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Monday, March 09, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle

You can do a sufficient job of washing your hands in the time it will take you to read this week's Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup.  And you should be doing both.  Perhaps not at the same time.

COVID-19 claims South by Southwest as its most significant Lone Star victim to date.


Austin's annual technology, music, and film festival has been canceled over fears of coronavirus, with the festivities just a week away.

(Tech) giants had already pulled out, creating a dire vibe in the previous weeks: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Apple, Netflix, Intel, Amazon Studios, Mashable and Vevo ...

The Dallas Morning News reported (Friday) afternoon that the Austin mayor Steve Adler said: “Based on the recommendation of our public health officer and director of public health, and after consultation with the city manager, I’ve gone ahead and declared a local disaster in the city, and associated with that, have issued an order that effectively cancels SXSW.”

Adler's state of emergency, and the festival’s corresponding statement, came despite the fact there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Austin (as of Friday, March 6).

Out of concern for the many artists, waitstaff, and others whose livelihoods were dependent on the festival's thousands of attendees to help make ends meet, a campaign to #TipforTwo began.


Ted Cruz placed himself under self-quarantine after he was informed that he interacted with a CPAC attendee who tested positive for the virus.

The pandemic is slamming nearly all sectors of the global economy, and Texas will suffer a pair of body blows as its fossil-fuel based companies take a hit from slumping demand just as the Saudi-Russian agreement to curb supply disintegrates.

While many drillers in Texas and other shale regions look vulnerable, as they’re overly indebted and already battered by rock-bottom natural gas prices, significant declines in U.S. production may take time. The largest American oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., now control many shale wells and have the balance sheets to withstand lower prices. Some smaller drillers may go out of business, but many will have bought financial hedges against the drop in crude.

In the short run, Russia is in a good position to withstand an oil price slump. The budget breaks even at a price of $42 a barrel and the finance ministry has squirreled away billions in a rainy-day fund. Nonetheless, the coronavirus’s impact on the global economy is still unclear and with millions more barrels poised to flood the market, Wall Street analysts are warning oil could test recent lows of $26 a barrel.

With some post-election day news ...


One of the biggest and most disturbing storylines to emerge on Super Tuesday wasn’t about any top-of-the-ticket race, but rather the shockingly long wait times as some Texas polling locations struggled to keep up with increased turnout.


Dallas County Election Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole is asking a district court to authorize a manual recount after her office discovered ballots from 44 tabulating machines were not included in the county’s election results, reported the Texas Tribune’s Alexa Ura. The staff discovered the error when it could not reconcile the number of voters who checked in to cast ballots and the number of ballots counted. It is unclear which precincts, and thus which races, could be affected.

Several primary-challenged Congressional incumbents -- Kay Granger, Henry Cuellar -- survived on Super Tuesday, as Texas Donkeys and Elephants mostly settled for the status quo.  Some familiar names won and some lost.

One candidate who won without a runoff was former state Senator Wendy Davis, who garnered national attention in a bid for governor in 2014. She moved from Fort Worth to Austin to run in the 21st District and easily won the Democratic nomination to face freshman Republican incumbent Chip Roy.

Trump’s controversial former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, advanced to a runoff in the Panhandle region's 13th District GOP primary, while Pete Sessions, a veteran Republican congressman who lost his metro Dallas seat in 2018, found more luck in Waco, where he too made a runoff.

However, the latest Bush family member to try to launch a political career, Pierce Bush, came up short in suburban Houston.

The Houston Chronicle supplied the results for statewide, Harris County, and Southeast Texas-area Congressional elections.

-- Joe Biden beats Bernie Sanders in tight Texas primary

-- MJ Hegar leads in runoff for U.S. Senate race; Royce West finishes second (Dallas Observer)

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs realized on Election Night that he should have been exposing the other fraudulent Latina in the Democratic primary opposite John Cornyn.

-- Ogg declares victory in Harris County DA race

-- Menefee defeats incumbent Ryan in county attorney Dem primary

Ryan filed suit a week ago against 43 generic drug manufacturers, alleging they are fixing prices on "at least" 181 separate medications.

“These manufacturers routinely and systematically sought out their competitors in an effort to reach agreements to allocate market share and maintain or raise prices,” said County Attorney Ryan. “We intend to hold these pharmaceutical companies accountable for one of the most egregious and massive price-fixing conspiracies in the history of the United States.”

Democrats Mike Siegel and Pritesh Gandhi advance to runoff in CD 10

-- Republicans Nehls, Wall in runoff as Kulkarni clinches Dem nomination in CD 22

-- Ladjevardian will face Dan Crenshaw in CD 2 after Cardnell withdraws from D runoff

And both Progrexas and the Chron noted that being a male judge in the Democratic primary was hazardous to their re-election prospects.

Off the Kuff reported on the latest lawsuit filed by Texas Democrats, seeking to overturn the law against straight ticket voting in time for November.

Dos Centavos explored the story of the ghost of HD142.

SocraticGadfly said that as opposed to fearmongering by Greg Abbott and recent reporting by The Atlantic -- based on worse reporting by the Dallas Snooze -- Texas is not being Californicated.

Paradise in Hell is enjoying the fight between Dan Patrick and George P. Bush over the Alamo.

Durrell Douglas at Houston Justice documents how #ProjectOrange is helping inmates at the Harris County Jail exercise their right to vote.

Rick Casey of the Rivard Report reminds us that Texas was the first Southern state and the ninth in the nation to ratify the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.

Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog excerpts Roll Call to tell us that John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, alongside Lindsey Graham, are by far the largest beneficiaries of financial contributions from judicial nominees.  All three men sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with approving federal judges submitted for appointment by the Trump Administration.


Before they put on their robes, dozens of federal judges appointed during the Trump and Obama administrations made significant campaign contributions to Senate Judiciary Committee members and their home-state senators -- the very people who could make or break their nominations.

And three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- got more money than the rest of the Judiciary Committee combined. Virtually all of those contributions came from judicial nominees they ultimately backed.

In the latest environmental developments ...

Houston has ten of the most toxic industrial polluters in the United States, according to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project.


A deadline in late August has been set for cleanup of a creosote-contaminated Union Pacific railyard in Houston.  The chemical's underground plume, a result of treating railroad ties for decades, was detected beneath more than 100 homes in the nearby Kashmere Gardens/Fifth Ward neighborhood.  There has also been a cancer cluster among residents.

Texas ICE officials are keeping migrants in jail with what appears to be illegal blanket parole denials, according to Felipe de la Hoz at The Intercept.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in San Antonio have been systematically denying parole to large numbers of people who were detained after crossing into the United States hoping to apply for asylum. Instead of being allowed to join family or sponsors and work on their cases in the U.S., many migrants are being held without a chance of release while they wait for court dates.

According to documents reviewed by The Intercept and lawyers working in the area, ICE’s San Antonio field office has been refusing parole for any detainee subject to a new Trump administration policy known as the transit bar, which makes migrants ineligible for asylum if they did not ask for protection in countries they crossed on their way to the U.S. The bar applies to most non-Mexicans arriving at the southern border.

The Texas Central Railway is poised to begin construction, possibly by the end of the year.

David Hagy with Texas Central said the Texas High-Speed Rail, a 240-mile high-speed rail line meant to make a 90-minute commute from Houston to Dallas, is expected to complete its Economic Impact Statement and safety guidelines by this summer.


Hagy said the Texas High-Speed Rail is expected to have $36 billion of positive economic impact on the city of Houston through 1,500 jobs needed for operation, faster economic connections between medical institutions, colleges and businesses between Dallas and Houston and tourism.

“You connect Houston and Dallas and you add in Bryan/College Station, Texas A&M, Blinn, Huntsville and Sam Houston State (University), you’re connecting about 42 Fortune 500 companies, about 83 Fortune 1,000 companies, over 30 academic institutions, meaning medical centers and universities, and over 350,000 graduate and undergraduate students not only fast, but reliably.”

And we'll wrap another Wrangle with some lighter items.


From LareDOS:

Organizers of Matagorda Bay Birdfest in Palacios are in high gear to make good on the promise that the fourth annual educational event connects people, birds, and nature.

Birdfest spans the weekend of Friday, March 27, through Sunday, March 29.

The small coastal town of Palacios on Matagorda Bay and its surrounding wetlands and estuaries offer a rich setting for experienced birders and adventurous beginners.

Blake Earle at D Magazine reviews Stephen Harrigan's Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas, questioning its Dallas origin tale.

Nicholas Frank at the Rivard Report tells of a captivating rediscovered novel about WWII-era San Antonio, The Duchess of Angus.  The first excerpt from it is here, with more to come.

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Friday, March 06, 2020

Race for the White House Update

Name change as referenced previously; post appearing later than usual because everybody's now dropped out that is going to (this week).  Which is to mean: Tulsi.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is still running for president, despite low national polling numbers and winning only two pledged delegates in the nominating contests so far.

The Hawaii Democrat's two delegates came from American Samoa, a US territory that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg won on Super Tuesday. (Bloomberg has since dropped out of the race.)

These delegates qualified her for the next debate, March 15 in Phoenix AZ, but the DNC apparently will revise the rules to exclude her.


Gabbard is a gadfly, as we are all aware, and her consequence has been that she's no more feeling the democracy from the Democratic Party than Bernie.

Waiting to post gave me the luxury of not having to reset the entire play-by-play from Sunday, when Barack Obama staged a neoliberal intervention on behalf of Sundownin' Joe.


The "Vote Blue No Matter Who Except for You-Know-Who" crew, particularly in Texas, made their complaints loud and clear.  And their Saviour answered their prayers.

The masses yearning to vote shitlib then obediently turned out, in such numbers that they broke all the voting machines in minority precincts.  There's a joke about sheep and souls and polls that I wanted to make here but thought the better of, so perhaps if your Google is as snarky as mine you can find it.  If not, just infer what you wish.

Bloomer wilted as the seasons turned to spring, his millions buying him a win in the afore-mentioned American Samoa primary, a handful of delegates, and little else.  After first declaring he would stay in, he joined Pete and Amy and fell in line.  And after trying to negotiate something with both Bernie and Biden, Warren did the same yesterday.  Not the endorsement part.


So it's just Sanders and Biden, as we -- or at least I -- have long thought it would be, with Gabbard doing whatever she will do (today she's traveling to Las Vegas to speak at a NORML convention.  That's not meant to be a pun, though you're welcome to take it as such).

The new ads between the two left standing have started rolling, and Biden is calling Bernie a socialist, accusing him of calling black voters the establishment, and a few other smears.

Bernie has tacked to the right as well.

On Tuesday, he began running a campaign ad consisting entirely of Barack Obama speaking in glowing terms of the senator who (infrequently) calls himself a “democratic socialist.”

“Feel the Bern!” the ex-president exclaims in the ad.


