Latino activist claims Adrian Garcia will announce for Houston mayor Friday morning, Garcia denies

*See update at the end.

It was just yesterday that Teddy Schleifer at the HouChron reported Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack's impatience with the Hamlet-esque Adrian Garcia as he processes whether or not to run for mayor.

Radack on @SheriffGarcia: "He better stand up and say 'I'm leaving' or stand up & say 'I'm staying.' I think this has gone on long enough."
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) February 24, 2015

Here is Carlos Calbillo's Facebook page, earlier today.  (Copying the particulars in case your settings don't let you see the original).

SHOULD BE SOME GOOD FIREWORKS, and early in the AM too, this Friday, at "Dario's Breakfast", in Denver Harbor, as the High Sheriff of Harris County, TEXAS, keynote speaker, faces a mostly hostile audience to announce he will run for Mayor of Houston.

Why hostile? Because this gathering of Latino, HIGHspanic and TEJANO activists are not happy that Adrian is resigning his office as Sheriff (By law he has to) in order to file for Mayor. The community feels that since it took a lot of struggle to take this office to begin with, his resignation may cause the Redneck community to take this office yet again, and those folks, before Adrian came on the scene, had run that office since forever.

Anyway, if you you enjoy drama, fear and loathing, and fireworks in the morning, come to the FREE and open to the public event. FREE Breakfast, starts promptly at 8AM, and that ain't CPT (Chicano People's Time) !

Taqueria El Alteño
Mexican Restaurant
Address: 7334 Wallisville Rd, Houston, TX 77020
Phone:(713) 678-8901

After I Tweeted that, Schleifer -- whose veracity has helped established himself as an authority on matters like these -- immediately expressed doubts.

@PDiddie @SheriffGarcia wouldn't say that is credible.
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) February 25, 2015

And then he quickly verified Calbillo's "news" as rumor.

.@PDiddie @SheriffGarcia Have confirmation from his camp that this is not true.
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) February 25, 2015

Maybe Calbillo is just trying to boost turnout for his meeting.  Eh, I like migas y chisme so I'll show up anyway, see if any fireworks actually go off.

Update (2/26): Schleifer's latest at the Chron names the two Republicans, Ron Hickman and Allen Fletcher, who are sweet-talking the county commissioners for a job opening that isn't (yet).

"Sheriff Garcia's still the sheriff," County Judge Ed Emmett said.

Precinct 1 Commissioner El Franco Lee emphasized that Garcia could decline to join the wide-open mayoral race: "I'll believe it when I see it."

Nonetheless, Lee and the other members of Commissioners Court have sat down with Hickman and Fletcher in recent months to discuss the job.

It is likely that more names will emerge for the post once Garcia formally announces his intention to run for mayor. The court also could appoint an interim replacement who would pledge not to run for reelection in 2016 – possibly triggering a spirited 2016 Republican primary – but Commissioners Jack Cagle and Steve Radack this week said that a placeholder appointment would not be their first choice.

Update (2/28): A big nothing on the Garcia front as predicted, but former Houston Community College trustee Abel Davila did announce for District H, where Ed Gonzales is term-limited.  Davila is the husband of former HISD board member Diana Davila, and both have had some clouds of controversy swirling about them in the aftermath of the ethics investigations into both HISD and HCC a few years ago.

Remind Texas Congressional Democrats NOT to override Obama's KXL veto

Hair Balls with the executive summary.

In its long-awaited environmental impact assessment last year, the State Department essentially said mining and refining the Canadian tar sands was a foregone conclusion -- that the stuff would be burned anyway, regardless of whether it's shipped via Keystone -- and that any argument against the pipeline that invoked climate change was a nonstarter. But last month, an EPA official cited tanking oil prices to challenge that premise. In her letter to the State Department, assistant EPA administrator Cynthia Giles insisted that below that $65-per-barrel mark, shipping tar sands crude by rail, the more expensive route, would no longer an attractive, lucrative option for industry.

For now, it appears the only way Keystone will be built is if Congress can muster a super-majority to override Obama's veto, if the State Department review ultimately concludes the project is in the "national interest", or if Obama changes his mind. 

If the Republican House of Representatives can vote to repeal Obamacare nearly 60 times, there's little doubt they will try to override the pipeline veto, if only for the piss value and the fundraising letters.  The Senate is already making plans to do so.  They need more votes in the House, though, so it's time to remind the Texas Democrats who voted for Keystone -- that would be Henry Cuellar, Filemon Vela, Gene Green, Al Green, Marc Veasey, and even Sheila Jackson Lee -- that repeating their 'ayes' a second time (even if Majority Whip Steve Scalise breaks out his white hood and his flogger) is not acceptable.

