Monday, December 16, 2013

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance calls on Congress to deal seriously with the plight of the long-term unemployed as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff previews the upcoming hearing on Texas' ban on same-sex marriage with a bold prediction of how it will likely play out.

Horwitz at Texpatriate recaps the recent runoff election in the city of Houston.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte are running to support public education. Too bad all of the Republican candidates for lieutenant governor are running to teach the Bible in place of science. Psst: The earth is not flat, nor does the sun revolve around our planet.

The first in a series of profiles of the candidates appearing on the 2014 statewide Democratic ballot appears at Brains and Eggs.

Eye On Williamson has the the list of Democratic candidates that filed for 2014. They give us reason for hope in Williamson County in 2014: Williamson County races with Democrats on the ballot.

Neil at All People Have Value wrote that a picture of a Christmas wreath on a door is as good as the real thing. Friendly and flexible people know that it is the shadow that sells the substance. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

LawFlog asks if George P. Bush is padding his resume.

Rep. Mike Villarreal celebrates the increase in health insurance enrollments by Texans on the federal exchange.

Egberto Willies analyzes the exchange from yesterday's This Week between Robert Reich and Newt Gingrich regarding who and what is responsible for the vast income equality gap.

Megan Randall documents her experience with Healthcare.gov, which got her a better policy than what she previously had at a lower price.

Grits for Breakfast argues that state fire marshall Chris Conneally should be named Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News.

Offcite explores the Houston townhouse as "a formal expression of laws that make no explicit claims to form".

Progress Texas crowns the Ten Worst Texans of 2013, though how they narrowed it down to ten remains a mystery.

Paul Kennedy looks at how corporations take money from taxpayers to pay executives a king's ransom.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Sunday Funnies


"Wal-Mart announced this week that the best-selling item on Black Friday was a pack of towels that sold for $1.74. So heads up, kids: Christmas is gonna suck."

-- Seth Meyers

Megyn Kelly: For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.

Stephen Colbert: Yes. Thank you. For all those kids watching Fox News at 9:40 at night, Santa is white. Besides, a black Santa is a terrible idea. If a homeowner in Florida sees a black man coming down their chimney, he is going to get shot. 'Officer, I was only defending my milk and cookies!'"

-- The Colbert Report



"Santa is just white? Who are you actually talking to? Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 o'clock at night, yet innocent enough to still believe Santa Claus is real, yet racist enough to be freaked out if he isn’t white."

-- Jon Stewart


President Obama shook hands with Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Or as Fox News reported it: "Foreign communist shakes hands with the leader of Cuba."

-- Conan O'Brien

Incumbents bounced in H-Town

With voter turnout failing to reach 30,000, 37,000, a significant anti-incumbent sentiment ruled the day (and night).

Two Houston City Council incumbents and two incumbents on the Houston Community College board lost their seats Saturday, according to unofficial runoff election results.

With all precincts reporting, controversial first-term council incumbents Helena Brown, in northwest Houston's District A, and Andrew C. Burks Jr., in At-Large Position 2, fell to their challengers, as did HCC trustees Yolanda Navarro Flores and Herlinda Garcia.

Brown lost her rematch with Brenda Stardig, the incumbent she defeated to gain the seat two years ago.  [...]

Burks fell to challenger David W. Robinson, a civic leader and former city planning commissioner. Robinson raised far more campaign cash than did Burks, who had run unsuccessfully numerous times before winning his seat two years ago.  [...]

In the At-Large 3 runoff, bail bondsman and civic activist Michael Kubosh, best known for leading the charge against Houston's red-light cameras, topped former Harris County Department of Education trustee and former mayoral candidate Roy Morales.  [...]

In south Houston's District D, lobbyist Dwight Boykins bested businesswoman Georgia D. Provost. Boykins had thumped the 11 other candidates in fundraising heading into November. Term-limited District D Councilwoman Wanda Adams was elected to the Houston ISD board.

In a very low-turnout race in the East End's District I, Harris County jailer and civic activist Robert Gallegos beat Graci Garcés, who is chief of staff for the term-limited James Rodriguez.

Political analysts had pointed to a larger rivalry in the race, given that Gallegos served eight years as an aide to former eastside Harris County commissioner and now-state Sen. Sylvia Garcia, and that Garcés worked for former council member and now-State Rep. Carol Alvarado. Alvarado and Garcia waged a bitter campaign earlier this year for the post Garcia now holds. [...]

In the Houston Community College contests, District 1 incumbent Flores lost to challenger Zeph Capo, a vice president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. In District 3, Adriana Tamez, an education consultant, beat incumbent Garcia, who was appointed to the post after the resignation of the prior trustee. In the runoff for the open District 5 seat, businessman Robert Glaser topped commercial real estate agent Phil Kunetka.

Sorry about all those ellipses; I'm just not as fond of Mark Jones' opinion as the Chron is.  But he does get one thing right: the Sylvia Garcia-Carol Alvarado dynamic is now the one to watch in the East End (Sylvia's team is 2-0).  Who aligns with whom in the future may make the biggest difference in who wins, which is far more interesting than seeing who raised the most money.  But the worst news is that some of these downballot races didn't have 5000 votes in total cast in them.  Positively dismal.

Noah live-blogged the evening and has the vote tallies by race as Clerk Stanart slowly managed to get them counted  -- an hour after polls close before the EV comes in ?!? -- so you can see that the largest trend that Election Day reversed was Capo's win in the HCC 1 contest.

No disrespect intended to tonight's victors, but if Mayor Parker just traded Helena Brown for Michael Kubosh, then there are no real winners or losers.  But if you look it as Melissa Noriega traded for Kubosh...