House Speaker Tom, for Railroad Commissioner.

A governing body for the state's oil and gas interests -- shockingly, fewer 5% of Texans even know that much about it -- where cronyism and corruption is the rule, McAllen stands out for his blunt talk about the truths associated with the Railroad Commission.  He's been endorsed by the Sierra Club and Our Revolution ETX.  Let's see if we can get just one vote out of three on the TXRRC that isn't bought and paid for by O&G.

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

One more, separate post.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance observes that honesty is no longer a required attribute for Republican judicial nominees, but apparently that simply does not matter to Republican Senators.

Not.  A.  Single.  One.

Here's the blog post and lefty news roundup from last week.

Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who shot Botham Shem Jean in his apartment -- erroneously thinking she was entering her own -- has finally been arrested on manslaughter charges after a few days' delay, attributed to the Texas Rangers' assumption of the investigation from the DPD.

Texas Standard reports that a federal judge buried the fetal remains law passed by the Lege last year, but the case will be appealed to the country's most conservative appellate court, the Fifth Circuit.  And it's on to the SCOTUS, with Brett Kavanaugh sitting in judgment, should it lose there.  Consider the bill a zombie, resting for awhile before it rises and walks again.

Influence Texas and Texans for Public Justice announced the release of Influence TX OS, an open source app providing campaign finance and voting records of Texas state politicians.  This is a very valuable and insightful tool for those who wish to hold elected officials accountable for their political donations.  For example: why did "good Democrat" Gene Wu take $7,500 from one of the world's greediest people, Alice Walton?  (He has -- so far -- refused to answer me.)

Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke both revved up their Senate campaigns with rallies in Harris County, the state's largest and most purple.

“Whatever you’re doing do, please do more of it,” O’Rourke told supporters packed in to the Houston Stampede Event Center, a 12-mile drive from where Cruz first campaigned Saturday in the area. “Not a single one of us wants to wake up with anything other than a hangover from celebrating a victory on the 7th of November."

Harris County — home to the state's most populous city, Houston — has long been regarded as a battleground in Texas politics, though it swung solidly Democratic in the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton routed Donald Trump there by 12 points. The county previously delivered much closer margins in statewide elections, including Cruz's 2-point win there over Democratic opponent Paul Sadler in 2012.

Off the Kuff published an interview with Mike Collier, Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor.

Stace at Dos Centavos interprets a recent poll as saying that neither Democrats nor Republicans want the Latin@ vote, which appears to be excusing low 2018 turnout in advance for the critical election demographic.

By contrast, the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) voting bloc is feeling energized by the candidacy of CD-22 Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni in Fort Bend County.

For years, the Texas Democratic Party has bet its future on an imminent, but never-quite-materializing demographic destiny. Eventually, the thinking goes, the rapidly growing Latino population would exercise their political muscle, turning Texas blue. But that hasn’t happened. Meanwhile, Asian Americans are another rapidly growing, low-turnout demographic in the state. As a small, relatively conservative, highly fragmented voting bloc, they’ve attracted far less attention from Democratic operatives. But Asians have undergone a massive political realignment to the left and they could hold the key to Democratic gains in the diversifying purple suburbs of Texas. At least that’s Kulkarni’s bet.

“When I first started, I was told not to bother with the Asian-American vote because they don’t turn out,” Kulkarni told the Observer. “Well, I said, maybe that’s because you’re not reaching out to them.”

Better Texas Blog gives a state budget update.

Pages of Victory quotes the HouChron in asking again: did Harvey makes us all sick?  There are indeed still more questions than answers.

SocraticGadfly observed that Glenn Greenwald is getting close to "Deep State" conspiracy theory talk on the Trump Administration on things like the "anonymous" op-ed.

David Collins takes down the piety of Nike -- not the protest of Colin Kaepernick, just their making money off of it -- in "Das Kaepital", a barbed commentary pointed at end-stage capitalism.

G. Elliott Morris discusses the current odds of a U.S. House flip by the Dems.

Texas Freedom Network points out that the SBOE is getting ready to write -- or rewrite -- history again, in the form of approving public school textbook curricula this week.

Juanita Jean at the Beauty Shop always believed that the Trump inaugural photos had been doctored.

The Great God Pan Is Dead reviews some Soviet avant-garde art.

Texas Monthly's Doyin Oyenyi writes about a (somewhat elusive) Guy Fieri meme that mocks Austin's envy of Houston's food scene.  *Update: Meme now shown in link and below.

And Sarah Martinez at the San Antonio Current has important Whataburger news.

Your new Texas Congressional delegation (part 1)

I was tempted to write "fresh", but then CD-1 incumbent Louie Gohmert is in another rematch with Shirley McKellar, who must just love losing to him.  She's the deep East Texas equivalent of James Cargas.  More on that in a quick minute.

-- CD-2: Todd Litton bested the four others on the D side, at least three of whom were to his left, to move on to the general election against either Kevin Roberts or Dan Crenshaw in November for the right to replace Ted Poe.  Kathaleen Wall got in bed with Trump, spent six million bucks, secured the endorsement of Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz, and missed the runoff by .3 of one percent, or about 145 votes.  I'm tempted to thank God.  The Republican who wins will still be favored in the fall.

-- CD-3: Van Taylor ran against Chet Edwards in 2004, right after the DeLay redistricting, and lost to the Blue Dog (who continued to fend off R challengers until 2010, losing to Bill Flores).  Taylor went on to win election to the Texas House and later the Texas Senate (where he is currently representing SD-8), and is now favored to hold the seat of retiring Rep. Sam Johnson.  He'll face either Lorie Burch or 'the other' Sam Johnson, of the Dems, in November.

