Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Scattershooting on the day after Texas Muslim Day
-- That went just about as well as anyone could have expected. When a homeless woman from Michigan goes "on the road" to Austin to crash a peaceful rally, and doesn't get arrested, then you're excused in believing we've crossed another dangerous line here in Deep-In-The-Hearta. What do you suppose would have happened if a black guy had grabbed the mic at an Open Carry protest? What if a pro-choice activist had interrupted the pro-forced birth gathering on the other side of the Capitol last Saturday, who themselves were counter-protesting the anniversary of Roe v. Wade?
I'd rather just ignore the state representative who demanded visitors to her office pledge allegiance to the Israeli flag, if it's all the same to y'all.
That's not Lake Travis, that's the Rubicon.
Update: Christine Weick -- the angry white woman outside the Capitol yesterday -- is stretching her fifteen minutes of fame to the limit, now challenging Franklin Graham to take over a mosque.
-- This is Texas, goddammit, where the teachers have Glocks but we hide the science textbooks. Our Republicans aren't snuffing the canaries in the coal mines with their gas; they're the fucking bats. Shitting on everything as they swarm out of their caves.
-- Our beloved Texas, where we never shook until we got fracked.
If you're a city, you can't pass a law against it. Only the state government can do that, and they laugh at your attempts to stifle their oil buddies' waya life. And if the feds would stop telling us how to spend the Medicaid billions we're leaving on the table, maybe we'd take the money.
-- Texas, our Texas, all hail the mighty state, where we must man the ramparts and barricades against the twin terrors of immigrant children and black people voting without ID. We've evolved. I mean, this is what intelligent design looks like.
So much love for fetuses, none for the babies already born. You see, it transforms into a parasite on the hard-working, job-creating, property-owning upper class once it leaves the host. Open carry coming soon, your all-season hunting license without having to purchase or even qualify for a license, and no bag limits. Just be sure you're set to full auto and spray widely, before a good guy with a gun can pull his or hers.
One potential worthwhile outcome is that if every Texan is walking around armed, visible or not, we can do away with the police. You know, save a bunch of money. Oh wait, maybe we haven't thought that all the way through. Like always.
Mutha. Fuggin. Texas. The incubator of the best, most conservative government money can buy.
I'd rather just ignore the state representative who demanded visitors to her office pledge allegiance to the Israeli flag, if it's all the same to y'all.
That's not Lake Travis, that's the Rubicon.
Update: Christine Weick -- the angry white woman outside the Capitol yesterday -- is stretching her fifteen minutes of fame to the limit, now challenging Franklin Graham to take over a mosque.
-- This is Texas, goddammit, where the teachers have Glocks but we hide the science textbooks. Our Republicans aren't snuffing the canaries in the coal mines with their gas; they're the fucking bats. Shitting on everything as they swarm out of their caves.
-- Our beloved Texas, where we never shook until we got fracked.
North Texas never felt an earthquake until 2008, but since then the United States Geological Survey has recorded more than one hundred, concentrated in areas of oil and gas extraction from shale by hydraulic fracturing—fracking.
Now the USGS will raise the official earthquake risk level in Texas. The new assessment will appear on the government group's seismic hazard map, which influences building codes, public policy and insurance for homes and other buildings across the country, said Mark Petersen, national coordinator of the earthquake hazards program.
"Because of increased rates of earthquakes in Texas, the hazard is higher than it was previously," Petersen said. "This is a new thing that we want to start accounting for, these potentially induced earthquakes."
If you're a city, you can't pass a law against it. Only the state government can do that, and they laugh at your attempts to stifle their oil buddies' waya life. And if the feds would stop telling us how to spend the Medicaid billions we're leaving on the table, maybe we'd take the money.
-- Texas, our Texas, all hail the mighty state, where we must man the ramparts and barricades against the twin terrors of immigrant children and black people voting without ID. We've evolved. I mean, this is what intelligent design looks like.
So much love for fetuses, none for the babies already born. You see, it transforms into a parasite on the hard-working, job-creating, property-owning upper class once it leaves the host. Open carry coming soon, your all-season hunting license without having to purchase or even qualify for a license, and no bag limits. Just be sure you're set to full auto and spray widely, before a good guy with a gun can pull his or hers.