The ad is not only a bid for black votes, it is also a signal to the Democratic Party, including the African American party establishment, that they have nothing to fear from his “political revolution.”

This, along with Bernie's insistence that he will do whatever he can to support the Democratic nominee, and his defense of Elizabeth Warren in spite of her craven manipulation of his goodwill throughout the primary, has led me to the conclusion that I needed to prepare my Plan B options.

Which are not the same as Bernie's.


I watched the Free and Equal debates from Wednesday, and found Howie, and Mark Charles, and Gloria la Riva all vote-worthy.  They are in various states of qualifying for the Texas ballot.

I will not be ridin' with Biden.  I'm impervious to the guilt of Jackasses trying to shame me into voting for him, and I can't be shepherded onto a Biden bandwagon by any of Bernie's support network.  Bernie needs to win on the first ballot or the DNC superdelegates will surely steal it from him and give it to Old Joe, or some other candidate they prefer who will be just as centrist-shitty.

I have no faith in Democratic Party unity pledges.  I'm making plans to attend the convention in Milwaukee, if not as a delegate or a media representative then as a yellow vest in the street.
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Monday, February 24, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle (and the pens are full)


So much going on across our Great State this week: the conclusion of early primary voting, Fat Tuesday (and then Ash Wednesday for Catholics), and the Houston Rodeo kicking off Thursday with its World Championship Bar-B-Que Contest.  The Texas Progressive Alliance encourages you to get out and do some of everything -- but especially vote -- this week.


To begin, TXElects.

Early voting for the March 3 primary election continues through February 28.

Turnout continues to be brisk for a primary election but dwarfed by a general election. Through Saturday, Republican turnout in the 15 counties with the most registered voters remains at a record pace, running 6% ahead of the 2016 pace. It will likely fall behind the record pace for the first week because last Monday was a holiday, meaning the first week of early voting had just six days.

Democratic turnout in those counties is lagging farther behind the record pace set in 2008, but it remains the second-highest volume in the Top 15 counties for a Democratic primary. It is, however, 55% ahead of the 2016 pace.

The number of Democratic early voters in those counties leads the number of Republicans, 254K to 215K.

Update (Tuesday, 2/25): TXElects also has some analysis of polling results released by UH's Hobby School on Monday.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are tied as the top two choices of “likely Democratic primary voters”, according to a new University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs survey (PDF). Biden (22.5%) and Sanders (22.1%) are followed by Elizabeth Warren (18%), Michael Bloomberg (13%), Pete Buttigieg (12%) and Amy Klobuchar (7%).

Sanders was the top choice for 30% of Hispanic/Latino respondents, his best showing among any ethnic group. Biden was the top choice of 46% of African Americans, more than triple the support of any other candidate. Anglo voters were closely divided among Warren (21%), Sanders (21%), Buttigieg (16%), Biden (15%), Bloomberg (13%) and Klobuchar (11%).

Unsurprisingly, Sanders fared best among voters born after 1996 with 44%, more than double Buttigieg’s 21%. Biden (31%) and Bloomberg (26%) fared the best among voters born before 1946.
Sanders fared best in the border region with 29% but trailed Biden (33%) there. That Sanders is under 30% in the border region is probably good news for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo), who is facing a Sanders-endorsed progressive primary challenger. Sanders received 25% of the vote head-to-head against Hillary Clinton in CD28 in the 2016 primary.

Our beloved Texas felt the Bern all weekend.   From El Paso to San Antonio to Houston to Austin, large crowds gathered and cheered the Democratic front-runner as he proclaimed victory in the Nevada caucuses, predicted a win here, and declared that his progressive populist movement was going all the way to the White House in November.


“This state, maybe more than any other state, has the possibility of transforming this country,” said Sanders, speaking Sunday to more than 6,600 rally-goers in the Fertitta Center (on the campus of the University of Houston).

More Bern in the Weekly 2020 Update, in time for tomorrow night's South Carolina debate.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had a pair of pre- and post-Las Vegas debate posts.  Juanita Jean at the Beauty Shop seemed happy about the debate.  And with Yang dropping out and Tulsi taking up the Basic Income drumbeat, SocraticGadfly again looked at libertarian vs non-libertarian versions of BI, and then dove into discussions just how we should define the "gig economy" and at whom different versions of BI might be targeting.

Unfortunately some of our Texas Congresscritters -- mostly those of the Blue-Dog-in-a-swing-district variety -- aren't getting onboard the Bern Train yet.


In response to Bernie's and AOC's bill to ban fracking:


Fletch just lost my vote again.

“Our candidates are going to spend their entire time distancing themselves from the nominee” if it’s Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said Colin Strother, a Texas-based Democratic strategist, who sees fracking as one of several issues where progressive and moderate Democrats are divided.

Strother is advising Henry Cuellar, who got fluffed by Nancy Pelosi this past weekend.


Cisneros has been endorsed by Sanders and Warren and Julian Castro and three members of The Squad and the Texas AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME, CWA, AFT, the Texas Organizing Project, Working Families Party, and dozens of others.  TX-28 is far and away the most captivating primary race in the whole state.  Strother lives and dies by polling so don't expect him to mention this one.  The generational (and ideological) divide in the electorate, mentioned there, is showing up in the candidates running for office.  Reform Austin has that story.

There was a debate among the Democrats running for US Senate at the University of North Texas over the weekend ...


... but unlike the debate broadcast by KVUE and other TEGNA stations across the state last Thursday night, several of those on your ballot failed to show up.


