Schleifer's 'Horseshoe'

If you're not on it, get on it.

-- The very latest and biggest: "Mayor, firefighter pension trustees reach agreement".

Mayor Annise Parker and Houston's firefighter pension trustees have reached a deal that would lower the city's payments for three years, a move that would mark an abrupt reversal for the mayor.

The announcement came late Thursday from the fire pension board, whose leaders for years have fought any mention of changes to benefits as Houston's enormous pension burden has continued to grow. The pension fund estimates the city would pay $77 million less over the next three years. 

As Teddy has speculated on Twitter, how will this affect the signature issues of people like Bill King?  Stephen Costello has already jumped up and called it "a bad, bad, deal", so you know he's not going after the city employees' union endorsement.

-- The latest: Marty McVey is in.

Private equity executive Marty McVey said Thursday he would reinvigorate Houston's international business ties if voters elected him mayor this fall.

McVey said at the formal launch of his campaign he would usher in a new era of international investment in Houston, which he pledged to make a "visionary city."

"We have to take Houston to the world. The world has always come to Houston," McVey said at Mr. Peeples, a restaurant in Midtown. "It is now time that we take our place on the international stage."

The White House in 2011 appointed McVey, who has donated to many Democratic political campaigns, to an advisory board for the United States Agency for International Development.

McVey said that economic development stimulated by international trade would bring in the dollars to allow the city to address its most pressing problems.

"We don't have the ability to fix the potholes and fix the pensions because the city doesn't have the revenue to do so," McVey said.

McVey said he would bolster the city's economic development office and recruit international businesses to Houston, adding that he drew policy inspiration from former Gov. Rick Perry.

Potholes and pensions.  I believe the man who would be King has already staked out that acreage.

Now previously I had said that McVey might be the most liberal guy in the race so far, with Melissa Noriega in his corner (Navid Zanjani has already quit, however).  He spoke on 97.9 The Box about the tragic events of Ferguson, Missouri in December, while everyone else was taking an emotional breather as the DOJ worked on its investigation.  You may have heard something about that report this week.

But if McVey is inspired by Rick Perry's business initiatives, then I just threw up in my mouth.  And not a little.  Because even Greg Abbott has decided to go in a different direction than that.  A quick perusal of McVey's Twitter feed shows a lot -- and I mean a lot -- of business "initiatives", including oil (not striking USW workers) and immigration (from the Silicon Valley perspective, and not the border children one).  Heavy sigh.  Forget this guy; pro-corporate free-trading neoliberals are NOT on the menu even if there are a handful of them in the mayor's race.  Third tier is where McVey was, is and remains.

The best:  The fundraising invitations on display from King, Oliver Pennington, and Costello, who is now going by 'Steve' (more manly I suppose, like McQueen or Stone Cold Austin).  See if you can spot the dupes on those lists.  I mean, the duplicates.

Second best: "Eric Dick, who is trolling us on Facebook."

I'm going to have to up my snark game.  In that regard, see Stace's post, which elbows me in the ribs about the source of last week's rumor concerning Sheriff Garcia; i.e. "a self-proclaimed mayoral campaign staffer of the republatino who’s rumored to become a perennial candidate if he runs a third time", and the comment from someone posted at the OP who loves Abel Davila a little too much.

March is roaring in like a lion.  How am I ever going to find the time to rank MLB players for my rotisserie baseball drafts, and research college basketball teams for picking an NCAA bracket?

Clinton e-mail fallout (with 3 updates)

-- This Nation article by Michelle Goldberg, paraphrasingly entitled "Mess Shows Democrats Need a Primary, Not a Coronation" is the most even-handed and on-point.