-- CD-4: Incumbent John Ratcliffe is likely to vanquish his D challenger, Catherine Krantz.

-- CD-5:  Two GOPers will run off in May to replace Jeb Hensarling; Lance Gooden and Bunni Pounds.  The Rabbit Lady was a Hensarling campaign manager, political consultant, and fundraiser prior to hopping into this race.  Gooden seeks a promotion from the Texas House; the third-place finisher in the R primary is/was former state Rep. Kenneth Sheets.  The Democrat waiting to be skunked in the fall is Dan Wood.

-- CD-6: This contest drew thirteen Republican challengers after Smokey Joe Barton finally quit following the, ah, exposé of himself on Twitter.  The two who will go to May 22 are Ron Wright, a former Barton chief of staff, and JK 'Jake' Ellzey, a retired Navy pilot.  Democrats have two women in their runoff: Ruby Faye Woolridge and Jana Lynne Sanchez, who finished in a virtual tie yesterday. Woolridge led by just 19 votes out of over 29,000 cast.  Sanchez has followed me on Twitter from her campaign's earliest days and has a fascinating life story.

Jana Lynne Sanchez grew up in the Ellis County, Texas towns of Maypearl, Midlothian and Waxahachie. Her grandparents, migrant farm workers, settled in Rockett, outside of Waxahachie in the 1950s. Her grandfather was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lived in the U.S. most of his life, before becoming a citizen in 1969. Her father, one of 27 children, grew up on the road and had little formal education.

Jana attended Rice University in Houston on multiple scholarships and thanks to financial aid, student loans, work-study jobs, and the support of family. After graduating from Rice with a degree in Political Science, she went on to work as a political fundraiser, raising millions for state-wide and local candidates in California. She also managed political campaigns in Alabama before turning to journalism.

She began her career writing about food and travel for the Baltimore Sun before becoming a technology journalist. Later she was a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Amsterdam. In 2005 she co-founded CitySavvy, an award-winning financial and corporate communications consultancy with offices in London and Amsterdam (www.citysavvy.com). At the end of 2014 she returned to Texas.

Jana serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the School of Social Sciences at Rice and is active in progressive political causes in Texas. She’s an aspiring country songwriter, singer and guitarist.

It'll be uphill for either woman to win this district, but if there is a Trump/Barton/#MeToo/#Time'sUp backlash in the fall, this would be a great place for it to hit.  I'll be watching this runoff almost as closely as ...

CD-7:  Laura Moser (8077 votes, 24.3%) scrambled into the runoff with Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (9731, 29.3%).  Dr. Jason Westin just missed, in show (6364, 19.2%), and to my delight, Alex T came in fourth (5219, 5.7%).  The Tough Guy raised and spent around a million dollars, much more than the others.  Ivan Sanchez and Joshua Butler finished fifth and sixth, and in dead-ass last ... James Cargas, with just 650 votes, or 2%.  The undervote in this race was 923 votes.

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.  If I never see this guy's name on my ballot ever again, it will be too soon.

I've got 29 more of these to do and no more time left today to do 'em.  Back tomorrow morning, early (as usual) later.  Too much to do offline.  Texas Lege and county race takes still to finish as well.

Plucking Mom out of East Texas

Later today (hopefully).

As with almost all things Golden-Triangle-related, her house went under water.  First time water ever  so much as came up the street in 57 years; she probably took in 4 feet or so.

She evacuated to the local Methodist church, which lost power.  A Good Samaritan friend in Beaumont rescued her, but as you might know, that city lost its water supply for the foreseeable future, so she got picked up via jet ski and evac'd again to Livingston.  Highways between Houston and there remain problematic, but by tonight she should be here at a nearby hotel, and moving in with my wife and I for awhile while she decides where she wants to be.

Posting even lighter than usual ahead, and the environmental calamity updates I promised will appear on Twitter (if you don't have an account, get one).   Here's an excerpt about what's finally dawning on some people this morning:

What began as a story about flooding, environmentalist groups say, has become about preventable environmental disaster.

Coastal Houston is the site of a large concentration of chemical plants, refineries, Superfund sites and fossil fuel operations. Some have suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey, releasing toxic compounds into the environment, and environmentalists, in turn, are pointing the finger at politicians and industry leaders who have sought to ax regulations.

Specifically, they're criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency for delaying a chemical plant safety rule once President Donald Trump took office. In part, the rule would have ensured first responders knew what chemicals they may come in contact with and how to handle those chemicals in an emergency response situation.

The intention was to help prevent and mitigate chemical accidents.

"The rules that were delayed were designed to reduce the risk of chemical releases," said Peter Zalzal, special projects director and lead attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. "This kind of situation underscores why we shouldn't be rolling these rules back."

Earlier this year, legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate that would repeal an EPA rule.

A report in the International Business Times noted the bill was cosponsored by a hefty handful of Texas Republican House members, and the companion bill in the Senate had the backing of both Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

Many who cosponsored the legislation, IBT noted, have accepted donations from the chemical industry, the American Chemical Council and Arkema, Inc.

About that EPA rule:

In June, about 10 weeks before explosions and fires would begin erupting at a chemical plant damaged by Hurricane Harvey near Houston, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt placed a 20-month delay on the implementation of rules designed to prevent and contain spills, fires and explosions at chemical plants.