One potential worthwhile outcome is that if every Texan is walking around armed, visible or not, we can do away with the police. You know, save a bunch of money. Oh wait, maybe we haven't thought that all the way through. Like always.
Mutha. Fuggin. Texas. The incubator of the best, most conservative government money can buy.
Paxton skates
Likely continues to do so, with a little help from his friends.
Poor Lehmberg just couldn't stomach any more controversy. She's been cowed by the spin applied from Rick Perry's legal team and the governor's supporters reacting to his abuse of office indictments, start to (eventual) finish. A classic conservative display of blaming the victim.
Care to guess how that's going to go?
With the Public Integrity Unit gutted by the Lege's new budget and to be eventually relocated out of Travis County, there will be no watchdog left on the unitary rule of the Grand Old Party in Texas. Not that there was all that much before. When the appeals court judges are also bought and paid for, you can't even get a conviction against Tom DeLay for money laundering to stick.
This is what Texans voted for last November, however (and in every midterm election for at least the past twelve years). This is also what the Texans who were too busy/lazy/stupid to vote also voted for, whether or not they will ever figure that out.
The Travis County district attorney’s office has concluded its investigation into securities law violations by Attorney General Ken Paxton without filing charges.
An investigation by the agency’s Public Integrity Unit determined that Travis County lacked jurisdiction over the Paxton allegations, District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said Thursday.
“Any conduct that might constitute an offense occurred outside of Travis County, and venue for any further investigation would be in the county where the conduct occurred,” Lehmberg said in a statement.
Poor Lehmberg just couldn't stomach any more controversy. She's been cowed by the spin applied from Rick Perry's legal team and the governor's supporters reacting to his abuse of office indictments, start to (eventual) finish. A classic conservative display of blaming the victim.
Lehmberg’s office referred the case to prosecutors in Collin and Dallas counties, she added.
Care to guess how that's going to go?
Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis, a Republican, is a longtime friend of Paxton. Bill Dobiyanski, the first assistant district attorney under Willis and chief of the felony trial division in Collin County, declined to say whether the office would investigate the matter.
Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk has issued a statement indicating her office has no avenue to pursue a case against Paxton, if one were warranted.
She said that after a discussion with Gregg Cox, the head of Travis County special prosecutions, “at this time, we are not aware of having venue over any alleged crimes committed in Dallas County by Attorney General Ken Paxton.”
With the Public Integrity Unit gutted by the Lege's new budget and to be eventually relocated out of Travis County, there will be no watchdog left on the unitary rule of the Grand Old Party in Texas. Not that there was all that much before. When the appeals court judges are also bought and paid for, you can't even get a conviction against Tom DeLay for money laundering to stick.
This is what Texans voted for last November, however (and in every midterm election for at least the past twelve years). This is also what the Texans who were too busy/lazy/stupid to vote also voted for, whether or not they will ever figure that out.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
BakerBlog's Bob Stein on the Houston mayoral race
This is worth dissecting.
He handicapped them much the same way I did week before last. With regard to the money end of things, let's overlook the fact that Costello and Hall and King can write themselves a check for whatever they need, which technically isn't 'raising funds'. And that Turner needs to survive Bell's lawsuit transferring his million bucks from his legislative bank account to a municipal one. And that Garcia can't move his county coffers around at all. If you evaluate viability on the basis of how much money somebody has, then you don't have a democracy, you have a plutocracy. If you begin with the premise that the more money a candidate can spend, the more likely they are to get elected, then you have devalued principle, good governance, and the ideological issues that should be the primary determinant of how one should cast their ballot. In other words, you simply aren't a fan of republican democracy.
I won't be evaluating mayoral candidates competing for my vote using that measurement. I want to know what their ideas for managing the city are, not how fat their wallet is. So while Stein is tossing everybody running who doesn't have electoral experience and putting a star beside the names of those who are profligate fundraisers, where does that leave perhaps the most liberal candidate -- Marty McVey -- who can pay his own way, or the most conservative -- CM Jack Christie -- who can't? And the rest who meet neither criteria? Why, on the outside looking in.
