Fifty years after

That's Cong. John Lewis, in the right foreground above, getting beaten. And below, in 2010.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge -- which the protestors crossed and where they were greeted by the Alabama state police with billy clubs and tear gas -- was named after a Confederate general and a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.  He was also a United States Senator, serving two terms at the turn of the last century.  He was a Democrat, of course, before all the racists and bigots moved over to the GOP, a trend which took root in the 1954 Supreme Court decision known as Brown v. Board of Education, and began in earnest after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  The Southern Strategy was employed by Barry Goldwater in 1964, but weaponized by Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968, and accelerated further during Ronald Reagan's terms, helped along by his political strategist, Lee Atwater.

And now you at least understand why there will be no Republican leaders -- well, one current leader, it seems, and a few other members of Congress, and W and Laura Bush --  in Selma today.

There will likely be hundreds, perhaps thousands, who will commemorate and recreate the march across the bridge -- but not the televised police assault at the bottom of it, which shocked a nation into action.  And just an hour to the north of Selma, in Shelby County, they aren't really celebrating.  There isn't much to celebrate in Ferguson, Missouri either -- yet -- nor in Madison, Wisconsin, where another unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by police.  On #BlackOutDay.

How long?  How long must we sing this song?

TransGriot with more.

Not no but hell no on TX Medicaid expansion

Yeah, you too, Schwertner.

Leading Texas Republicans on Monday asked the Obama administration for greater flexibility to administer Medicaid — a move that has gotten little traction in the past — while reiterating that they would not participate in an expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act.

“Any expansion of Medicaid in Texas is simply not worth discussing,” state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, said at a press conference.

Let those nasty poor folks die.  Face down, in a ditch, by the side of the road for all he cares.

Lisa Falkenberg kicks him right where he deserves it.

It's one thing to turn a blind eye to nearly 6 million uninsured Texas adults and children, to ignore the highest uninsured rate in the nation, to leave 1 million low-income Texans languishing in a health insurance no-man's land where they can't even get coverage through the Affordable Care Act because Texas refuses to expand Medicaid eligibility.

It's another thing to laugh in their faces.

[...]

"This trajectory is clearly unsustainable," the letter says, and then accuses the Medicaid program of continuing to "crowd out" funding for other needs such as education, transportation and water. Last time I checked, it wasn't poor people or the federal government proposing billions in tax cuts over the adequate funding of education, transportation and water.

[...]

What's worse about this latest effort is that it follows a growing chorus - a bipartisan chorus - of local, business and medical leaders calling for the state to expand Medicaid eligibility requirements.

That group includes the Texas Association of Business, the Texas Hospital Association and even a board approved by Perry himself - the Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency.

These groups aren't taking these positions because of their love for President Obama. They realize it makes good business sense for Texans, and especially our children, to have health care. They realize that the costs of caring for the uninsured are being passed on by insurers and hospitals to those of us who do have insurance. They realize it makes no sense for Texas to pass up $100 billion in federal funds that we could draw down over a decade if we invest in expanding Medicaid services. They realize other conservative states have found a way to expand Medicaid, along with measures to promote personal responsibility, such as premium sharing and co-pays.

As an update to my January post "Kansas-sippi Here We Come", it develops that even KS Gov. Sam Bareback Brokeback Brownback is reconsidering Medicaid expansion in the Jayhawk State because of the austerity trainwreck he's caused.

To be sure, the governor isn’t officially on board, at least not yet. But Brownback was willing to say yesterday, “I haven’t said we’ll take it. I haven’t said we wouldn’t.” In this case, “it” is Medicaid expansion through the ACA.

And as you’d probably guess, the Kansas Republican has never said anything close to this before.

Texas Leftist finishes the takedown.

As Falkenberg outlines, this letter is far from a request to the Obama Administration.  It’s a ransom note.  Anyone who is hopeful that the Texas legislature is looking to do the right thing by our state would be wrong.  Instead, this week makes clear that Republican lawmakers wish nothing more than to endanger not only our poorest citizens, but state hospitals, and our whole healthcare system.

These morons that got elected last November in the lowest electoral turnout since the Great Depression want to take us back to the 1930s as fast as they can.  The saddest part to me is that this is what it is going to take to get them voted out of office: full, complete, unadulterated disaster and ruin.

Like bad medicine, maybe we can get it washed down quick.  Before too many people die from their poor decisions, their bigotry, and their hate, that is.

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.

The Hillary e-mail matter smells bad

As several have already noted.  First, Mediaite:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell tonight covered the big news that Hillary Clinton solely used her personal email account while she was Secretary of State, and he honestly found this news both troubling and baffling, noting how personal emails are “only supposed to be used for government business in an emergency.”