Meanwhile the race took a turn for the vicious.


And the idiotic.


This on the heels of Bell bragging about being "certified progressive" (sic) by Progress Texas, a topic previously mauled to death on this site.

In last week's Wrangle, this blogger ranted about misuse of the word 'progressive'.  This week, both Gadfly and Jaime Abeytia picked up on that with rants of their own.   

To be clear: Bell thinks you're so stupid you'll keep falling for this ongoing shtick of his.

This blogger will deliver a promised state-of-the-race post on the D primary scrum to face Cornyn, complete with the latest developments (as soon as the latest developments chill for an instant).

State Sen. Kirk Watson abruptly resigned his seat in the upper chamber of the Texas Legislature in order to become dean of the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs.  His unexpected departure set Pink Dome tongues wagging about who might jump into a special election to replace him, and so far the biggest news is those who have declined to do so.

Kuff made some predictions about the primaries (that is, if you define "it's really hard to say", "Again, who knows?", and "I'm totally guessing" as predictions).  Paige Weaver at the Dallas Observer questions whether Dallas County is ready for Election Day, with its new voting machines to be implemented.  And Raise Your Hand Texas released its first poll about public education.

D Magazine asked both Governor Abbott and Mayor Johnson to stop sharing that Dallas Morning News wrong-headed editorial about bail reform.

Bail reform is not about freeing violent criminals. No one is saying that. But the Dallas Morning News’ editorial board can’t help but conflate the two. The editorial that ran last week has been shared by our governor and our mayor. And it’s wrong. It puts the rash of violence at the feet of District Attorney John Creuzot, who has advocated for bail reform and pushed for policies that rethink how we try individuals accused of minor crimes.

To the News’ opinion writers, it’s Creuzot’s fault that violent criminals are being given a low bond and released. In reality, Creuzot doesn’t set bond. Magistrates and judges do, and when they let a violent criminal off with a low bond -- which we heard about last week -- that’s their decision, and it has absolutely nothing to do with bail reform. Creuzot even wants a prosecutor present during arraignments to help bring context to inform the judge’s decision about bail. That doesn’t get mentioned in the News’ editorial.

Houston attorney and political gadfly Eric Dick and two others are being threatened with legal action by Spring Branch residents for soliciting lawsuits from victims of the Watson Grinding explosion in their neighborhood last month.

“Tex Christopher, Billy Bray (an insurance agent), and Eric Dick are hosting a series of informational town hall meetings for residents who suffered from the Watson explosion,” the post states. “The previous town hall meetings have been well attended and received.”

In an effort to encourage attendance, Christopher, who doesn’t live in the community, purportedly sent out thousands of unsolicited text messages.

The actions of Christopher, Bray and Dick have sparked a movement of sorts, as a website (protectspringbranch.com) has been launched asking locals to join a lawsuit against the three individuals.

“In order to stop what is a clear abuse of our community, we are preparing to file a class-action lawsuit against Christopher, Dick, and Bray, in order to hold them accountable for their dubious actions and protect vulnerable disaster victims from being potentially taken advantage of by predators,” the site reads.

With a side-eye look at the Right, Sean O'Neal at Texas Monthly sees Ted Cruz's pro-choice side, and the Texas Signal finds the latest contender for Worst (Would-be) Congressman.

Here's a few environmental news developments:

-- The Permian Basin is producing more natural gas and condensate than it is oil and profits for oil companies, writes Justin Mikulka at DeSmogBlog.

As oil prices plummet, oil bankruptcies mount, and investors shun the shale industry, America’s top oil field -- the Permian shale that straddles Texas and New Mexico -- faces many new challenges that make profits appear more elusive than ever for the financially failing shale oil industry.

Many of those problems can be traced to two issues for the Permian Basin: The quality of its oil and the sheer volume of natural gas coming from its oil wells.

The latter issue comes as natural gas fetches record low prices in both U.S. and global markets. Prices for natural gas in Texas are often negative -- meaning oil producers have to pay someone to take their natural gas, or, without any infrastructure to capture and process it, they burn (flare) or vent (directly release) the gas.

As DeSmog has detailed, much of the best oil-producing shale in the Permian already has been drilled and fracked over the past decade. And so operators have moved on to drill in less productive areas, one of which is the Delaware sub-basin of the Permian ... As a Bloomberg Wire story reported in December, “in recent years investments have shifted to the Delaware, where output is much gassier than in the historic Midland portion of the Permian.”

-- Tankers by road and rail from North Carolina are bringing a potentially cancer-causing chemical  named GenX to Deer Park each month.

In picturesque North Carolina, along the seemingly pristine Cape Fear River, a chemical company called Chemours was caught discharging an industrial byproduct called GenX and it showed up in the drinking water. Now, that chemical is being brought to Texas ... GenX is the trade name of perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, which is used to make Teflon, fast food wrappers and other products. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, animal studies have shown health effects in the kidney, blood, immune system, developing fetuses and especially in the liver following oral exposure. The data are suggestive of cancer.

Since June 2017 Chemours began capturing the wastewater that included the GenX. Then, starting the week of Nov. 13, 2017, the company began arranging to have the wastewater transported by tanker truck and rail for disposal in Deer Park, Texas. Specifically, it’s being sent to Texas Molecular for deep-well injection. Texas Molecular is a Class1 Deep Well. Since 2017, the company has commissioned an average of 10 tanker trucks a day to haul away the wastewater for offsite disposal, according to the Chemours plant manager.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has spoken numerous times about the dangers of GenX. In August 2017, she appeared at a town hall meeting in North Carolina.