In a public comment filed with the EPA in May, an association of emergency response planning officials asked that at least one portion of the rules be spared the delay and implemented immediately: a section requiring hazardous chemical facilities to coordinate with local first responders and planners in case of an emergency.

"Save for the act of coordination and providing certain information, if it exists, this provision simply and directly requires people to talk to each other," wrote Timothy Gablehouse, president of the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials, an association of state and local emergency response commissions. "It is fully appropriate for regulated facilities to understand what local responders can and cannot accomplish during an emergency response."

Pruitt delayed implementation of the rules in response to complaints about the rulemaking process filed by chemical companies and industry groups, according to the EPA's filing in the federal register. States with large industrial chemical sectors, including Texas and Louisiana, also requested that compliance dates for the rules be delayed.

The industry complained that the emergency response requirements in particular did not specify limits on the information that emergency planners and first responders could ask for, and the EPA agreed to delay those provisions to allow for additional public comment, despite warnings from Gablehouse and environmental groups.

The decision to delay the rules -- particularly the section on sharing information with emergency planners -- is under intense scrutiny as environmental disasters unfold in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

"It's offensive that they refuse to share information with police and firefighters who have to risk their lives to go into those disaster [areas]," said Gordon Sommers, an attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental group that opposed the delay. "They risk their lives because they don’t know what risks they face … because the industry does not want to share information."

Do you remember when Greg Abbott said, "drive around"?

Bryan Parras of T.e.j.a.s. was on Democracy Now earlier this week detailing first-hand accounts of the air quality near the Houston Ship Channel and Manchester neighborhood, and the Superfund sites along the San Jacinto River, that he has long strived to call attention to.  Transcript here.

It's bad, our Texas Republicans lie at the root cause, our Texas Democrats can't stop them or even slow them down (even the ones that actually want to), the Trump administration is enabling all of it, and our local air and water is only going to get worse.  If you're working for an oil company, like Houston's allegedly leading blogger, you're not going to see much of this news (you will get your weekly video break and link dump, though).

If you're driving a car to work, you need to start rethinking that.  If you're raising children here ... think about living somewhere else.  And if you're poverty-class or homeless, you're fucked.

Texas wants expedited SCOTUS appeal on redistricting

Not reading this anywhere else.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday morning he plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Tuesday ruling that invalidated two congressional districts, including Corpus Christi's District 27.

The appeal will be filed this week, unless the state requests — and is granted — an extension on a three-day deadline imposed by the district court's ruling, Kayleigh Lovvorn, a spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's office told the Caller-Times Wednesday.

The San Antonio court gave the state a three-day deadline to indicate whether the legislature would convene to consider redistricting, a move Abbott called "astonishing." 

First, I thought these appeals went through the Fifth Circuit before they got to the Supremes (thus the strike-through in yesterday's).  Second, it is a little wild that the three judges who invalidated the constitutionality of the two Congressional districts which Blake Farenthold and Lloyd Doggett currently represent would give the state until this Friday to decide whether to meet with the plaintiffs and start drawing new maps on the day after Labor Day ... or keep fighting it out in court.

Surely it will continue to be the latter.

The federal judges ruled Congressional Districts 35 and 27 violated racial discrimination prohibitions in section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The 107-page ruling, handed down in San Antonio, could lead to a battle to redraw the districts in time for the 2018 elections. 

If Texas does not respond within three days and the Supreme Court does not intervene, the two sides are scheduled to meet Sept. 5 to begin drawing new maps, the ruling states.

Or Abbott's appeal to Justice Sam Alito is taken under advisement by him and he alone decides, or he refers it to the full Court, in which case we're back on the slow track.  If Abbott's appeal is not granted, then Abbott calls another special session for redistricting (rather than leaving it to a squadron of lawyers from the state and MALDEF, etc., and under the supervision of the federal judges of the Western District of Texas).  A special may be coming anyway, since Goobnur Wheels is now grousing about his agenda being derailed by Joe Straus.

IANAL so feel free to weigh, lawyers.

While I was blogging the above, Meagan Flynn at the Press posts an update, beating all the corporate news media outlets and Kuff and the rest of those who are usually on top of these things.  Maybe later today, or tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. in Kuffner's case, with whatever the Chronic or the TexTrib have to say, preceded by "Wow' or something similar.

The ruling means both maps will need to be redrawn in time for the 2018 election, and that lawmakers can't kick the can down the road until the next session. The federal judges gave Texas three days to decide whether it wants the court to redraw the maps for it — or let the Legislature do it. Which would require a special session.

[...]

Expect to find out by the end of the week whether you'll have to watch lawmakers tear up the state Capitol all over again this fall. Who knows, given Abbott's philosophy during this past special session was cram as many bills as possible into 30 days, maybe the bathroom bill will even make an appearance on another ambitious agenda.

Hellza poppin'.

Update: KUT touches base with Brennan Center attorney Michael Li, who is also advising the plaintiffs, and he explains the current situation as I have.

“It’s possible that everything gets put on hold until the Supreme Court decides, but it’s also possible that the court lets that go forward,” said Li ... “I think everyone is sensitive with the close timing of the election and everything that it may make sense to go ahead and redraw the maps now.”

[...]

“The question now is who redraws the maps.”

[...]

“So the normal practice is that a Legislature gets the first shot at redrawing maps," Li said, "and the court has given the Legislature that shot." If they don’t agree to hold a special session to redraw the maps, then the state and plaintiffs go back to court for a hearing in September to hash it out.