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters said this is definitely “unusual,” but only adds to the idea that Clinton is not very “forthcoming” and “not all business is being conducted in the open like it should be.” MSNBC senior editor Beth Fouhy also wondered, “Where were the State Department lawyers who allowed this to go forward?”

Fouhy said, “She understands rules and protocol, and for her to just willingly violate it just to preserve some semblance of privacy just really makes no sense.”

O’Donnell, meanwhile, was just baffled at how the Secretary of State could be “using a not-secure, commercial email system” the entire time. He called it a “stunning breach of security and said, “If it’s true that she never used a State Department email address, we have something that, at first read, has no conceivable rational explanation to it that is legitimate.”

Vox makes it seem a little fouler yet.

But this story looks even worse if you transport yourself back to early 2009, when Clinton first became of Secretary of State and, according to this story, initially refused to use a governmental account. The Bush administration had just left office weeks earlier under the shadow of, among other things, a major ongoing scandal concerning officials who used personal email addresses to conduct business, and thus avoid scrutiny.

The scandal began in June 2007, as part of a Congressional oversight committee investigation into allegations that the White House had fired US Attorneys for political reasons. The oversight committee asked for Bush administration officials to turn over relevant emails, but it turned out the administration had conducted millions of emails' worth of business on private email addresses, the archives of which had been deleted.

[...]

That scandal unfolded well into the final year of Bush's presidency, then overlapped with another email secrecy scandal, over official emails that got improperly logged and then deleted, which itself dragged well into Obama's first year in office. There is simply no way that, when Clinton decided to use her personal email address as Secretary of State, she was unaware of the national scandal that Bush officials had created by doing the same.

That she decided to use her personal address anyway showed a stunning disregard for governmental transparency requirements. Indeed, Clinton did not even bother with the empty gesture of using her official address for more formal business, as Bush officials did.

[...]

Perhaps even more stunning is that the Obama White House, whose top officials were presumably exchanging frequent emails with Clinton, apparently did not insist she adopt an official email account. At some point during Obama's first year, there must have been at least one senior official who dealt with the political fallout of Karl Rove using a personal address, then turned around and fired off an email to the personal address that Hillary Clinton used exclusively. That this continued for four years is baffling.

On its best day -- which will be many days from today, if such a day ever comes -- this is a serious PIA for more than the reasons made obvious so far.  Here comes Zombie Benghazi, the IRS e-mails, and God only knows what other chum the sharks in the water will be gnashing their teeth on.  It will completely drown out this day's more significant development, Netanyahu's speech before Congress on the coming war with Iran.  And it reinforces the narrative that the Clintons always have something to hide, a notion that goes all the way back to Whitewater.

I don't support Hillary Clinton for president.  Didn't eight years ago, don't today.  This changes nothing about how I intend to go forward with my political activism for 2016.  But it is a serious blow, a self-inflicted wound, to her and to Democrats, which is why the Republicans won't stop screaming about it for the next 20 months.

Update (3/4): Just like clockwork, Trey Gowdy of the House Benghazi committee breaks off a subpoena.  And Socratic Gadfly collects the efforts to push back, which --in a truly sad development -- were led by Media Matters.

The media might not be the problem

But then again, they might.  They get a heaping helping of the blame for the sorry state of our public discourse today.  Let's begin with the sharpest takedown of the media business I have read in a long while.

For a long time newspaper owners everywhere could get away with anything because look, where else you gonna go, son? They could lie and cheat and steal, and there was enough slush floating around to mask the thievery and incompetence.

Plus let us face it, whatever newspapers were (and are) screwing up, local and national news programs were (and are) so awful that after the in-depth analyses of GOOD MORNING CLEVELAND and its ilk, the worst newspaper jock on his laziest day seemed like a Nobel laureate.

Now, though, there are other ways to get information out. There are other ways to find things and tell everybody. Failure and idiocy are exposed much, much faster than they used to be, and that has not been a boon for those whose stupidity was only tolerable because the profits made it so.

Yes, it's not just the print media that is the dinosaur struggling in the tar pit; even legacy broadcast media has all but gone down the drain.  NBC's travails -- like those of CBS and the dramatic collapse of integrity at 60 Minutes -- didn't start and end with Brian Williams.  Here's something devastating the LA Times wrote about the Sunday Morning Talking Heads show "Press the Meat" and Chuck Todd just yesterday.