Recently, Brockovich was in Houston for a town hall meeting to discuss a different matter. KPRC 2 asked Brockovich about Chemours’ plan to dispose of the GenX through deep well injection.

“Well that could be a problem... tanks deteriorate, bottoms rust, they break open. We don’t know it and we wind up with another massive groundwater contamination,” Brockovich said.

[...]

“Texas Molecular is not required to have a specific approval or public hearing for deep well disposal of GenX waste, because this waste stream is covered under the listing of industrial wastes authorized to be injected in its three UIC Class I permits,” according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).


And with some lighter news items, we'll wrap up this week.



Here's ten places in Houston to celebrate Mardi Gras tomorrow, and here's where you can eat fish on Fridays for Lent.  If bluebonnets are more your thing than mudbugs or tilapia, then everything's coming up roses (so to speak).


And the TPA wishes Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast a fast and full recovery.



Norma Zenteno was one of this blogger's heroes, performing many times for her brother and sister-in-law's canine rescue operation, Barrio Dogs.  Our precious little Holly was saved by them.
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Monday, July 22, 2019

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance joined 82-year-old Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) ...


... in requesting membership in The Squad.


This is your expanded edition of the once-a-week roundup of the best of the left of, and about, our beloved Great State.  To the above, Bonddad gives a history lesson on how The Squad's members -- that's all of us, but especially the brave women pictured -- are direct ideological descendants of 1850s-era Congressional Republicans (if you saw the 2012 film Lincoln, which starred Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, then you have some additional insight here).


Texas Southern University will host the third Democratic presidential candidates debate, scheduled for September 12 and 13, and broadcast by ABC News and Univision.

The two-part debate will be held at TSU’s Health & Physical Education arena, which has 7,200 seats ... The candidates and debate moderators have yet to be announced. To qualify, candidates must amass 130,000 unique donors and receive at least 2 percent support in four qualifying polls.

Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards joined the US Senate Democratic primary, just ahead of state Senator Royce West's announcement on Monday.  The field includes former Cong. Chris Bell, Air Force veteran MJ Hegar, and activist Sema Hernandez, among others.

And former state senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis declared her challenge to Republican Chip Roy for the right to represent the 21st Congressional District.


Dos Centavos scoffs at the weak Republican response to Trump's latest racist diatribe.

Better Texas Blog urges a vote against HJR38, the anti-income tax constitutional amendment.

The biggest prize in next year's elections will go to the political party that controls the state's House of Representatives, writes Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib.


The idea animating many political candidates, consultants and donors in Texas in 2020 is one that’s way down the list of concerns for many Texas voters: redistricting.

The 150-member Texas House has 83 Republicans and 67 Democrats, creating a GOP majority that could flip to Democrats if the minority party could wrest away nine spots.

[...]

The legislators elected in 2020 will draw the next set of political maps for the state’s congressional and legislative seats. Right now, Republicans hold the governor’s office and majorities in both the state House and Senate -- a trifecta that virtually ensures the resulting maps will favor their party.

Winning a Democratic majority in the Texas House would give Democrats some leverage over at least some of the maps the state will use for the next decade of elections. Specifically, it could break the GOP’s control over the congressional maps that will be drawn after the 2020 census. At the very least, it would allow the Democrats to prevent Republicans from drawing those maps -- and to throw the political cartography to federal judges instead of Texas politicians.

More from Michael Li of the Brennan Center:

“There are 17 seats that Republicans won in 2018 by 10 points or less,” said Michael Li, senior redistricting counsel at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “And that seems to be a lot of opportunity for Democrats, because the investment that would be needed to flip those seats is relatively small compared to the prize of being able to have a role in help drawing 39 congressional districts.”

Kuff reads the Chronicle's article on the millenials running for Houston city council, then pulls out a spreadsheet that reveals the Bayou City municipal electorate "tends to be pretty old" in order to justify the premise that these aren't the candidates the voters are looking for.  (Or something.  Frankly it all smacks of ageism.)  For more enlightened reading, see David Collins, who has some very good questions for council candidates.

The state's largest county will have new voting machines, very likely with a paper trail ... but not until the May 2021 primary elections, according to HPM.

Harris County is set to replace its antiquated voting machines, which are based on 20-year-old technology. But the work won’t be done in time for the 2020 presidential election.

A prospective voter tries out an Election Systems & Software voting machine at the
International Association of Government Officials Conference Trade Show.
Photo by Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media

The new voting infrastructure will cost $74 million, with the funding coming out of the 2020 budget. Speaking at a trade show on Tuesday, County Clerk Diane Trautman said it will take until March just to narrow down the selection of voting machines to the top two vendors. She expects to pick the supplier by July of next year.

“Actually just to make 5,000 machines will take months,” Trautman said. “So to get them back, put them in the field, teach the election workers and the voters how to use them ... our estimate is the May 2021 election before they can be used.”

(Recent reports indicate that machines like the one pictured above are still not safe from hackers, and the company that manufactures them has a record of questionable business practices.  Brad Friedman, one of the nation's leading voices for paper ballots, would concur that the only safe ballot is one marked by hand and not by machine.  Clerk Trautman needs to be encouraged to carefully consider her purchase decision in this regard.)

And there remains some confusion about whether the state's hemp legalization law accidentally decriminalized marijuana.  Some county DAs are ending prosecution of petty weed crimes while others are not, and our tuff-on-crime governor weighs in on the question.