The court also still has to rule on the statehouse maps, which could also delay a special session.

Li said legislators will probably want to wait to see if they have to redraw both sets of maps before going into another session. He said it is possible, however, that all this could be sorted out in time for the 2018 elections.

“If all the cards align, and the changes aren’t that massive, then it’s possible that maps could be in place by September or early October,” he said. “But right now everything is up in the air.”

Update (8/18, late p.m.): There will be no special session to address redistricting ... for now. Governor Hell on Wheels reserves his right to call one before 2019 if the Supreme Court lets the air out of his tires.  Ken Paxton's pompous dismay at having judges draw maps -- i.e. his disgust at the governor for failing to take matters into his own hands -- is duly noted for the record.

Scattershooting Karun Sreerama, Stan Stanart, Russian hacks, and Trump's shitty week

-- The drama surrounding the public works director of the city of Houston (Mayor Sylvester Turner's personal choice) has been resolved.  After being outed as a tool of the FBI for the third of three payoffs to convicted felon and HCC board member Chris Oliver -- who is still serving we the people, it should be noted -- Karun Sreerama is no longer.

Karun Sreerama is out as director of the city of Houston's Department of Public Works and Engineering following revelations that he made payments to a Houston Community College trustee who has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes.

[...]

Oliver pleaded guilty to bribery in connection with accepting the more recent payments totaling $12,000, court records show, and in exchange the acting U.S. attorney agreed to dismiss the separate extortion charge tied to Sreerama's earlier payments totaling $77,143.

Sreerama's attorney Chip Lewis said federal authorities directed Sreerama to pay Oliver the $12,000 in 2015 and 2016 after confronting Sreerama about his earlier, independent payments to the trustee. "What he was doing was created, directed and funded by the FBI," Lewis said. "Karun was a cooperating witness as a result of being a victim of Oliver's scheme."

That's an artful deflection, isn't it?

As Lewis described the payments, the first two were made because Oliver claimed he was going through a costly divorce, and then claimed he needed funds to complete the process of adopting a child. Both payments were presented as loans and were not repaid. The third payment took the form of an exorbitant fee Oliver charged after his company cleaned the parking lot at Sreerama's business.

"By the time we get to the third payment and he hadn't been repaid the loans, Karun became worried that saying, 'No, no I've got somebody who already does the cleaning, etc.' could adversely affect his position down the road," Lewis said.

Federal authorities confronted Sreerama in March 2015, a year and a half after he made that final payment, and asked for his cooperation in their investigation, Lewis said.

Two months later -- at the FBI's behest, Lewis said -- Sreerama began a series of meetings with Oliver that lasted through May 2016.

Oliver repeatedly asked if Sreerama was working for law enforcement in their initial May 2015 meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Leuchtmann said during Oliver's re-arraignment. Oliver took the first envelope of $2,500 cash from Sreerama days later, and by their July meeting, he'd passed Sreerama a list of all HCC contracts.

Sreerama decided by November 2015 to bid on a pest control project. Oliver later said he continued to delay votes to convince the board to vote on the basis of value, not price, to give Sreerama's company a shot, Leuchtmann said.

Lewis said Sreerama's payments to Oliver during this period "were authorized, provided and directed to be delivered by the federal government." Meanwhile, Sreerama's likely appointment as Houston's Public Works director became a subject of open speculation at City Hall.

Turner finally tapped Sreerama to lead the city's largest department in March, tasking him with managing all city streets, drainage, water and sewer systems on a $2.1 billion annual budget. Sreerama did not tell the mayor or other city officials during the vetting process about his involvement in the federal case, Lewis said.

"The FBI had asked him not to reveal it to anybody," Lewis said, adding that Sreerama called Turner about the case three weeks ago, after he learned it was set to be unsealed the next day.

Just your run-of-the-mill graft/corruption/city hall quid pro quo deal, about which the mayor has plausible deniability of any knowledge or involvement.  Happens every day in cities large and small, all across the land, 99% of them go undiscovered by the law.  Nothing to see here.

We're stuck with Turner and his lickspittles down on Bagby until 2019, so there will be plenty of time for this to disappear down the memory hole.  This makes some members of the Democratic establishment very relieved, so there's that.

-- Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart and Rice University professor Dan Wallach got into a very public pissing contest over the security, or lack thereof, associated with the county's voting machines.  The original article's headline contained the words "Russian hackers" and has been edited by the Chronic to tone down the hysteria, and Wallach made a glaring error by describing the Hart InterCivic e-Slates as running on Microsoft 2000, which has been struck through and corrected to 'Microsoft 7'.

Stanart eventually posted a retort to Wallach, of which you can read the newspaper's account at this link.  It's more CYA by the county's lousiest, most incompetent elected official.

Stanart looks like more than the usual putz in light of this news from DEF CON -- the conference of hackers that takes place annually, this year in Vegas -- and note some disturbing developments contained within a couple of the links that follow.  I've highlighted them in bold.

We already knew U.S. voting systems had security flaws ― the federal government put that nail in the coffin when it repeatedly confirmed that Russian hackers breached systems in at least 21 states during the election last year.

But on Friday, hackers stateside showed us just how easily some of the electronic voting machines can be cracked.

Those who attended DEF CON, a 25-year-old hacking convention held in Las Vegas, were given physical and remote access to voting machines procured from eBay and government auctions.