"Meet the Press" likes to swank around as though it's our premier network public affairs program. Yet somehow its producers and host think it's all right to treat a manifestly ignorant statement about climate change as "a fun moment" involving a "fun little prop" -- and to pander to American anti-intellectualism by implying that the global warming debate is just too serious and boring to waste time on, like high school kids grousing about having to go to math class. One can almost hear the producers of "Meet the Press" going, "What, climate change again? Cue up the escaping llamas."

How low can the news departments of our major networks sink? We've already reported on the decline of journalistic standards at CBS' "60 Minutes," in the context of its flawed and credulous reporting on disability and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And now "Meet the Press," by endorsing a display of pure ignorance about an urgent issue of public policy as a "fun" prank, cedes the last shred of its credibility.

This also is no new topic.  The film Broadcast News took down the networks, their anchors, and the corporate layoffs in 1987, almost thirty years ago.  Remember the scene where Holly Hunter lectured her assembled peers about "not-news" as the gym floor full of dominoes tumbled on the screen behind her and the reporters all laughed?

I think I've told this story before here, but here it comes again, with some updated figures.

When I worked at the Beaumont Enterprise in the early to mid-1980's, the daily circulation was almost 90,000 and on Sunday, 115K.  Today it's under 22,000 daily, and less than 29,000 on Sunday.  When Hurricane Ike took out Southeast Texas 6 1/2 years ago, the paper's printing press was flooded and inoperable; they quickly sold it and laid off most of  the (unionized) pressmen.  Since then, the BE is printed by the Houston Chronicle and trucked over to make the morning delivery schedule.

When Hearst acquired it from Jefferson Pilot in 1986, the paper was running a 40% profit margin.

When I was at the Plainview (almost) Daily Herald in the late '80's, its circulation was 8K and 10K on Sunday.  I prepared the budgets for it; the Hearst daddies wanted 33%, but in reality it came in closer to 30.  Today the PDH circulates about half that number of papers, and also does not have a press or even a publisher on site.  It is printed in and managed from Midland, 180 miles away, where the circulation for the Reporter-Telegram was 24K and 30K on Sunday when I worked there in the early '90's.  Today that newspaper distributes just over 14K daily and 17K Sunday.

There are lots of good journalists doing very good work at the Houston Chronicle and the Hearst newspapers I worked for in the course of my ten-year career.  But the corporation itself is still run by greedy, self-serving people who care little about the people and not much more for the actual business of news.  Hearst is not unique in this regard as a diversified media conglomerate.  It just happens to be a private company, unbeholden to the quarterly statement but tightly yoked to a small group of William Randolph Hearst's grandchildren and a sham board of directors the heirs approve.

And for decades now they have hit their somewhat reduced profit projections mainly on the expense side of the ledger.

Monetizing news-gathering was a business even a fool could get rich from for nearly a hundred years (from the 1880s to the 1980s), and many fools did.  Even the smart people are having trouble coming up with creative ways to make money in the business these days... certainly the kind of money they once did.  That's not just been bad for media and its employees but also our democracy.  Without the watchdogs at City Hall and the state capitals and in DC, the politicians and their cronies have run amok.

This is a tale told many times before; there's just not much new to say about it.  Facebook and Twitter simply aren't suitable replacements.  But for a generation which previously got much of its news from Jon Stewart (not necessarily a bad thing) where will they turn?  It seems to be the same sources the rest of us use... with some notable distinctions, like blogs.

Approaching Idiocracy already, we all must be certain that we can find sources of information we can believe and trust.  And most importantly, discerning what is news and what isn't.

Notice I didn't mention Fox, Bill O'Reilly, or conservatives even once.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks the dress is gold and white (but doesn't really care either way) and that the llamas should replace the Kardashians on TV as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that Republican hostility to local control doesn't extend to the proposed high speed rail line, where a bill to give cities and counties a virtual veto over it has been filed.

Libby Shaw, writing for Texas Kaos and a contributing to Daily Kos, is not surprised by the Texas Republicans' cruel contempt for immigrant families and Obamacare. Abbott celebrates busting up immigrant families while John Cornyn licks his chops for a gutted Obamacare.

Stace at DosCentavos reports on the League of Women Voters-Houston's discussion on low voter turnout.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is appalled at the anti-citizen ignorance of the McAllen city commissioner candidate, Debbie Crane Aliseda, who equates early voting to voter fraud.  What's worse?  Other candidates echoed her ignorance.

A hot rumor about Adrian Garcia declaring for mayor of Houston turned out to be only that, but PDiddie at Brains and Eggs -- as someone really well-connected once said -- "ran the traps on everything". (A city council candidate did announce at that same breakfast meeting, for whatever that might be worth.)

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson: The Texas GOP gutted public education which caused a budget surplus. Instead of putting the money back they want to give it to the wealthy and big business: Doing Away With What They Believe Is Unnecessary.