Too bad for them... and too bad for those of us who thought the race might turn on the issues, too.
Are you enthused yet? This is going to be a milquetoast election if Stein is right.
Thankfully, he's probably wrong.
From conservatives, it's going to be all about those hellbound transsexuals using the bathrooms where your children will be assaulted (when it's not bitching about potholes in the roads, anyway) and tsk-tsking those hateful bigots from the center-left in response. There will be plenty of issues, just not the ones we ought to be talking about. And to Stein's credit, he's at least correct that it won't goose turnout much, if at all. So then, twenty million dollars-plus spent on campaign advisers, mailers, and tv commercials for a runoff election in December that resets everything. That's some high-priced sound and fury signifying nothing.
Candidate-wise, Stein has some breakdowns for the six perceived frontrunners, but let's focus on his comments about Adrian Garcia.
Emphasis mine. Garcia's success hinges on his ability to turn out all the Latino vote, and depending on that has always been problematic. If the electorate doesn't agree that it's their time, his campaign is over before it begins. Anglo Republicans in the 'burbs haven't bought his oddball brand of conservatism previously; no reason to think they will this time around.
Texpatriate's on record with Turner and Pennington making the runoff, which is a fairly conservative bet. I'm not ready to join him there; I think Bell and Costello and Hall will also have strong efforts. There's still seven months to the filing deadline; a long time to go before the field settles out. And this last, with respect to the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality and the HERO trial playing out in the background.
This is Pennington's primary advantage today: stoking the fear and loathing of the gays among the Republican base. It could help him in the general election and then backfire on him in the runoff. We'll just have to watch and see if that is something he -- or someone else -- thinks they can capitalize on.
There are six candidates (former Democratic congressman Chris Bell; councilman Stephen Costello; Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia; former Kemah mayor Bill King; councilman Oliver Pennington; state Rep. Sylvester Turner) who currently hold or recently held elective office. A seventh candidate, Ben Hall, has run recently for mayor and has some additional recognition as a former city attorney. These candidates have a record of electoral success in the city as well as a record of significant campaign fund raising.
He handicapped them much the same way I did week before last. With regard to the money end of things, let's overlook the fact that Costello and Hall and King can write themselves a check for whatever they need, which technically isn't 'raising funds'. And that Turner needs to survive Bell's lawsuit transferring his million bucks from his legislative bank account to a municipal one. And that Garcia can't move his county coffers around at all. If you evaluate viability on the basis of how much money somebody has, then you don't have a democracy, you have a plutocracy. If you begin with the premise that the more money a candidate can spend, the more likely they are to get elected, then you have devalued principle, good governance, and the ideological issues that should be the primary determinant of how one should cast their ballot. In other words, you simply aren't a fan of republican democracy.
I won't be evaluating mayoral candidates competing for my vote using that measurement. I want to know what their ideas for managing the city are, not how fat their wallet is. So while Stein is tossing everybody running who doesn't have electoral experience and putting a star beside the names of those who are profligate fundraisers, where does that leave perhaps the most liberal candidate -- Marty McVey -- who can pay his own way, or the most conservative -- CM Jack Christie -- who can't? And the rest who meet neither criteria? Why, on the outside looking in.
Too bad for them... and too bad for those of us who thought the race might turn on the issues, too.
The best financed candidates and those who have effective organizations able to identify and turn out their loyal and likely voters will most likely move forward to the runoff. It also seems unlikely that issues or partisanship will be critical factors in the general election — though this should change in the runoff, depending on which two candidates move forward. I would expect the candidates in the general election to run campaigns directed at frequent and targeted voter contacts, using traditional door-to-door canvassing, extensive social media and very personalized appeals to voters from the candidates. I don’t see a significant incentive for candidates to attack each other in the general election, as this might detract from their efforts to mobilize their base and worse, risk losing supporters in the runoff, should they advance.
Are you enthused yet? This is going to be a milquetoast election if Stein is right.
Thankfully, he's probably wrong.