Within about 90 minutes, they’d exploited weak and outdated security measures to gain full access, The Register first reported. Some physically broke down the machines to reveal their vulnerabilities, while others gained remote access or showed that external ports found on some could be used to upload malicious software. 

None of these accounts mention Hart's e-Slates, in use for over a decade here, but I'm not inclined to take this as good news.

“Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” Jake Braun, who reportedly came up with the idea for the challenge, told The Register.

“The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries ― including Russia, North Korea, Iran ― possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security.”

Some of the machines were reportedly outdated and not used in today’s elections, and attendees said that their various intrusions would have been detected and logged by officials.

But detection is a far cry from interception.

In June, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official again confirmed that Russian hackers were not only “attempting” to gain access to voting systems, they succeeded in at least 21 states and stole undisclosed information. The FBI detected the tampering last year ― though no evidence of changing vote numbers has been found ― but the Obama administration delayed reporting the breaches until Oct. 7, according to the Los Angeles Times.

So this would be an account of Russians hacking the election that I have never read before, and I would be compelled to say that I was wrong all this time; the Russians did perform hacks of significant magnitude into our election systems, even if the proviso that "no evidence of changing results was found" is inserted.

But when I click on those bold links above, I find no data that supports the claims of this HuffPo writer, Andy Campbell.  He has quite obviously jumped to the wrong conclusion.  Read the links for yourself.  Here are some excerpts; read the entire post at both links.

Russian hackers targeted 21 U.S. states’ election systems in last year’s presidential race, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official told Congress on (June 21, 2017).

'Targeted' is not the same thing as 'hacked'.  And this from the second bold link above, dated late September of last year ...

There have been hacking attempts on election systems in more than 20 states — far more than had been previously acknowledged — a senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News on (September 28, 2016).

The "attempted intrusions" targeted online systems like registration databases, and not the actual voting or tabulation machines that will be used on Election Day and are not tied to the Internet. The DHS official described much of the activity as “people poking at the systems to see if they are vulnerable.”

Once more, in bold.

Only two successful breaches have been disclosed, both of online voter registration databases, in Illinois and Arizona over the summer.

While those two hacks were linked to hackers in Russia, the DHS official did not say who was responsible for the other failed attempts, noting that "we're still doing a lot of forensics."

Almost a month ago -- on July 5 -- I wrote and linked to pieces in Vox and in Bloomberg that revealed hacking in attempts in 39 states, and one breach of voter registration data in Illinois.  Two weeks before that, I linked to the report in the FWST about hacking attempts in Dallas County, and on June 2, compiled an extensive listing of the various attempts by the Russkies to influence the election to that point in time, most of which did not make even passing mention of hacking or hacking attempts.

I have followed the story extensively.  I have blogged about it exhaustively.  I still cannot find anywhere in the public domain -- save the mentions of voter database breaches in Illinois, and now Arizona above -- evidence that the Russians hacked anything of significance.  People like Mr. Campbell above do themselves, their publisher, and Democrats at large a great disservice by continuing to promote this false narrative.  It's fake news of the most destructive kind, because those of us that know it's a lie are being driven further away from the Democratic party and its candidates every time the lie gets repeated.  Maybe some day I'll be wrong about the Russians hacking the 2016 election, but that day hasn't arrived yet.

And perhaps Clinton Democrats already intuitively get that the Russian bullshit is a scam of their own invention, which could explain why they've ramped up their insane hatred for an even more implausible, yet always convenient scapegoat: Jill Stein and the Greens.

-- If Democrats wanted to bring Trump down and not themselves, then they'd focus more on the real Russian scandal.  The one Robert Mueller is working on.

Since Election Day, President Trump’s businesses have sold at least 30 luxury condos and oceanfront lots for about $33 million. That includes millions of dollars in properties to secretive shell companies, which can hide the identities of buyers or partners involved in the deals, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

Now, details of some of those deals and other transactions by Trump's family business could be unmasked as special counsel Robert Mueller expands his inquiry into election-meddling by Russia and whether Trump's campaign colluded.

Federal investigators are expected to delve into records revealing some of the President’s most closely guarded secrets, including how much money he makes, who he does business with and how reliant he is on wealthy, politically-connected foreigners.

A half-dozen experts contacted by USA TODAY said they expect Mueller and his team to pursue everything from Trump’s income tax returns to the bank records underlying his companies’ real estate transactions in a quest to identify people who have financial relationships with the President and his business and political associates.

If Mueller gets fired by someone not named Jeff Sessions soon, the pending departures associated with Trump's shuffling the deck chairs his staff on his Titanic ego in the White House, to say nothing of the rats Republicans in Congress jumping off ...

... or even the overdue exodus of his base voters ...

 ... will accelerate as we move closer to the midterms.  But those fallout effects haven't yet taken into account his wink-and-a-nod approval to escalated police brutality ...

... his Tweeted transgender military service ban (that is not official until it is communicated through the conventional means) ...

... and the flaming bag of poo set alight on his own front step.

/div>

Those will all pale in comparison to the Nixonian conflagration of terminating the special prosecutor investigating his Russian business affairs.

The worst is yet to come.

Update: Just a couple of hours after I posted, Scaramouche is shitcanned in favor of General John Kelly, who moves over from the Department of Homeland Security.  Kelly is, for a general, quite the Trump stooge. No rumors floated yet about his replacement at DHS.  Seems like a bad time for that post to be vacant, with all this hacking going on and a war with North Korea about to break out.

Russians may be coming again ... but we've larger voting problems

Before we go to war with North Korea, before the unhinged Right starts killing CNN reporters, before acetamenophin destroys what's left of our empathy ...