Yet at a certain point it stops mattering whether coverage of Clinton is as unfair as her defenders say it is. If she‘s going to be the Democratic candidate, part of her job is not to leave herself open to this sort of thing. If she wasn’t actively skirting the law by not using a State Department e-mail address, she was being sloppy. By not keeping her official e-mails separate from her private ones, she gives Republicans a pretext to subpoena them all. At the very least, there’s going to be a drawn-out fight over access to them. Should she be forced to turn them over, her genuinely private e-mails as well as her public ones will be used against her. Imagine what Republicans would be able to do with a trove of private correspondence that Clinton never thought they’d get to see.

The whole mess underscores the immense danger for the Democrats of holding a coronation rather than a primary. Even if the front-runner were as low-drama as Obama, the party, the country and even the candidate would benefit from a genuine debate about everything from foreign policy to the financial industry. And Clinton is not low-drama. She and her husband live at the center of a constantly unfolding political soap opera with endlessly proliferating subplots. Even if they’re not always treated fairly, they also seem to pathologically court trouble. See, for example, recent stories about foreign governments making donations to the Clinton Foundation during Clinton’s State Department tenure. One of those, The Washington Post reported, “violated [the foundation’s] ethics agreement with the Obama administration.”

Maybe there’s nothing more there, or anywhere, waiting to come out. But without other credible Democrats building the infrastructures they’d need to run, there’s no plan B if something explodes. Democrats are betting the future of the country on the Clintons’ ability to avoid crippling scandal. Maybe that wager will ultimately make sense, but there’s no reason to go all in so soon.

This development fans the embers of hope belonging to both the Warrenistas and Sandersites. That's not a bad thing, IMHO.

-- Andy Borowitz also nails it.

A new poll indicates that the American people are deeply disappointed in Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mail flap because it does not live up to the high standards of sordidness set by Clinton scandals of the past.

Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, said that those surveyed were “receptive and even intrigued” by the idea of a new Clinton scandal, but then were deflated when they learned what the scandal actually involved.

“When people hear the words ‘Clinton scandal,’ they expect a certain amount of sex and sleaze,” Logsdon said. “But once they find out that this one is about State Department e-mail regulations which may or may not have been disobeyed, they feel very let down.”

“In a sense, the Clintons have created this problem for themselves,” Logsdon added. “They set an extremely high bar with some very memorable scandals in the past, and for a lot of people, this one just doesn’t live up to the hype.”

The current scandal could be salvaged in the public’s eye if some of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails turn out to have sexual content, but Logsdon called that “a long shot.”

“The poll results show that there’s a genuine appetite out there for a juicy Clinton scandal,” he said. “But, sadly, there’s also a sense that maybe they did their best work in the nineties.”

That stinging bit of satire reinforces the odd truth that MSNBC has reported more heavily on the development than did CNN or even Fox.

-- Jon Stewart also cracked everybody up.

“It seems like less of a scandal and more of like a nerd snap like, ‘She’s so old, she doesn’t have an official email account.”

“I think the concern there is that the aides are the ones that get to decide which emails are appropriate to be shared as opposed to an independent arbiter,” Stewart explained. “That is why Doritos doesn’t get to decide which ingredients consumers need to know about, or why you don’t get to tell the cops which pocket to search.”

Jeebus Christmas, I'm going to miss that guy when he retires.

-- But seriously, folks... Joe Biden.

"There’s always another shoe to drop with Hillary," (Biden backer and former SC Democratic Party chair, Dick) Harpootlian said in an interview Wednesday. "Do we nominate her not knowing what’s in those e-mails?... If the e-mails were just her and her family and friends canoodling about fashion and what they’re going to do next week, that’s one thing. But the fact that she’s already turned e-mails to the Benghazi committee because she was doing official business on it means she’s going to die by 1,000 cuts on this one."

Forget for a moment that the South Carolina Democrats are about as stout as their Texas counterparts.  And all kidding aside, Dick Harpootlian has it right.

Seriously.  Joe Biden.

Cumulatively, though, these latest headlines about Clinton, along with other stories sure to come, reinforce her vulnerabilities as a candidate. Democratic primary voters are about to be reminded on a semiweekly basis of what left a lot of them so ambivalent about Hillary in 2008 — namely, the perception that the Clintons are like an unregulated industry within the party, impervious to scrutiny and contemptuous of anyone who would get in their way.