The University of Texas-El Paso followed the University of Texas-Austin in reducing the costs of tuition to zero for families of a certain income level.  This is probably a direct consequence of the debate among Democratic presidential candidates on this topic.

With the 50th anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 moon mission this past week, Texas Standard speaks to a historian about LBJ's role in the effort.

President Johnson (r.) with NASA head James Webb in 1967.

In 1957, a Soviet satellite wasn’t a cosmic curiosity; it was a real threat -- a nuclear threat. The public imagination was gripped by the idea that the Russians could bomb the United States from space. A few days after Sputnik launched, Johnson got a memo from an aide named George Reedy, urging the Senate majority leader to push for more aggressive space exploration. He saw an opportunity for good public policy -- and good politics. John Logsdon is professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

“That was Reedy’s message, that this was something that’s a good thing to do. Plus, it will be attractive to the public and position you, as Reedy said, and make you president,” Logsdon says.

Johnson ran with Reedy’s idea. He came to believe that control of space meant control of the world. For the next decade, Johnson worked to make sure that Americans were those controllers.

“Would we be on the moon without Lyndon Johnson? I think the answer is no,” Logsdon says.

SocraticGadfly shows and describes why Texas arts aficionados who have any chance to see the late-life Monet exhibit at the Kimball need to go.

The Lunch Tray wants a real federal response to lunch shaming.

Elise Hu provides your Trader Joe's shopping list.  (I don't even know any rich people who shop at Trader Joe's.  Do you?)

And Pages of Victory uses Tom Englehardt's voice as a stand-in for himself.
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Friday, June 14, 2019

The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

The twenty who are debating in two weeks.



Update: And here are the lineups. Warren is the only front-runner going on the first night, Wednesday, June 26th.


Her expectations might be higher than usual considering her competition.  She'll certainly be subjected to a few extra potshots from the trailers.  But I'll be more focused on Thursday evening's cage match.


There's been a shuffle in my front-runners this week: Biden is still slumping but remains the leader, barely holding on atop the heap. Warren has effectively pulled in to a second-place tie with Bernie. Mayor Pete holds down fourth, and Kamala, Beto, and Cory Booker round out the top seven.

1. Joe Biden  momentum: slipping


Another lousy week for Gramps.  But some pundits are beginning to muse that his gaffes are just part of his charm, and that they may even be his Teflon shield.

Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner, has had a peculiar couple of weeks: The points on which he’s been historically weak—women’s rights, mass incarceration, and plagiarism—have surfaced again, as weak points are bound to do, but if his responses on all three fronts have muddied his record, they haven’t done much damage to his vaunted “electability.” He’s reiterated his support (before retracting it) of the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funds like Medicaid from paying for abortions. He’s defended his 1994 crime bill, which contributed (many believe) to America’s mass incarceration problem. Asked at a recent event whether he’d “commit to reducing the prison population by half,” Biden claimed that the woman asking -- whom he addressed as “kiddo” -- had been “conditioned” to say it was a bad bill. But “we should not be putting people in prison for drug offenses,” he added, omitting that he was one of the architects of the war on drugs and had specifically criticized then-President Bush’s plan because it didn’t “hold every drug user accountable.” Finally, his campaign was found to have plagiarized some policy language. 

Go read the whole thing, please.

Any politician with a record as long as Biden’s has to tell this “evolution” story convincingly and well. Biden’s success on this score is spotty. His appeal despite that makes it interesting. In a weird way, his frankness about his self-contradictions --“I make no apologies for my last position. I make no apologies for what I’m about to say,” he said Thursday as he reversed himself on the Hyde Amendment -- bestows upon him a kind of flexibility that allows him to claim (for example) that he won’t accept donations from corporate lobbyists, and then kick off his campaign with a fundraiser held at the home of the head of lobbying for Comcast. 

At some point you'd like to think that Democrats are smarter than Republicans; that they will wise up to this hypocrisy and abandon the flip-flopper for someone who tells the truth, at least more often than not.  Jemelle Hill isn't convinced; she sees African American voters doing the same thing that far too much of the rest of the Donkey base is doing.

When it comes to looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, many black voters aren’t focused on race, gender or who can out-progessive who. They’re focused on ousting Donald Trump from the White House.

That’s according to the Los Angeles Times, which notes that while the more progressive nature and strong black base of the Democratic Party could have one thinking the next Democratic nominee will be a person of color or a woman, many black voters are setting aside thoughts of racial or gender pride to focus on who can best beat Trump at the polls.

“They are so sick and tired of being sick and tired of Trump, there’s this almost unconscious feeling they’re going to go with the candidate that is more likely to beat him,” Ron Lester, a Washington pollster who studies the attitudes of black voters, told the Times.

For many, Lester added, “that is probably a white male,” the Times reports, “given their deep-seated belief ‘that America is still a very racist place and a very misogynistic place and that a candidate who doesn’t get any white votes is probably going to lose.’”

In the Update posted two weeks ago, I led with this electability fallacy.  Markos Moulitsas blogged about it this week.

We are a polarized nation, and as such, the actual candidates themselves hardly matter anymore. We could nominate a mealworm, and it would get numbers similar to these, according to the latest general-election matchup poll by Quinnipiac University:

Biden 53, Trump 40

Sanders 51, Trump 42

Harris 49, Trump 41

Warren 49, Trump 42

Buttigieg 47, Trump 42

Booker 47, Trump 42

The key here isn’t the Democrats’ number (those are mostly driven by name recognition): it’s Trump’s. He’s maxed out at 42%. And with universal name recognition and a polarized electorate, how does he rise above that?