When last we tuned in to RT while clicking on Sputnik News, we learned that our antagonists Boris and Natasha Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear (see here and here for the Wiki background) had been hard at work scaring the pants off moose and squirrel everybody from Jameses Comey and Clapper to your friendly neighborhood Dem precinct captain about what, precisely, they had been up to in the summer of 2016.  That is to say, beyond humiliating Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and the rest of the DNC hacks that got hacked.

We learned that they hacked into 39 states' voter databases -- or tried to, and succeeded in getting into perhaps just one, Illinois.  Alex Ward at Vox has it, with a link over to the original at Bloomberg, and previously and briefly referenced by yours truly in the second half of this aggrepost.

While this is indeed alarming, I still find voter suppression via photo ID and partisan gerrymandering to be greater threats to our republic.  Paper ballots with verifiable paper trails -- something like the Scantron-style electronic voting machines Denton County has just adopted -- would resolve the  Russian problem, but nothing short of a blue tsunami will fix the other two, and unless they can find something to run on besides "Trump is evil/Russia/Impeach",  2018 isn't going to be the cycle the Donkeys are looking for.

(*Ed note: let me pause here and acknowledge my friend Brad Friedman's lasting concerns about anything machine count-related.  Experts appear to disagree on the hackability, or at least the ease thereof, of scanned ballot counters.)

For the benefit of my conspiratorially-minded Democratic friends, let me point out -- as I have repeatedly in the past -- that the key to cracking the Russian code lies not in tracing election hacking attempts but in Trump's still-concealed tax returns.  Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Felix Sater, and the rest of that ilk are the threads special counsel Mueller should be -- and hopefully is -- pulling on.  And if Trump, or Jeff Sessions, or Devin Nunes, or any Republican in the administration or the Congress is found to be obstructing that investigation, then the walls will come tumbling down.

Focusing on the wrong Russiagate is starting to show up in polling as a loser for Democrats.  It's a winner for the corporate media and ratings, however, especially MSNBC.  Before Mika B's facelift became an atrocious but ultimately distracting Tweet -- even Tucker Carlson thinks so, by Jeebus -- Trump usually didn't give half of one solid shit about the other liberal media news channel; he's mobilized his base to destroy CNN, and now even Julian Assange is piling on.

I would like to also point out that the Democratic Party has bigger fish to fry than continuing to demonize Jill Stein, but I'm convinced that unhealthy obsession has become part of their DNA.

So with all that, plus 1) Kris Kobach, 2) a Texas Legislature poised to over-reach once more with a photo ID law that will require a couple of years for the courts to once again nullify, and 3) gerrymandered congressional and statehouse districts thanks to Tom DeLay almost fifteen years ago, as Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker reminded us in his comprehensive and compelling piece "America's Future is Texas"... why are you more worried about what Russian hackers may or may not be doing in the next election cycle?  Your vote barely counts for anything as it is.

On a more positive note, here's an easily attainable goal for those of us in Harris County: #FireStanStanart and replace him with Diane Trautman, and then push the mostly Republican county commissioners to approve and purchase paper ballots for 2020.  Because if Democrats can actually win some elections -- particularly this one -- in 2018, those GOPers will be forced to do so, due to the caterwauling from their base about Ill Eagles voting.

See how easy this is?  Just requires a little focus on the proper thing.

Scattershooting the shitshows *with updates

-- I am just not going to spend much time following the Trump/Comey carnival from town to town.  If that's your thing, you have all you want to consume.  My plans are to get out and do something fun around town on Saturday and then take Mom out to lunch on Sunday, avoiding the teevee Talking Heads as stringently as possible.

-- It's that time of spring/early summer when the Texas Lege is on its worst behavior, and as the calendar deadline came and went last night, statehouse Republicans drew knives on each other and the Texas Senate's Education Committee snuck vouchers into the school finance bill and passed the bill out to the full floor.  Which means Joe Straus, et. al. is the last chance to kill them.

(T)he House has indicated that it opposes school choice but supports funding schools at a higher level than the Senate says the state’s tight budget can handle. In a bargaining move by the Senate to push school choice, a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and an issue supported by Gov. Greg Abbott, House members who oppose school choice at least have to consider the issue now.

Don't hold your breath.

-- A glimmer of good news: despite Harris County's best and most expensive efforts, a federal judge struck down their opposition to reforming bail bonding for the indigent, and the Sheriff's Office is moving quickly ahead on releasing the debtor's prison inmates.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal denied the county's motion to stay her order, leading to an expedited appeal by the county expected to be filed Friday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Rosenthal's order is set to go into effect on Monday. County officials are already planning to begin releasing inmates even as their lawyers fight to stop the order.

The judge ruled that the county's bail practices are unconstitutional, forcing poor people to stay in jail when people with money can walk free while awaiting trial on misdemeanors, allowing them to go on with the lives and jobs.

[...]

According to testimony at a lengthy injunction hearing earlier this year, many defendants opt to plead guilty rather than wait for their day in court on a minor offense.

Rosenthal weighed the request for a stay based on who faced the "greater harm" if she granted it: The 15 Criminal Court at Law judges and five hearing officers who asked for the delay or the inmates being held on bail rates they couldn't pay. She explained in her order Thursday that the misdemeanor defendants stuck in jail while awaiting trial would suffer greater harm than the county in implementing a new bail system [and also] found "that overwhelming credible evidence established that Harris County has a policy of routinely and systematically detaining indigent misdemeanor defendants before trial on secured money bail that the defendants clearly cannot pay because of their indigence, without procedural protections."

