Northwoods

I really enjoy Swamplot, the local real estate blog that works in some awfully good snark at opportune times.  Here, they catch what the daily let sail right over their heads.  First, the Chronic with the advertorial.

Toll Brothers is the latest in a long line of developers to use the word “wood” in the name of its new master-planned community on the north side of town.

The luxury homebuilder is calling its nearly 700-acre development Northwoods, joining other famous woods, including Kingwood, The Woodlands, Woodforest and Springwoods Village.

And now, the moneyshot.

You know the old joke about suburban developments: That they’re typically named after the natural features that they replace. But in proudly announcing the name it has chosen for the new 692-acre residential development the company is planning near the yet-to-be-built northern segment of the Grand Parkway between I-45 and U.S. 59, Toll Brothers may have made that cliché seem quaint. According to the publicly traded homebuilder, which is working with Cernus Development on the project, the top selling point for this new community is its proximity to the new corporate campus ExxonMobil is building just 6 miles to the west. Northwoods will have room for 1,000 homes built by Toll Brothers and other builders, along with “resort-style amenities that take advantage of the mature trees and topography,” including trails, parks, lakes, and a recreation center.

It’ll also have the same name as a 62-home subdivision in the Little Rock suburb of Mayflower, Arkansas, where an ExxonMobil pipeline accident last March resulted in the release of 210,000 gallons of diluted bitumen from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, onto the streets and back yards of the middle-class neighborhood.

Somebody needs a GPS device to locate the irony.  George Orwell couldn't have predicted this.

Immediately after the spill from the Pegasus pipeline, a quarter of the homes in Northwoods were evacuated. The gloppy nature of the oil product, which until the pipeline break residents had no idea was flowing near their homes, made cleanup very difficult. As of 2 months ago, almost half of the homes in Northwoods had either been listed for sale or been bought up by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil demolished 3 of the 20 homes it bought after a soil assessment found oil had leaked into the foundations. After months of complaints by residents who said they were still feeling effects of the toxic fumes, Arkansas governor Mike Beebe ordered free medical exams for Northwoods residents.

Keystone XL runs a little to the east of Northwoods Texas, so I'm sure they'll be okay.  Happy househunting, all you new XOM managers!

Is it insensitive to say Greg Abbott is "running" for governor?

The so-called nefarious intent implication that Greg Abbott's sycophants have tried to link to Wendy Davis' unofficial campaign slogan has already been batted away.  There's a question still worth pursuing, and it's this entire business of whether simple words, phrases, or images used to describe elections, or by politicians in the course of their campaigns, is in some way unfair or unkind.

John Coby raises a real good point here.

His unfortunate story is known to most political savvy people. He ran under a tree and was paralyzed when it fell on him. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps after winning the $10 million lawsuit lottery. He then permanently latched himself to the tit of the government as an elected official. Everyone, including me, wishes he had used a treadmill that day, or ran on the other side of the street, or ran on a high school track, but he needs to stop painting himself as a victim on a daily basis.

Over the next few months there will be statements made such as "Greg Abbott has no legs to stand on concerning... " or "Abbott is running on a campaign of fear". These are common political statements and should not be construed as an attack on his unfortunate situation.

Abbott's attacks on his opponent will be as fierce and low-life as his party's attacks on former Senator Max Cleland, a decorated Vietnam war veteran who lost both legs and an arm. Abbott is expected to stoop as low as a political crack whore in order to win. What is not expected or appreciated is his constant whining when someone returns the political favor.

"Standing with Wendy", "On Her Own Two Feet", "walking a mile in her shoes", and other similar innocuous bipedal references are being twisted into pejoratives presumably aimed at the Candidate on Wheels.  The most notable of those efforts was pulled off by convicted criminal and serial liar James O'Keefe, with a helping hand from corporate media that should know better (and do better).

Going a step further: if vermin like Erick Erickson want to keep adding to their doll collection, then "Coathanger Ken" moves into fair play.  And it's just a short hop from there to "Crippled Ken".

See what I did there?

Greg Abbott needs to pull up his big boy underwear, stiffen the steel implant in his spine and get ready to take it, especially if his minions are going to keep dishing it.

Davis et.al. finally pushes back, and more Texas roundup

A little bit, and hey, it only took a week.

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, delivered a ferocious defense Tuesday night of her life story and her parenting of her two daughters, declaring that Attorney General Greg Abbott has “picked a fight with the wrong Texas gal.”

“I won’t let anyone take my family’s truth away from me,” said Davis, speaking even as President Obama was delivering his State of the Union speech. It was the most passionate and powerful defense of the now-contested personal narrative that has been central to her message as a candidate for governor.