[...]

Bottom line? Support whoever you like, and not because you think someone will or won’t run better against Trump.

Now you're welcome to grumble that "itzerly" like Kuffner, or that polling can be akin to toilet paper, as I have repeatedly in the past.  But for the love of Dishrag, make a choice on the basis of something that appeals to you about a candidate or their policies and not a nebulous, poorly defined adverb.

Every single Democrat running for President in 2020 that is currently leading the field -- the top seven of 24 -- ought to easily beat Trump.  Except maybe for Joe Biden.  We'll see how he comports himself in these upcoming debates.

2. (tie) Elizabeth Warren  momentum: surging

(I was tempted to list Bernie here due to my bias, so I'm just trying to be fair.)

Warren showed up second in a handful of polls, national and state, released this week, for which she gets the credit as the candidate on the biggest roll.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has pulled ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., thus far her chief rival for the mantle of progressive alternative in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, in a trio of recent polls.

The first result comes from a recent Economist/YouGov poll, which finds Warren ahead of Sanders by a margin of 16 percent to 12 percent nationwide. Thus far, Warren has been trailing Sanders in national polls as both candidates grapple for the same base of progressive voters. If this trend breaks, it will be a sign that Warren could be winning over that key demographic. Both candidates still continue to trail former Vice President Joe Biden.

A second poll — this one involving an early nominating state rather than the nation as a whole — also showed Warren pulling ahead of Sanders. In the Monmouth poll of Democrats likely to participate in the Nevada caucuses, which is scheduled to follow the Iowa causes and New Hampshire primary next year, Biden is leads with 36 percent, followed by Warren with 19 percent and Sanders with 13 percent.

And that was not the only good news for Warren. A new UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll of California found Biden again ahead with 22 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, but he was closely followed by Warren with 18 percent and Sanders with 17 percent.

To be clear, these are not the first polls to show that Warren is steadily making gains over other Democratic candidates. Earlier this week, a survey for the Iowa caucus conducted by the Des Moines Register and CNN found that Warren had 15 percent support, behind Biden at 24 percent and Sanders at 16 percent and ahead of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 14 percent. This was a major sign of progress for Warren, who during a survey by the same group in March was only at 9 percent in Iowa.

She won Kos' straw poll on Tuesday, first time Bernie's lost that in a long while.

Elizabeth Warren won the inaugural 2019 Daily Kos straw poll back in early January. Two weeks later, riding the high of her announcement speech, Kamala Harris won the poll. But once Bernie Sanders announced, it’s been all him, since way back in February. But this week, in convincing manner, Elizabeth Warren has retaken the top spot.

[...]

The straw poll and public polling are in agreement. There are five serious contenders in this race: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris. All the other 19 declared candidates combined can only muster around 8% of the vote. ...

Warren is riding on a high after her viral moment from the MSNBC town hall, the one where she made mincemeat of Biden’s support for the Hyde Amendment. Her rallies are drawing thousands. Her “I’ve got a plan for that” catchphrase is landing. And yes, they may both be white women, but no one is comparing her to Hillary Clinton anymore.

In a comment yesterday on the site, community member Fatherflot wrote, “Fair or not, (Warren) needed to create a clear identity for herself that drew a sharp distinction with Hillary. Instead of the aloof insider-technocrat, she is promoting herself as a kind of ‘Mary Poppins’ figure -- the cheerful, exuberant, uber-competent woman who simply gets things done and makes everyone feel included and proud.”

I’ve got to say, 'Mary Poppins figure' is really landing with me. I think it nails her vibe, and why we’re seeing a surprising dearth of “Is she likable?” stories and memes about her.

The Daily Kos denizens don't see the differences between Liz and Bernie, and remain of the "he's not a Democrat" persuasion anyway.  This collides with the view of the Berners I hang out with, not to mention my own.  Anyway, the progressive wing -- comprised loosely of Sandernistas and Warrenites -- is most certainly ascendant right now.

2. (tie) Bernie Sanders  momentum: holding

The Week offered a theory about Bernie's speech defining democratic socialism.

On Wednesday, Sanders gave a lengthy speech outlining what he means when he says he's a "democratic socialist." It was chock full of historical references and mentions of President Trump, but, as some Sanders supporters and Democratic strategists suggest, may have been more aimed at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Sanders and Warren are often seen as progressive equivalents, except for when Warren declares herself a capitalist and Sanders sticks to socialism. Despite that ideological difference, Warren has seemingly been the only Democratic presidential candidate gaining steam over the past few weeks, and it has largely come at Sanders' expense. In fact, an Economist/YouGov poll released just an hour before Sanders' Wednesday speech showed Warren had 19 percent support in the 2020 race over Sanders' 15 percent. Sanders had been at a solid second place to former Vice President Joe Biden before that.

This the first major poll where Warren has managed to pass Sanders, and to Democratic strategist and former White House Communications Director Jen Psaki, it's just what Sanders was worried about. His Wednesday speech "is a pretty clear indication he is feeling the heat from Elizabeth Warren's recent momentum among progressive voters," Psaki told The New York Times, calling it Sanders' "attempt to reclaim the anti-capitalist mantle he ran on in 2016."