Update: The Fifth Circuit late yesterday put a stop to Judge Rosenthal's stay.

A federal appeals court granted Harris County a last-minute reprieve Friday in a contentious civil rights lawsuit, calling a temporary halt to a judge's order that would have altered the way cash bail is handled for hundreds of people jailed on misdemeanor charges.

In an order posted after the courthouse closed Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the request of the county's teams of lawyers to stop the order - set to take effect Monday - until the appeals court can further review the matter.

A three-judge panel of the court  notes the temporary halt to the order was issued "in light of the lack of time before the district court's injunction will take effect and in order to allow full consideration of the following motions and any responses thereto."

And the sheriff puts his plans on hold as well.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez had already been preparing paperwork for the expected release of about 80 indigent inmates locked up while awaiting trial on misdemeanors.

[...]

Gonzalez ... is among those who believes the bail system should be overhauled. He said about 100 inmates a day would have been affected by the new bail system.

"We are prepared to comply, allowing many inmates to return to their homes while their cases get resolved in court," he said Friday, before the ruling. "We need to make sure we keep peace in our community, but the system should be compassionate."

I suppose (once the lower court's order is confirmed, that is) the jails, city and county, will now have plenty of room for all the homeless people they will begin arresting today.  Unfortunately someone *update: nearly died of a drug overdose at the Wheeler encampment last night, which is all the motivation some people will need to accelerate their plan.  This is how it went down at City Hall a couple of weeks ago.  Leading homeless activist Shere Dore spoke with Fox 26's Isiah Carey earlier this week about the issue, but the report is not mentioned that I can find on his many social media outlets.  Unusual for such a relentless self-promoter.

Update: More from the scene yesterday; Sylvester Turner applies the full court press (including a billboard on I-45), and Burnell McCray's photographs document the lives being impacted.

-- It's worth re-pointing out the obvious inability of Clinton Democrats to recognize their own hypocrisy, even without demonstrating much in the way of cognitive dissonance.

The toons I have for Sunday are some of the wildest I have ever collected, by the way.  And most of them will never see the light of day at Blue outlets like the Beauty Shop or Ted's.  We no longer live in a world where the psychopathy of the Republicans can be condemned without acknowledging the absolute failure of the Democrats to stop them, electorally or in the use of their meager political power, and not just in Washington and elsewhere but in places like Austin.

With respect to the meme above, let's really get this clear: Trump stands as much chance of being impeached as Obama did.  To hear liberals repeat this ridiculous whine using the logic of the TeaBaggers is, to quote a president's Twitter feed, sad.  Trump is not only not going to be impeached; he's not even going to be investigated as long Mitch McConnell is in charge.

Senate Republicans are unified in rejecting calls for a special counsel to take over the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election, even as some take a critical tone against the president’s abrupt firing of FBI Director Jim Comey.

[...]

... Republicans, even those critical of President Trump for firing the FBI director while he was investigating ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, are not biting — at least not for now. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told a CNN reporter at least six Republicans privately support either a select committee or special counsel to look into the Russia claims, and it’s possible that more information could come out about Comey’s firing that would change their positions.

“Today we’ll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.

Several Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is leading its own probe into Russia, echoed McConnell, saying a special counsel at the Justice Department would get in the way of their investigation, which has been criticized for being understaffed and slow.

And it's not just that loyalty to party -- or your party's president -- over country, or to the rule of law, is the only thing that matters to Republicans; the Democrats are experiencing too much infighting to capitalize in 2018 to so much as put impeachment on the table.  This past-its-sell-date baloney is fed to them daily by the likes of Louise Mensch and Palmer Report and others.  Careless thinking is part and parcel of what appears to me as a general lack of understanding about how far they have driven -- and continue to drive -- the party off the rails.  As an example, I take frequent issue with the Observer (a Kushner family publication, but with several progressive writers who still get published), Naked Capitalism, and HA Goodman, a hyperbolic and excessive shill for his efforts in the style of local Donkey Egberto Willies.  (Sidebar snark: "So-and-so slams so-and-so on Rachel Maddow/Bill Maher" etc. is not riveting blogging, and that banality drives about 75-80% of Eg's content, but only if you can get past the constant pimping of his email list, radio shows, books, whatever other activism he's involved in that he can't otherwise monetize, and so on ad infinitum).

But when they're quoting the DNC's lawyer from legal briefs in the ongoing trial associated with Bernie Sander's contention that the party apparatus repeatedly defrauded his efforts to secure the nomination, which essentially denies that democracy has anything to do with being a Democrat ... somebody whose mind hasn't been clouded by neoliberalism maybe ought to shake those fuckheads by the shoulders.  And it ain't gonna be Tom Perez.

With nothing but a severely dysfunctional Democratic Party, the GOP is only going to get worse.

Democrats can't muster votes to stop Pruitt

A fourth bad week for President Barking Yam could have been worse.  It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the Okie AG who sued the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of oil companies -- fourteen times -- was to be confirmed as head of the EPA.  But Senate Democrats fell down again on the way to preventing the GOP from drowning government in the bathtub.

The U.S. Senate (yesterday) afternoon confirmed President Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, even as he faces a new court order.

An Oklahoma district court judge Thursday ordered Pruitt, the state’s former attorney general, to turn over thousands of communications with major coal, oil and gas companies from his time in office.