And this is why, if I were Joe Biden, and if I still harbored designs on the Oval Office down the hall, I’d be inclined to ignore what the insiders were saying. I’d run, and I’d run now.

[...]

Biden is a better candidate than most pundits have ever given him credit for. Yeah, he’s sloppy and meandering and says some nutty stuff. But that’s all part of being genuine and three-dimensional, which may be the most valuable trait in modern politics and not a bad contrast to Clinton’s robotic discipline.

Not incidentally, Biden is especially popular in Iowa, where he first campaigned for president in 1988, and where he retains unusually strong ties. (The Clintons, you may recall, have never met with great affection there.) I remember being struck, in 2008, by the regularity with which Iowa Democrats told me that Biden was their second choice and would have been first if they thought he could actually win.

Biden’s a middle-class champion who makes the case for economic fairness with more conviction than Clinton and less vitriol than Warren. He’s a serious thinker on foreign policy who opposes rampant interventionism without sounding like a pacifist. He more than holds his own as a debater.

A blood-letting primary is, really and truly, precisely what the Democratic Party needs.  Mostly because if it doesn't get that, it is officially in danger of handing the White House to the Republicans.  And consequently becoming as irrelevant nationally as they are in Texas, and South Carolina, and far too many other states.

Joe Biden sure ain't no progressive.  Since I live in the good old red-ass Lone Star State, I'll probably still vote for Jill Stein.  But Biden brings the demographic necessary for Democrats to win in 2016: blue collar white males.  Everybody might laugh at his malaprops, verbal and physical, but nobody can discount his sincerity.  He hasn't made himself wealthy in public office, and he doesn't have any dirty laundry or skeletons in the closet.  If he did, somebody would have found something other than that plagiarism thing a couple of dozen years ago by now.

So whatever happens going forward, things just got hella more interesting for Democrats.  And bloggers.

Updates (3/6): From the comments, Socratic Gadfly tells us who Eric Hothem is, and why we'll probaly be hearing his name mentioned more often in the future.  From James Rosen at a source I wish I did not have to link, the e-mail address for "hdr" on her private server appears to have had at least ten different iterations.

The application of The Harvester to clintonemail.com revealed additional email addresses besides the one that Clinton aides have insisted publicly that she used, and have said was the only one that she used, when she served as Secretary of State: namely, hdr22@clintonemail.com.

A screen grab of The Harvester’s findings provided to Fox News by the source in the hacker community – whose professional resume also boasts extensive experience in the U.S. intelligence community – lists rather similar, but nonetheless different, email addresses, including hdr@clintonemail.com, hdr18@clintonemail.com, hdr19@clintonemail.com, hdr20@clintonemail.com, and hdr21@clintonemail.com.

Also unearthed by the hacking tool were email addresses of a slightly varied structure, including h.clinton@clintonemail.com, Hillary@clintonemail.com, contact@clintonemail.com, and mau_suit@clintonemail.com.

It’s not known how many of these multiple addresses the secretary herself may have used, nor whether some may have been assigned to close aides entrusted to communicate with her on the clintonemail.com domain.

 And from The Atlantic, an e-mail that State could not find.

This is exactly why Clinton's behavior was unacceptable: It enabled her to conceal at least some official correspondence that the press and the public had a right to see, or at least to have acknowledged with an explanation, challengeable in court, of why the correspondence was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Has she now turned over the Blumenthal correspondence to the State Department? Or is it still exclusively on the privately owned server that she controls? The answer may offer clues as to whether she really turned over all correspondence related to her government job, as her defenders have maintained. Either way, the private server will have helped her to evade at least one FOIA request. And we only know that much because a hacker stumbled on her emails. What, if anything, she deleted from her server may remain forever unknowable.