From conservatives, it's going to be all about those hellbound transsexuals using the bathrooms where your children will be assaulted (when it's not bitching about potholes in the roads, anyway) and tsk-tsking those hateful bigots from the center-left in response. There will be plenty of issues, just not the ones we ought to be talking about. And to Stein's credit, he's at least correct that it won't goose turnout much, if at all. So then, twenty million dollars-plus spent on campaign advisers, mailers, and tv commercials for a runoff election in December that resets everything. That's some high-priced sound and fury signifying nothing.
Candidate-wise, Stein has some breakdowns for the six perceived frontrunners, but let's focus on his comments about Adrian Garcia.
Garcia could have broad appeal to several constituencies of likely voters, i.e., Hispanics and Democrats. In addition, he has won two countywide elections for sheriff, winning significant (12 percent) crossover support from Republican voters, although this success appears to be limited to non-city portions of the county. He did not garner a substantial crossover vote in Kingwood, Clear Lake and Westside precincts inside the city.
For Garcia, the key questions are whether he can establish himself as the “Democrat” candidate for mayor and mobilize Hispanic voters. His efforts to establish himself as the prime Democrat in the race maybe thwarted by Bell’s efforts to make the same claim. In addition, Garcia’s only tepid support of the countywide candidates in 2014, most notably Kim Ogg, Democrat for district attorney, may come back to haunt. Moreover, there is evidence that younger Hispanic voters are not motivated by partisan candidate appeals — witness their poor performance for the Democratic ticket in 2014 (i.e., pre- and post-election surveys suggest 45 percent of 18-44 year old Hispanic voters balloted for Greg Abbott while only 34 percent of Hispanic voters over 45 voted for Abbott).
Emphasis mine. Garcia's success hinges on his ability to turn out all the Latino vote, and depending on that has always been problematic. If the electorate doesn't agree that it's their time, his campaign is over before it begins. Anglo Republicans in the 'burbs haven't bought his oddball brand of conservatism previously; no reason to think they will this time around.
Texpatriate's on record with Turner and Pennington making the runoff, which is a fairly conservative bet. I'm not ready to join him there; I think Bell and Costello and Hall will also have strong efforts. There's still seven months to the filing deadline; a long time to go before the field settles out. And this last, with respect to the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality and the HERO trial playing out in the background.
There may be several referenda on the ballot to amend the city charter (e.g., term limits and revenue cap) as well as repeal the recently adopted Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). A jury trial is underway to determine whether the city erred in rejecting a petition to place the repeal of HERO on the November ballot. Whatever the jury’s decision, it will certainly be appealed. If any of these items are on the November ballot they are certain to change the character and possible outcome of the general election. The HERO amendment has the greater potential for widening the field of candidates with the entry of an anti-HERO candidate. Other candidates, notably Turner, King and Costello, may have trouble with this issue, as many of their core supporters have positions on the ordinance at variance with the candidates’ position.
This is Pennington's primary advantage today: stoking the fear and loathing of the gays among the Republican base. It could help him in the general election and then backfire on him in the runoff. We'll just have to watch and see if that is something he -- or someone else -- thinks they can capitalize on.
Scattershooting the political consultants' scorecard
My blog brothers have done the heavy lifting.
-- Via Stace, here's your program. This is the most important information Houston voters need to know about who might next run the city: who's whispering in the candidate's ear? Who's telling them to zig instead of zag? I've heard these people brag about the size of their Rolodexes, declare that's what you're buying when you pay them $10K a month. What a country, eh?
Just like the Karl Roves and Dave Carneys, these behind-the-scenes players have the most influence. Take note of who's advising whom, in a paid or unpaid capacity.
With ten candidates in the race for mayor, and a "viable" campaign needing to raise $2 million in order to get 15% of the vote just to make the runoff, ask yourself again why we need so much money sloshing around in our politics.
At those prices, we're not getting anything worth owning.
