The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is still waiting for someone to invent the hoverboard as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff published special election candidate interviews with Diego Bernal, Trey Martinez-Fischer, and Ty McDonald.

Libby Shaw, writing for Texas Kaos and Daily Kos learned important lessons from her volunteer work with Battleground Texas: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson says there may still be hope for Battleground Texas. But the strategy will have to change. It's all about the base.

Police departments all over the country have deep roots in slavery and racism, as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs reminded.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why the Port of Brownsville is so dismissive of the Sierra Club opinion on liquefied natural gas terminals. Don't they care about the health of the people and the environment?

Neil at All People Have Value said policymakers on both sides of the aisle knew years ago that automation and changing facts threatened blue collar jobs. Yet instead of helping everyday people, public policy was geared towards the rich. Neil says the work of freedom is up to each of us. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Texpatriate asks, "What's next for Texas Democrats?" and answers: "give up".

Dos Centavos wants to know why there aren't a couple more issues Wendy Davis should take back.

McBlogger also piles on Davis for backtracking on open carry.

Bluedaze notes two more Texas earthquakes in Irving and in Snyder.

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

The Anti-Media reported on HPD's fruitless and prohibitively expensive efforts to stifle a single anti-police abuse activist.

Socratic Gadfly picked a Person of the Year, and guesses that you won't know his name.

The WAWG Blog explains how income inequality is much worse than we think.

Juanita Jean challenged us to come up with a title for Ted Cruz's book.

LGBTQ Insider has a caveat about the FDA's change in policy towards gay men donating blood.

Unfair Park previews the Fifth Circuit court hearing on the same sex marriage appeal.

Texans Together reviews the San Jacinto River Coalition's accomplishments for 2014.

Nancy Sims tells the story of her transitioning daughter and her own unconditional love for her.

The Bloggess pens an open letter to the Girl Scouts.

Jonathan Guajardo asks new Bexar County DA Nico LaHood for a serious inquiry into the case of Cameron Redus, a UIW student who was fatally shot by a UIW police officer outside his apartment off campus.

Scott Braddock calls 2014 the year of Tom DeLay's permanent Republican majority.

Fascist Dyke Motors is putting her best foot forward in the New Year.

Finally, Texas Politics has the story of the worst Cialis commercial ever the group hug in the Dallas Cowboys' owner's box.

Gohmert for Speaker

And so it begins. Via Alan Colmes, PJ Media breaks the (Fox) news.

The Texas congressman explained that Boehner and the GOP leadership deceived the American people when they went to Obama and Pelosi to get the votes for the Cromnibus, they told the people they would fight tooth and nail against amnesty…it follows a number of years of broken promises. Gohmert also referenced the recent poll that came out showing that 60% of Republican voters and Republican leaning voters want someone other than Boehner on the job.

This is going to be so much fun.

Gohmert said that after “years of broken promises, it’s time for a change.”

And here we have all been led to believe that change was a bad thing.  Or was that hope?

Sunday Funnies, GOP's Resolve edition

Scattershooting -- resolutions

-- Mario Cuomo's passing is being properly eulogized by many; I can still see his keynote address at the DNC in 1984 as his defining, thrust-onto-the-national-stage moment, but what I seem to recall the clearest is his declining to run for president in 1992.  And what I remember is being disappointed.  I was just coming out of my own Republican darkness after more than ten years of supporting Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, the shock and disgust of Iran-contra, the noticeable feeble-mindedness of the old actor, followed subsequently by the disastrous Mondale '84 and Dukakis '88 campaigns.  (For the record, and out of sheer revulsion for the ineptitude for the Democratic nominees, I was still a Reagan Democrat at this time.  I voted both for RWR twice and GHWB the first time.  I take full responsibility for my errors, and have since resolved never to make those mistakes again.)

I am certain now that the seed of dissatisfaction with the two political parties I hold today was germinated in that environment.  And when Cuomo bailed in December of '91 -- see, we used to wait a year after the midterms before launching ourselves into the next round of presidential mock drafts -- the Democrats panicked.  Bush the Elder was winning a war with Iraq (so we all thought), his approval ratings were 89%, and no one of seeming consequence really wanted to be the lamb at that altar.  This was before anyone outside of Arkansas knew much of anything about a fellow named Clinton beyond an ignominous DNC keynote four years earlier.  The frontrunners in '92 post-Cuomo were Tom Harkin, Paul Tsongas, and Jerry Brown, all of whom were well to the left of the eventual nominee.  Thus goes history.  National Democrats simply couldn't unite behind a progressive, and a centrist moderate won the prize.  See any parallels?

Another declination during Clinton's term led to the Notorious RBG landing on the SCOTUS.  So in my book, Mario Cuomo is much more famous for what he did not do than for what he did.

-- Via Charles, Battleground Texas and by natural extension Wendy Davis get the Texas Monthly treatment from the Texas Observer.  Spleens are still full of bile, still being vented.  This is likely to go on for some time.  I'm thankful I don't have to participate in the piranhas gnashing themselves to feel better about the 2014 debacle.