What the BLEEP happened to Hip Hop?

“They mine metals for the phones killing trees for the loose leaf
I write raps on both to tell you what it do, g”

-- Mike Wird, Soul Pros, Regenerative Lifestyles and Hip Hop Congress

Do you know what the 1996 Telecommunications Act and how has it influenced culture in the United States?

Have you ever heard of Lyric Committees, and the story of how record labels try to control artists money?

Why haven't artists truly been successful in organizing as a labor force when so many of them are working in our schools, youth centers, prisons and organizations?

And most importantly, what the (bleep) happened to Hip Hop?

Hip Hop Congress and Move to Amend and are partnering to present “What the Bleep Happened to Hip Hop?”, a public education campaign seeking to raise awareness of the dangerous power corporations currently wield over the hip hop industry specifically, and over our society in general.

We invite you to join us on March 14 and 15, 2015 when this unique collaboration arrives in Houston. On Saturday, we will have educational panels and participatory conversations, with an artists showcase that evening. We will close with a People's Movement Assembly on Sunday afternoon that connects to the United States Social Forum.

The cultural terrain of society is a crucial battlefront in the struggle for social justice. Culture retains its dynamism by reflecting and creating consciousness. Exploitation and oppression have always been synonymous with popular culture, from D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation to the struggle of the media justice movement in the late 90's. The United States of America, long heralded as a melting pot, has also been acknowledged as virtual factory for the commodification of culture and the production of a facsimile of culture that greatly resembles the McDonald's of thought, art, music, and humanity.

Hip Hop Congress is an international grassroots organization dedicated to evolving hip hop culture by inspiring social action and creativity within the community. Move to Amend is a national campaign to amend the US Constitution to abolish the court-created legal doctrines of corporate constitutional rights and the legal premise that money equals speech. Both organizations are explicitly committed to anti-racist and feminist organizing principles, and challenge us to organize, create and assert our humanity.

For more information on the agenda, locations, times, or to RSVP for the Educational Forum or the PMA, go to the Facebook event page and register via e-mail contacts there.

Musical artists include Don Claude, Mic Crenshaw, Shamako Noble, Faithful Five, and others.  Open Mic and Cypher.

#WhatTheBleep Happened to Hip Hop? is brought to you by Hip Hop Congress, Move to Amend, Global Fam.org, Houston Peace & Justice Center, Healthy Habitz, S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, Multi-Media Center, Harris County Green Party, For Our House at Project Row Houses, Civil Rights Law Society, Thurgood Marshall School of Law and The US Social Forum.

TMF blames losing SD-26 on GOP, TLR

And shows -- or at least tells -- his math.  QR, full graphic effect.

As Menendez is sworn in, TMF argues the new Democratic senator was elected by Republicans

“It seems Republicans were really worried about Democrats sending the strongest voice to the State Senate…”

In what may be a sign of things to come in Alamo City politics over the next 18 months, Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher, D-San Antonio, called the victory of his opponent in the recent special election runoff “bizarre” and said it was driven by Republicans. He noted big GOP turnout in the race won by Sen. Jose Menedez in the heavily Democratic district formerly represented by Leticia Van de Putte.

Menendez, also a Democrat, was sworn in as Senator on Wednesday.

Prior to that, Rep. Martinez Fisher took to his campaign website to say that "while most folks know I lost the runoff election for state senate by 4,253 votes, many didn’t know that 6,307 consistent Republican primary voters voted in the runoff." A "consistent voter is someone who voted in 2, if not all 3, Republican primaries in 2014, 2012 and 2010,” Martinez Fisher explained.

“What is even more bizarre than 6,307 consistent Republican primary voters getting involved in a race between two Democrats, is that there were 2,000 more votes cast by Republicans in the February runoff than in the January special election when there were actually 2 Republican candidates in the race,” he said.

Charles has already spent a good bit of effort teasing out these numbers -- and knocking down this premise fairly quickly -- so since he's the expert in these things, I'll defer to his wisdom and simply guess that when he weighs in tomorrow Friday morning we can put this deal back to bed.