Call them and tell them to vote 'NO' on KXL when John Boehner brings it up again.  Call them all (I am).  If you live in a district represented by a Republican like me, be sure and tell them that as a Texas Democrat (or Green, or independent liberal/progressive) that you have no representation in Washington DC, and as such will they kindly be yours on this issue.  That's what I'm going to say.

More of Jill Stein's Texas tour

SRO for Monday night's meeting (but there were some folks missing).

Houston Matters.

KPFT.

The risks of living in a fence line community (with Juan Parras of t.e.j.a.s.).

On the picket lines.

More from Kingwood and Laredo to come.

Texas Lege playing a dangerous one-upsmanship game with tax cuts

The House, yesterday.

Texas House leaders said Monday they believe they can cut taxes by more than $4 billion, indicating a larger reduction than initially proposed by their Senate counterparts.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, gave the assessment in an interview but didn’t say how much more in cuts is being contemplated.

“We really believe that we ought to be able to do more than $4 billion in tax cuts here in the House,” Bonnen said. “We don’t have a number at this point. We just know that we can do better than that.”

Asked about exceeding $4 billion in tax cuts for homeowners and businesses combined, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said, “We’re on the same page.”

It’s the first time House leaders have indicated the specific tax cut figure they’re contemplating.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Senate Finance Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, earlier made an initial proposal for $3 billion in property tax cuts and $1 billion in business tax reductions over the next two-year budget period. Patrick said then that there could be more tax relief if additional dollars became available.

The Senate today.

Senate GOP leaders on Tuesday proposed a cut in school property taxes that would be worth about $240 $234* next year for the average Texas homeowner and closer to $275  $263* per homestead the following year.

*corrected at original.

The senators, trying to stay ahead of Gov. Greg Abbott and House Republicans in promising the most tax relief, unveiled a package of tax cuts that would cost more than $4.6 billion in the next two-year budget cycle.

About $2.5 billion of that would go toward increases in homestead exemptions on school property taxes. The rest would go to business tax relief.

It gets worse, as "experts" say there will be more money from more oil at higher prices than is currently sustainable.  Or even plausible.

Number cruncher extraordinaire Dr. Stuart Greenfield says Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s estimate might not be optimistic enough. Among other things, he notes oil production for the fiscal year will exceed one billion barrels. That hasn’t happened since 1978.

Newly elected Comptroller Hegar’s Biennial Revenue Estimate –- the BRE –- has been called quite optimistic by many commentators, especially given the dramatic decline in the price of crude oil. But the release of revenue collections for January indicates his estimate might not be optimistic enough.

Chart 1 shows the year-to-date (YTD) growth rate in tax collections for FY10 through FY15, and both the estimated growth rates from the Certified Revenue Estimate (1.8 percent) released in December 2013, and the current BRE (1.6 percent). Check out the fact that YTD growth in tax collections (6.8 percent) is 325 percent greater than the estimated rate (1.6 percent). The YTD growth rate in total state revenue (8.1 percent) is 80 percent greater than the estimated growth rate (4.6 percent).

The latest estimate of state tax collections are projected to grow by 1.6 percent in FY15 and then increase by 2.4 percent in fiscal 2016 (FY16) and 5.6 percent in FY17. Total net revenue is expected to increase by 4.6 percent in FY15, increase by 1.7 percent in FY16 and then decrease by 1.9 percent in FY17.

I'd really like it if these guys were correct.  I would rather me be wrong and not them, even slightly.  But this is absurd.  Everybody knows this brand of extreme conservatives fixes the facts around their policy, and if the oil companies keep laying off workers in the shale fields, and the barrel price keeps see-sawing back and forth between speculation and reality about supply and demand, at some point the chickens are coming home to roost and we're all screwed and tattooed.  Even Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott (and he hasn't had any relations since that tree broke his back).

If you believe in God, then you better start praying that the price of oil goes up to about $75 dollars pretty quick and holds, and perhaps even rises from there, for the next couple of years.  Because if it doesn't, the traffic that guy in a wheelchair can move faster than -- and the potholes and the classroom sizes and the condition of the state's office buildings and everything else that depends on taxes and spending in Texas -- are going to look like specks on Google Earth compared to the problems we'll have if they have blown the numbers and the budget again.