Update: The Baker Institute says it will take something between 21-23% of less than 200K votes (or about 40,000) for a single mayoral candidate -- two of Turner, Bell, Garcia, Costello, King, or Pennington left to right on your spectrum -- to make the runoff. Consequently, every campaign will target its own base vote very narrowly, so as not to encourage other bases to show up at the polls. In other words, low turnout is the winner's friend; suppress everybody's vote but yours. I'd love to hear how some of those tactics will be executed. Since Bob Stein and not Mark Jones authored that post, I can at least express a bit more confidence in its various premises. There's some other data points worth sifting through there for all you inside baseballers. I'll unpack more of that in my next blog post.
-- Also via Stace, A-Drain Garcia has issued either a caution or an exhortation, depending on whether he's ultimately in or out.
"The community will have to vote in historic numbers". That's the understatement of the year.
Do you think it makes a Garcia bid more likely or less? He may already be losing the consultants' race, after all. I have to say 'less' just on its face, but Stace's response to my question there is a point well taken. I'm also not listening to the radio shows, can't parse inflection or word usage or read between the lines in Spanish as well as I would like. So we wait.
-- Charles has the take on state Sen. Don Huffines' bill that essentially nullifies any city ordinance if the state legislature doesn't approve... whether a state law is in place or not. So a municipality would be prohibited from passing a law banning fracking, or protecting the civil rights of people born LGBT -- or establishing speed limits or fireworks restrictions or noise ordinances or eliminating plastic bags at the supermarket -- if Austin says 'no' or even thinks 'no'. This from the party that wants judges to defy federal law when marriage equality is finally recognized. (Roy Moore is just another throwback to the '60's and George Wallace, in case you haven't seen Selma yet.)
The hypocrisy is strong with this one. And I don't mean just Huffines, either.
-- Obama's attorney general-designate, Loretta Lynch, is a prohibitionist when it comes to weed. German Lopez at Vox says she's got the "pot is worse than booze" part wrong, and has some data that supports that.
Just for the record, I personally don't care to use it, legal or not. With my conditions, I only have a couple of drinks a month, and I haven't roasted any herb in over two decades. (Made me paranoid; was easy to quit.) But the national trend toward decriminalization/legalization has moved almost as quickly as the marriage equality issue, two remarkable social upheavals that tend to terrify the most extreme of Christian conservatives.
I don't know and wouldn't think that Loretta Lynch is one of those. But these notions about reefer madness are deeply embedded in the minds of people who prosecute for a living, which suggests it's going to take the next generation to soften the federal resolve in this matter. And that's unfortunate. I would have thought that she had greater insight into the legal scourge of these harsh and vindictive drug penalties and the devastating effect they have had on her generation of black men and women. If she hasn't figured it out by now, she probably isn't going to.
Maybe she can be better on the police abuse cases that need to be addressed; she already has some history in that regard. She's going to have a short time to make her mark beyond the 'first African American woman' label.
-- Like Sheriff Garcia, Scott Walker didn't finish college either. I'm not voting for anybody who can't manage that. This isn't the century where a farmer can pull himself up by his bootstraps and his common sense, move into the city, get a good job with union benefits and retire after forty years with a nice pension.
Oh sure, your geeky kid might quit college when he comes up with an app that makes him a trillionaire. I just don't want him to run for president, or mayor, or purchase any of the people who do. If you can't earn a baccalaureate degree and you want to be on the government payroll, then you can read meters or mow a park (I'd rather them not be given a gun and a badge either, but that's another problem). It's a different world and we don't need under-educated people in charge at any level. No sheepskin is a dealbreaker for me.
If someone can leverage that perceived effrontery to motivate the vote, more power to them. Anything that works in that regard would not be an unwelcome development... even if they voted en masse for the least-educated person on their ballot.
At least we'd have some successful voter turnout model to build on.
-- Via Stace, here's your program. This is the most important information Houston voters need to know about who might next run the city: who's whispering in the candidate's ear? Who's telling them to zig instead of zag? I've heard these people brag about the size of their Rolodexes, declare that's what you're buying when you pay them $10K a month. What a country, eh?
Just like the Karl Roves and Dave Carneys, these behind-the-scenes players have the most influence. Take note of who's advising whom, in a paid or unpaid capacity.
With ten candidates in the race for mayor, and a "viable" campaign needing to raise $2 million in order to get 15% of the vote just to make the runoff, ask yourself again why we need so much money sloshing around in our politics.