Should TMF have a case for winning fair and square, it's in a Democratic primary and not a jungle one.  He can probably beat Menendez that way, and win a fall election when the seat comes up again (in 2016, it appears).  It does sound a little sour-grapey for him to be complaining on the day of Menendez's swearing-in, so I would expect to see that grudge match happen again in two years.

A Tea Partier rolls up a 'legalize' bill

I'm still as skeptical as I was two weeks ago, but perhaps the tide is turning faster than I think.

State. Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, filed a bill Tuesday that he says “represents a comprehensive repeal of marijuana prohibition in Texas.”

The bill would remove all references to marijuana offenses in the law, Simpson said in an interview with the Statesman.

“I am proposing that this plant be regulated like tomatoes, jalapeños or coffee,” Simpson said. “Current marijuana policies are not based on science or sound evidence.”

Did a conservative Republican just say 'science'?  Lawd jesus.  And he called out the Guvnah, too.

Simpson, who said he has never touched marijuana, said passage of his proposal doesn’t amount to a pipe dream.

“The governor said he wanted to expand liberty,” Simpson said. I wanted to give him an opportunity to do that. It’s not just about guns.”

Even CPAC and Ted Cruz have suddenly been enlightened.

You had to look waaaay down in the coverage of the weekend CPAC hoedown, but there it was — support for libertarian or states-rights approaches to marijuana laws. From Politico’s coverage:

The majority of respondents supported some level of marijuana legalization, while only 27 percent said pot should remain illegal, an indicator that the conference retains its libertarian streak.

The recent Texas Tribune/UT poll also showed strong support for pot-law reform among conservatives.

The only people they listen to have spoken, and they -- well, Simpson -- has responded. But here come the doubters.

But do these numbers move the needle in the Capitol, where lawmakers will hear bills to OK pot for medicinal use and/or take it out of the criminal code? That’s still a hard vote for Republicans to make, and they rule in Austin.

Consider the bedrock of the state GOP: the suburban lawmaker. I did a roundup of their responses to a DMN voters guide questionnaire last year. With the exception of Rep. Tan Parker of Flower Mound, incumbent Republicans were decidedly status quo on Texas drug laws. I expect those views to prevail in this year’s lawmaking session. [...] Actually, I know the answer to that question: It’ll take more time and a bunch more older people (my demographic) dying off. Support for marijuana reform skews younger, and the Texas GOP will have to get on board or risk losing a chunk of this demographic.

Was a play for the younger vote behind Ted Cruz’s response to a pot question that Sean Hannity asked him at CPAC? Like a well-rehearsed states-rights guy, Cruz said Colorado’s laws should be up to Coloradans. That, according to various reports (including this from The Washington Post) was a position switch for the Texas senator.

Flip-flopper!

I doubt that Cruz’s new position was driven by a youth play — though CPAC skews young — as much as it was an anti-Washington statement. I think Cruz was angling to occupy some of the ground on pot where you would have already found Rand Paul and Rick Perry.

Paul has been a change agent on drug laws. That gives him an anti-status quo dynamism that Cruz covets.

Last week Cruz was widely quoted that he fancied himself a “disruptive app to politics.” He couldn’t really be that and defend Nixon’s tired old war on drugs at the same time.

Don't forget the "God don't make no junk" part as an appeal to the last bastion of opposition to the devil weed: the Texas Talibaptists.

"All that God created is good, including marijuana. God did not make a mistake when he made marijuana that the government needs to fix," he said. "Let's allow the plant to be utilized for good -- helping people with seizures, treating warriors with PTSD, producing fiber and other products -- or simply for beauty and enjoyment. Government prohibition should be for violent actions that harm your neighbor -- not of the possession, cultivation, and responsible use of plants."

Let's watch and see if it moves as fast as the gun bills.

Kuff has more.