Even before Wednesday's poll debuted, it didn't seem Warren was too worried about whatever socialist rhetoric Sanders had cooked up. When The Atlantic asked her about Sanders' forthcoming speech the other day, she laughed. 

Vox thought it was about Trump.  I just thought it was about something that most people don't really understand, despite it being defined repeatedly over the course of the past year.


Republicans salivate, centrist Dems fret, but the truth is that the disinformation campaign, i.e. fear-mongering, Red-baiting, scape-goating etc. will happen no matter what.  Bernie is simply being honest and owning it.


4. Pete Buttigieg  momentum: gradually rising

Mayor Pete's constituency as reflected in most polls is right around ten percent.  He's raising money, staffing up in Iowa -- rising in the polling there -- and continuing to slowly grow his support.  I continue to hold that his appeal will be capped by a variety of factors and that the best he can expect is a Cabinet position, not even VP, but hey, I've been wrong before.  His debate performance alongside Biden, Sanders, and Harris will either significantly add to his momentum, or slow his roll.

5. Kamala Harris  momentum: holding

Like Buttigieg, there was no significant positive or negative development for her this past week, unless you count her slipping to fourth in recent polling of California.

The poll serves as a blunt warning for Harris, who is banking on a surge of home-state support after a strong showing during the back half of early voting -- in neighboring Nevada, and South Carolina, where African American voters form a decisive bloc. Organizationally, Harris is working to make up ground with Warren in Iowa, where the Massachusetts senator has built a formidable team. Harris is planning a hiring spree there that calls for bringing in 65 people.

In the California poll, Harris performed well across ethnic and demographic groups, and voters there consistently selected her as their second choice. But similar to her standing in the early states and nationally, she hasn’t caught fire with likely voters in the first few months of the race.

Harris just seems to be getting out-worked, or out-hustled, or outdone in some form or fashion every time I have taken a deep look lately.  Is it her emerging reality that she winds up as nothing better than someone's veep?  Her debate performance will either cement or break that impression.

6. (tie) Beto O'Rourke  momentum: holding

Beto became the first to slap Biden around.

“You cannot go back to the end of the Obama administration and think that that’s good enough,” the former Texas congressman said at the end of a lengthy interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “As much of a horror show as Trump has been -- his racism, the disaster of his foreign policy, his punishment of farmers and workers here in this country -- we had real problems before Donald Trump became president.”

Asked, “Is Joe Biden a return to the past?” O’Rourke answered bluntly, "He is. And that cannot be who we are going forward. We’ve got to be bigger, we’ve got to be bolder. We have to set a much higher mark and be relentless in pursuing that.”

That's rougher than I recall him ever being on Ted Cruz.

I'm ranking him tied for sixth not only for that, but for last week's Texas poll showing him second to Creepy Uncle Joe in the Lone Star delegate chase.  Despite the fact 60% of those surveyed in the same poll want him to drop out of the run for the White House and take on John Cornyn (something I still anticipate he will do).  If/when Biden deflates -- and should Beto not take everybody's advice and actually win our Super Tuesday primary next March -- he sits pretty for at least another month or so of presidential primaries and caucuses.

6. (tie) Cory Booker  momentum: slightly rising

Booker has twelve signatories on his reparations legislation, including several of his competitors for the Dem nom.

The bill, officially titled “HR 40 Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act (pdf),” would establish a commission to study the impact of slavery on African Americans and suggest proposals that would help repay descendants of slaves for the costs of centuries of racial discrimination.

The bill’s 12 co-sponsors are U.S. Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).

Along with Warren, Booker was reviewed favorably at last weekend's Iowa cattle call, the Cedar Rapids Hall of Fame dinner.

In the early state where field organization has traditionally mattered the most, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have quietly and patiently concentrated their resources toward building grassroots machines designed to power them on caucus night.

It showed here on Sunday as 19 Democratic presidential candidates converged for the first time in one venue to make their five-minute pitch to the party faithful. The gathering, designed to honor Iowa Democrats in a Hall of Fame dinner, offered the first glimpse of a sprawling Democratic primary field — and the organizational strength and enthusiasm each campaign could muster.

Booker and Warren weren’t the only presidential hopefuls to stand out. The senator from next door in Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, also put on a show of force both inside and outside the Cedar Rapids Doubletree Hilton Hotel, where the dinner took place.

Biden was not in the state.  Sanders marched outside with the McDonald's workers, who were on strike for a $15 minimum wage.  Eighth place in my rankings would probably go to Klobuchar.

And FWIW, the WaPo's Pundit Power Ranking has Liz in a tie with Joe for first, Bernie third, Buttigieg and Harris tied for fourth, Klobuchar in sixth, Booker in seventh, and Beto in eighth.

Gonna wrap this week with Howard Schultz and Howie Hawkins.

Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz told campaign staff that he is making significant cuts to his team, as he suspends his political plans for the summer.

Schultz came into the office Wednesday for the first time in months and met with the staff, according to a person in the room. He announced that he was letting everyone go except those in senior leadership positions, adding he would not make a decision about running for president until after Labor Day.

Shortly thereafter, Schultz sent an email to supporters, saying that medical reasons had taken him out of commission for months, and he still needed time to recover.

“While I was in Arizona, I unfortunately experienced acute back pain that required me to cut my travels short,” he wrote. “Over the following two months, I underwent three separate back surgeries. Today, I am feeling much better, and my doctors foresee a full recovery so long as I rest and rehabilitate. I have decided to take the summer to do just that.”

Go play lots of dodgeball, Howard.

And finally:


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