The nonprofit watchdog Center for Media and Democracy had requested the public records two years ago, and the judge ruled there had been an “unreasonable” delay in responding to the request, demanding that Pruitt comply by the end of the day Monday.

The Senate confirmed his nomination 52-46 (Friday) afternoon, even after Democratic senators expressed outrage overnight that Republicans were going ahead as scheduled despite the judge’s ruling.

One Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who had said she would vote no before Thursday’s news of the court ruling, held to her vow to vote against Pruitt today. Another, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., skipped the vote, as did Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

But two Democrats -- Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – voted for the controversial nominee, giving him the votes he needed.

Maybe those emails will matter to someone next week, as we wave goodbye to the cow leaving the barn.  If this was the strongest response the Sierra Club could manage, I'm not hopeful for the resistance.

U.S. Senators got a "Pruitt Survival Kit" today including some clean water, a face mask & a letter you can read: https://t.co/le4WP5D3ka pic.twitter.com/5etjjooDD5

— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) January 17, 2017

Am the only one embarrassed by this demonstration of professional activism?  This is where your donations go, folks.  Let's all sign more petitions so that Cornyn and Cruz and Culberson have enough toilet paper to wipe their asses with.  Update: On the other hand, it could be worse.

If Chuck Schumer could enforce caucus discipline the way that Mitch McConnell can, Trump would be looking for some other lousy white guy to dismantle the nation's regulations keeping our air, water, and groundwater protected from avaricious corporations.  But Donnelly, Heitkamp, and Manchin are all Blue Dogs in solid red states (+18 Trump in 2016) running for re-election in 2018, so they have a hall pass to keep voting like Republicans for another two years in hopes they can hang on and avoid letting the Democrats slip into superminority status.

Here is some solace for those who scowl at their monitor or phone/tablet screen every time I slap the Donkeys: Amy Davidson at the New Yorker cuts spineless Ds a little slack with sharp points about why Pruitt is also our nation's spineless Republican problem: nobody from starboard dares stand up to Cheetolini (except a few, like Collins and McCain, and then only on the rare occasion).  A caution to those who prefer their reading at junior-high level and with short paragraphs: this isn't the excerpt you're looking for.

There are two answers to the question of why Republicans rushed Pruitt through, not mutually exclusive. One is that this is just another instance of something that has been seen repeatedly in the weeks since Donald Trump took office: the Republicans’ floppy pose of deference to Trump. They have let him do what he wants, for the most part, unless a shocking “Oprah” tape from the past comes back to haunt an already unfit nominee. (As William Finnegan has written, in that case, involving Andrew Puzder, the failed Labor Secretary nominee, the tape only stopped the senators when combined with his illegal household help and his crudely expressed disdain for working Americans.) They hadn’t stood up to Trump on his executive order barring entry to people from seven countries and to all refugees, despite the direct risk it posed to many residents of red states, not to mention to the Constitution. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hadn’t managed to say much more than that “regrettably, the rollout was confusing,” as if he might have erased the insult to American values with a PowerPoint presentation and a can-do smile. Their hurt speeches on Friday morning about how the Democrats didn’t respect Trump’s choices came less than twenty-four hours after their President spoke casually about blowing Russian boats out of the water; accused his opponents of staging fake anti-Semitic attacks; questioned the legitimacy of the electoral system, the courts, and the media; and asked a black journalist, April Ryan, if the legislators in the Congressional Black Caucus were “friends” of hers, and if she could maybe set them up with a meeting with him.

This is a weak answer, in part because of what is at stake: not only America’s air and water and its children’s health but the future of the planet. Pruitt is so shameless a choice that former E.P.A. employees who have served under Presidents from both parties sent a letter to the Senate expressing concern about his appointment, noting his demonstrated lack of interest in enforcing environmental laws, his stance on climate change, and his failure to demonstrate that he would “put the public’s welfare ahead of private interests.”

Then again, why would this Republican Party want to block Pruitt? This is the other answer: the senators pushed him through because they wanted to, for their own non-Trump reasons. He is, in many ways, more typical of where many congressional Republicans stand than Trump is, though Pruitt might express his views more crudely and with fewer circumlocutions than some. His ties to industry are, in many cases, their ties to industry, too. (Jane Mayer has covered the influence of the Koch brothers, for example, in this regard.) When Ryan talks about dismantling the regulatory state, he is not far from Pruitt. Indeed, when asked about the influence of human activity on climate change, Ryan has said that he just didn’t know what it all added up to, “and I don’t think science does, either.” In a statement that Ryan issued in December, 2009, he accused certain scientists who did recognize the effect of using “statistical tricks to distort their findings and intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He added that any rules restricting American industry in the name of fighting climate change would be a “tough sell” in Wisconsin, “where much of the state is buried under snow.” Similarly, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, tends to deal with climate change by saying that he is not a scientist. In the opportunistic calculations of the congressional Republicans, Pruitt may not even count as a price they have to pay, or a Trumpian burden to bear. To the contrary: he is their reward.

If fascism is going to keep flourishing in America, it will be wrapped in the sturdy embrace of pretty much every Republican, along with a handful of lily-livered conservative Democrats.  At some point, somebody (who is not already) has to say and do the things that begin to peel away Hair Furor's Congressional support.  His own words and actions don't seem to be having much effect yet.

Update: Down With Tyranny sees Susan Collins fighting judo with Democrats.  I thought martial arts were to be used in countering stronger opponents, so maybe this is more three-dimensional chess.  Some Democrat was allegedly good at that once upon a time.