Sen. Kevin Eltife appears to be the lone voice of reason from the right, but nobody seems to be listening to him.  That roaring sound you hear might be Niagara Falls, and this isn't a canoe we're riding in or even a barrel.  It's a handbasket.

Update: From the comments, Socratic Gadfly reminds me that the judge who ruled the state's education funding schemes out of order on two occasions has scolded the Lege in his valedictory...

Just weeks after stepping down from 23 years on the bench, retired state District Judge John Dietz lambasted state lawmakers Sunday for not having the best interests of Texas' public school students in mind.

"We are dooming a generation of these children by providing an insufficient education and we can do better. It's been our best interests to do better," said Dietz, who has twice in the last two years declared the state method of funding public schools unconstitutional. "It's about time the Legislature take its own advice and take the best interests of the children at heart and do something."

 ... and that the price of oil may be in a historical correction period.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency expects crude prices to average $55/bbl for this year, and not to get above $70 for some time. Oh, and $100 oil? Not even on its current horizon.

The IEA story is worth a read right there. Going by Brent prices, which it expects to only get to the low-mid $70s by 2020 (yes!), this is not a one-year slump, it's potentially a multi-year readjustment.

And, the IEA is right to be concerned. Its U.S. counterpart, the Energy Information Agency, says current stockpiles are at an 80-year high for this time of year.

Dan Patrick et.al. need to really start praying harder.

Co-opting "Green" by the media

No media was present last night -- despite about 150 who received the press release a week in advance -- for the Houston meeting of the Harris County Green Party, as about forty members and activists assembled to hear presidential candidate Jill Stein speak.  Arian Foster didn't make it either, though.

And neither did any of these people.  Thus the capitalized "Green leaders" is incorrect usage -- although Shelby Hodge, who thought she would reign on Maxine Mesinger's throne at the Houston Chronicle for the rest of her life, before the newspaper business went kaput -- did use it correctly in the body copy.

The actual Green leaders were all elsewhere.  These folks seem to be nice enough however, well-dressed in their fashionable green attire, and doing good work.

One of those pictured here is the wife of an oil company executive, author, occasional blogger, member of the board of directors for the Center for National Policy (a Democratic think tank), and formerly large Democratic Party donor.  Another is the former finance chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, now working for Lane Lewis and his campaign for Houston city council.

Again, they seem like nice folks, but I have never met either of them at a Democratic Party event, much less a Green Party one (to be fair to Baldwin, he's been present for several and even hosted a few at his combo office/swankienda, which I have missed).

The point I'm making here -- and I hope it isn't too pointed for these lovely people who attended the gala fundraiser Hodge reported on -- is that co-opting the Green Party message with green initiatives is quite a common thing.  Your recycling bin is verde-colored for a reason, after all.  There are literally millions of instances like these, and I didn't even Google that hard.

Shelby Hodge's article doesn't say how much money these green leaders raised for Recipe for Success, but we did pass the hat last night among our forty or so Greens and raised $762 for Stein's presidential campaign.

In plainer English: you can either be green or Green.  You can be both, of course.  You can even be -- as pictured above -- green and Blue.  But you can't be Green and Blue at the same time.  Unless you're me (and then everybody will be suspicious of your intentions).

Photos from Jill Stein's Texas tour

In Denton:

In Houston:

More to come from College Station and Kingwood tomorrow, and Laredo on Wednesday.

Texans' Arian Foster invited to meet Jill Stein in Houston tonight

He has not yet responded to my invitation.

.@ArianFoster If you're actually "in the @GreenPartyUS " then please come to this event in Houston tomorrow night: https://t.co/FO0VTUY4Q6
— PDiddie (@PDiddie) February 22, 2015

The 'actually' part refers to this 2012 NFL Network interview, via Foster's Wikipedia page, where he says he's "in the Green Party"... but indicated he was voting for Ron Paul.  As much as Foster likes to shine on the media, there are several interpretations of what he meant here, one being that "Green" might need to be lower case, and that the color reference could be to money or to marijuana.

Still waiting for clarification from the man on that as well.

After her appearance over the weekend in Denton, you can also meet Dr. Stein in town tonight...

...and on Tuesday afternoon at Texas A&M, Tuesday night at Lone Star College-Kingwood, and on Wednesday evening in Laredo. All the details on times and locations can be found here.