“Greg Abbott can sink as low as he wants, but I won’t let him drag me down with him. He can run a campaign about my past; I’m going to run one that’s about your future,” Davis told the Travis County Democratic Party’s Johnson-Bentsen-Richards dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel. “But there’s one thing I have to say before I leave Greg Abbott and his allies to play in the gutter once and for all. And I want to say it right here, right now, with Texas listening – because I want to make sure our opponents can hear it loud and clear. You can attack my record. You can challenge my ideas. You can play holier-than-thou with my life story. But I draw the line when it comes to lying about my family.”

First there was the assist from Greta Van Susteren of Fox, which was prolly the best thing of all.  Then there was the letter from Wendy's two daughters, and the gift of the shotgun that belonged to Ann Richards.  There was also a populist fundraising appeal.  But that was sandwiched around the non-endorsement from the HGLBT Caucus, which had to stress that was no big deal.  (Those folks made a couple of other weird choices. Gonna have a post on that at a later date.)

The takeaway for me is that if the Davis campaign is going to take 7-10 days to do rapid response...

Update:  As remains the case over the past two weeks, there's just not much local blog coverage about the Davis campaign developments beyond the LGBT-specific postings of Lone Star Q linked above, Socratic Gadfly, The Inanity of Sanity, and Burnt Orange Report.

-- It was US Rep. Randy Weber's turn to take the dumbass pills, and right before the SOTU last night, he swallowed the whole bottle.

On floor of house waitin on "Kommandant-In-Chef"... the Socialistic dictator who's been feeding US a line or is it "A-Lying?"
— Randy Weber (@TXRandy14) January 29, 2014

This is troll bait, of course. He's seen how much attention Steve Stockman can command with this soapbox, and since Louie Gohmert can't figure out Twitter, Weber has come to the realization that there's a void to be filled.

-- John Culberson wants you to know that it was he who killed light rail on Richmond Avenue.

"I'm very proud to have been able to protect Richmond and Post Oak from being destroyed as Fannin and Main Street were destroyed," Culberson told CultureMap following a fundraising luncheon at Tony's, which not so coincidentally is located on Richmond.

Culberson trumped METRO in his long-running feud with the local transportation agency. He has been threatening and attempting to get his law passed for several years. "It's a permanent federal statutory law. So it's a felony if any governmental entities attempt to spend any federal money to push rail on those routes," he said.

[...]

"This is the end of all federal funding on Richmond," he said.

The Democratic primary in CD-7, for the right to challenge this numbskull, is taking a sad but familiar path.  More on that also in short order.

Update: Charles digs deeper.

-- Congratulations to Celia Israel, who won the special election yesterday to replace the retiring Mark Strama in Austin.  She gives the Texas Legislature its second LGBT elected representative, which is the first time that has ever been the case in the long history of the state.  The times they are a-changin'.

Sometimes when I see SOTU, my dyslexia processes it as STFU

That is not intended to be a negative inference toward the president.  When I criticize Obama, it's without passive aggression and only occasionally with snark.

What the president will say tonight...

Democrats expressed confidence that the economic message Obama is expected to push in his speech will work to their advantage.

“He’s going to put a spotlight on this defining issue, and that spotlight will grow in the coming months,” said Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “This campaign is going to be about who’s on your side. On that issue, the contrast between Democrats and Republicans in Congress could not be clearer.”

Democratic strategists consider the debate over the minimum wage and unemployment insurance important in some of the most competitive races.

What he should say...

-- Go big on economic inequality.

-- Demand an end to "too big to fail".

-- Put his weight behind the push to increase the minimum wage.

-- Quit pushing the TPP and KXL.

... and what he won't say.

If Obama were being perfectly honest, he’d explain to a nationwide audience that Washington politicians mostly plan to sit on their hands in 2014, with posturing for political advantage in the November elections far more important than helping strengthen the U.S. economy. That's why Obama will reportedly be more aggressive in using executive authority to pursue pet projects, in lieu of authorization from Congress.

Voters, for their part, also have a dwindling appetite for government solutions to economic problems. It’s not even clear there’s much Washington could do if it wanted to. “My fellow Americans,” Obama might say if administered truth serum, “this year, you’re on your own.”

He won’t say that, of course, and the press has been dutifully reporting all the new initiatives the president’s aides have been leaking to them. But the U.S. economy has now decisively shifted from crisis mode — in which the feds pump out emergency funds to make up for cutbacks in spending elsewhere, as with the big 2009 stimulus program — into recovery mode, with spending in other sectors bouncing back. State revenues, for instance, are approaching new record highs, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, allowing governors to propose tax cuts, new spending on education and other moves typically categorized as “stimulus.”

In other words, blahblahblah*standingovationfromDems*sittingandsulkingfromRs*blahblahblah rinse repeat.