At those prices, we're not getting anything worth owning.
Update: The Baker Institute says it will take something between 21-23% of less than 200K votes (or about 40,000) for a single mayoral candidate -- two of Turner, Bell, Garcia, Costello, King, or Pennington left to right on your spectrum -- to make the runoff. Consequently, every campaign will target its own base vote very narrowly, so as not to encourage other bases to show up at the polls. In other words, low turnout is the winner's friend; suppress everybody's vote but yours. I'd love to hear how some of those tactics will be executed. Since Bob Stein and not Mark Jones authored that post, I can at least express a bit more confidence in its various premises. There's some other data points worth sifting through there for all you inside baseballers. I'll unpack more of that in my next blog post.
-- Also via Stace, A-Drain Garcia has issued either a caution or an exhortation, depending on whether he's ultimately in or out.
“@CesarRBShow: Cesar si esto sera una posibilidad, la comunidad tendra que votar en numeros historicos. Jovenes y adultos tendran que votar.
— Adrian Garcia (@SheriffGarcia) January 26, 2015
"The community will have to vote in historic numbers". That's the understatement of the year.
Do you think it makes a Garcia bid more likely or less? He may already be losing the consultants' race, after all. I have to say 'less' just on its face, but Stace's response to my question there is a point well taken. I'm also not listening to the radio shows, can't parse inflection or word usage or read between the lines in Spanish as well as I would like. So we wait.
-- Charles has the take on state Sen. Don Huffines' bill that essentially nullifies any city ordinance if the state legislature doesn't approve... whether a state law is in place or not. So a municipality would be prohibited from passing a law banning fracking, or protecting the civil rights of people born LGBT -- or establishing speed limits or fireworks restrictions or noise ordinances or eliminating plastic bags at the supermarket -- if Austin says 'no' or even thinks 'no'. This from the party that wants judges to defy federal law when marriage equality is finally recognized. (Roy Moore is just another throwback to the '60's and George Wallace, in case you haven't seen Selma yet.)
The hypocrisy is strong with this one. And I don't mean just Huffines, either.
-- Obama's attorney general-designate, Loretta Lynch, is a prohibitionist when it comes to weed. German Lopez at Vox says she's got the "pot is worse than booze" part wrong, and has some data that supports that.
Just for the record, I personally don't care to use it, legal or not. With my conditions, I only have a couple of drinks a month, and I haven't roasted any herb in over two decades. (Made me paranoid; was easy to quit.) But the national trend toward decriminalization/legalization has moved almost as quickly as the marriage equality issue, two remarkable social upheavals that tend to terrify the most extreme of Christian conservatives.
I don't know and wouldn't think that Loretta Lynch is one of those. But these notions about reefer madness are deeply embedded in the minds of people who prosecute for a living, which suggests it's going to take the next generation to soften the federal resolve in this matter. And that's unfortunate. I would have thought that she had greater insight into the legal scourge of these harsh and vindictive drug penalties and the devastating effect they have had on her generation of black men and women. If she hasn't figured it out by now, she probably isn't going to.
Maybe she can be better on the police abuse cases that need to be addressed; she already has some history in that regard. She's going to have a short time to make her mark beyond the 'first African American woman' label.
-- Like Sheriff Garcia, Scott Walker didn't finish college either. I'm not voting for anybody who can't manage that. This isn't the century where a farmer can pull himself up by his bootstraps and his common sense, move into the city, get a good job with union benefits and retire after forty years with a nice pension.
Oh sure, your geeky kid might quit college when he comes up with an app that makes him a trillionaire. I just don't want him to run for president, or mayor, or purchase any of the people who do. If you can't earn a baccalaureate degree and you want to be on the government payroll, then you can read meters or mow a park (I'd rather them not be given a gun and a badge either, but that's another problem). It's a different world and we don't need under-educated people in charge at any level. No sheepskin is a dealbreaker for me.
If someone can leverage that perceived effrontery to motivate the vote, more power to them. Anything that works in that regard would not be an unwelcome development... even if they voted en masse for the least-educated person on their ballot.
At least we'd have some successful voter turnout model to build on.
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