Texas Leftist wonders if the nullification of opponents' signatures recalling the Plano ERO might be a precursor to Houston's case.

jobsanger underscores the lies conservative repeat about the poor.

Egberto Willies reported from the Texas Kossacks meetup in Austin this past weekend.

Neil at All People Have Value took a walk and looked up at the things above him. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

Texas Clean Air Matters reminds us that Texas is very good at energy efficiency and should do more of it, and Texas Vox calls for more support for solar energy from the Lege.

Better Texas Blog calculates the cost of cutting the business margins tax.

Socratic Gadfly exposes Austin for the not-quite-so-liberal bastion that it is.

Houston Matters airs their interview with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein today.

Prairie Weather reminds us that Congressional Republicans are about as dangerous to America as badly trained local police have shown themselves to be.

Juanita Jean has a good laugh over a kerfuffle involving male strippers at an antique show in Fayette County.

Nonsequiteuse would like Republicans to stay out of her bathroom.

Grits for Breakfast recounts how the DPS "border surge" caused an increase in crime elsewhere.

The TSTA Blog asks if anything will be left for Texas schools in the budget, while Raise Your Hand Texas comments on the filing of quality pre-K bills in the Legislature.

Randy Bear endorses Mike Villarreal for mayor of San Antonio, and The Quintessential Curmudgeon, taking over for the Panhandle Truth Squad, takes note of the city council races in Amarillo.  And the Lewisville Texan-Journal also reports on city council election happenings there.

Rick Perry: Scott Walker's a jerk

And when Rick Perry thinks you're a jerk, you're probably more of an a-hole.  And by that, he means a bigger a-hole than he is, Scott.

Saturday morning, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said that "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" was Ronald Reagan's aggressive response to an air traffic controllers strike in 1981. Forget Nixon's outreach to China, Reagan's defense buildup, or the Iraq war — it's all about the firing of about 11,000 federal employees.

Walker has made similar remarks about Reagan and the air traffic controllers before. But now, he is one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination in 2016. And he is trying to convince party elites that he can be their guy. But instead of checking off the foreign policy box, this latest comment adds to a list of foreign policy screwups.

The context surrounding this quote is important. Walker had repeatedly asserted that the air traffic controllers strike was a critical foreign policy decision, arguing that it sent the Soviets a message that Reagan meant what he said. At one point, he cited Soviet documents to support his point — documents that, it turns out, were entirely made up. Reagan's own ambassador to the Soviet Union told Politifact back in January that Walker's interpretation of these events is "utter nonsense."

Earlier this week, Walker had gotten into hot water for saying that his fight with union at home prepared him for fighting ISIS abroad. "If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world," Walker said. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, another 2016 hopeful and no squishy moderate, called Walker's comments "inappropriate."

Overlook his being a jerk or an a-hole or whatever.  Scott Walker is just too effing dumb -- even for a Republican -- to be president of the United States.  This time, it has nothing to do with him dropping out of college 34 hours short of an undergraduate degree.  It may take a few months for the GOP base to figure this out, however, so who might be the most stupid in this regard is an open question.

On the other hand, our formerly worst Texas governor ever (just since the current one) might not have learned his lesson four years ago about demonstrating empathy towards 'the enemy' publicly, and if you believe the so-called libertarians who vote in the CPAC poll, Oops doesn't have much ground left to lose.  So, as usual, I can't really determine which of these conservatives committed the bigger gaffe.

C'mon, debate season!

Update: It's not as if Governor Glasses was going to just let Scott Walker be the most ignorant person of the weekend, after all.

Following a weekend full of conservative attacks on Hillary Clinton at the Conservative Political Action Conference, former Texas Governor Rick Perry added to the list, questioning the former secretary of state’s “loyalty” in an interview that aired Sunday.

Responding to news that the Clinton foundation had not notified the State Department when it previously accepted a donation from a foreign nation, Perry argued that Clinton was disloyal.

“I think it falls flat in the face of the American people when it comes to, are you going to trust an individual who has taken that much money from a foreign source? Where’s your loyalty?” Perry said in an interview that aired on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He winks and nods at Texas secessionists, he supported Cliven Bundy's armed insurrection, and he's questioning someone -- anyone -- else's "loyalty".  Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Sunday Funnies, Conservatives Behaving Badly edition

Bonus toon: "In Memoriam: Logic and Reason".

Hat-tip @TomTomorrow who notes that the toon (at the link above), from September of last year, won a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators on Thursday, the day before Leonard Nimoy passed away on Friday. "Seems somewhat bittersweet now," he added. "Wonder if @TheRealNimoy ever saw it."