-- Syrian and Iraqi refugees are crowding on to leaking rustbuckets headed for Italy -- arrangements made by human traffickers -- to escape the Islamist civil wars being waged in those countries.  Germany's Angela Merkel recently pleaded with her citizens to disavow the growing hatred of fleeing Muslim immigrants.  See any comparisons?

-- In ten years, Cuba might end up looking much like Puerto Rico today.  Is that a good thing?  One excerpt:

The advent of Obam-apertura, the great “opening” that the U.S. neoliberal narrative holds as a form of liberation for a suffering people, is also something its internal corporate banking cabal sees as a way to recapture a lost market.  [...] the opening creates the possibility of a sudden windfall of previously unexploited consumers and a workforce accustomed to even lower wages that are foisted on places like Mexico, India, and Vietnam. For an American economy that has been largely stagnant—aside from a recent spurt sparked by falling gas prices and temporary holiday season hires—the opening up of Cuba has the look of a last-ditch opportunity to stave off looming worldwide economic disaster.

Happy 2015

TPA's Texans of the Year: Frack Free Denton activists

From our presser...

Texas Progressive Alliance taps

Denton's "fracktivists" Texans of the Year

In one of the organization's more closely contested votes, the Texas Progressive Alliance -- the state's consortium of liberal blogs and bloggers -- named Frack Free Denton and its diverse group of activists 2014's Texans of the Year.

"The biggest win for progressives in the Lone Star State on Election Night happened in Denton, Texas," said Charles Kuffner, president of the Alliance.  "The people showed the powerful who is still in charge.  No matter that the Texas Railroad Commission or the state's Legislature may try to undo the will of Denton's Republican, Democratic, and independent voters; for one day in November of 2014, those North Texans came together and said, 'No more. No more polluting our air and water and poisoning our children for profit without accountability'.  The people together spoke, and they were heard."

There were also three Honorable Mentions for the coveted award.  Finishing a close second: the medical staff of Dallas Presbyterian Hospital, who were at the front lines of the nation's Ebola crisis, notably Dr. Kent Brantley and nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who all contracted the virus and lived to tell about it.  In addition, two other large groups of Texans on either side of the political spectrum were selected: the 33% of Texans who turned out to vote in last month's midterm elections, predominantly Caucasian male Republican voters; and the Democratic volunteer army of deputy voter registrars, blockwalkers, and those who spent long hours on their phones calling prospective voters to urge them to cast their ballots.

"To the victors go the spoils, someone famous once said," noted Kuffner, in reference to the GOP base vote.  "But no one worked any harder than the folks in their precincts, neighborhoods, counties, and across the state to turn back the tide, at least a bit," he added.

The TPA's member bloggers salute all the Texans who were nominated this year, which included several candidates, some elected officials, and other activist groups.

In terms of recognizing the standout newsmakers, what you have seen from other blogs recently does reflect the discussions we had this year, and that they were a little more, shall we say, spirited than usual.  Typically this is a pretty easy choice to come to consensus on; 2014 was, as we all know, exceptional.  And not in the cheeriest of definitions.  But the city of Denton's residents were the noteworthy positive exception.

Christi Craddick in particular stands in defiance, as do the Big Gasholes, and the Lege will likely make every effort to roll back the drilling embargo early next year (thanks, Phil King and ALEC!), so the war isn't over.  But a significant battle was won, with far-reaching ramifications inside and outside Texas.

Hats off to the fractivists.

The roots and evolution of municipal police departments

More to it than you thought.  From A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing, written by Dr. Victor E. Kappeler.  Bold emphasis is mine.

The birth and development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical, legal and political-economic conditions. The institution of slavery and the control of minorities, however, were two of the more formidable historic features of American society shaping early policing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities. For example, New England settlers appointed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were founded to protect residents from Native Americans in that frontier city, and many southern police departments began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina developed the nation's first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to maintain the economic order and to assist the wealthy landowners in recovering and punishing slaves who essentially were considered property.

Policing was not the only social institution enmeshed in slavery. Slavery was fully institutionalized in the American economic and legal order with laws being enacted at both the state and national divisions of government. Virginia, for example, enacted more than 130 slave statutes between 1689 and 1865. Slavery and the abuse of people of color, however, was not merely a southern affair as many have been taught to believe. Connecticut, New York and other colonies enacted laws to criminalize and control slaves. Congress also passed fugitive Slave Laws, laws allowing the detention and return of escaped slaves, in 1793 and 1850. As Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver (2006:186) remark, “the literature clearly establishes that a legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in America before the Civil War for the express purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners. The similarities between the slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to dismiss or ignore. Hence, the slave patrol should be considered a forerunner of modern American law enforcement.” 

You should also keep in mind that the Second Amendment was ratified in order to preserve the South's slave patrols, whitewashed with use of the word "militias", and specifically to secure the Commonwealth of Virginia's support.  And that Texas is one of just seven states in the Union that doesn't allow open carry (yet) because they did not want the slaves shooting back at the guys in white hoods.

So when Joan Walsh points out that the NYPD's racial problems extend back to the '60's, you can now point out to her that it goes back a lot farther than that.