Green Party state convention pics, update

Thanks to the Bexar County Greens for these photos.

David Collins had this review of the business conducted.

The Green Party of Texas just concluded a packed weekend at the Grey Forest retreat in San Antonio. On Saturday (April 9), GPTX held its nominating convention for statewide offices, including the selection delegates to August's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. On Sunday (April 10), the Party held its annual meeting, at which the delegates assembled elected members to the State Executive Committee and passed a few resolutions regarding policy positions and internal procedures.

According to Green Party Watch, here is the Texas delegation to the Presidential Nominating Convention:
Jill Stein: 15
SKCM Curry: 3
Darryl Cherney: 2
Kent Mesplay: 2
Bill Kreml: 1

The win for Stein continues a nationwide pattern: Among states that have had their primary elections, caucuses, or conventions, Stein has won all of them. Unless something changes radically in the next three months, she will likely be nominated resoundingly on the first ballot in August.

​State Offices
David Wager, longtime treasurer for the Harris County and Texas Greens, reports that all the candidates for the various state offices had their nominations confirmed:

Railroad Commissioner: Martina Salinas
Supreme Court, place 3: Rodolfo Rivera Muñoz
Supreme Court, place 5: Charles Waterbury
Supreme Court, place 9: Jim Chisholm
Court of Criminal Appeals, place 2: Adam "Bulletproof" King Blackwell Reposa
Court of Criminal Appeals, place 5: Judith Sanders-Castro

​​ At Sunday's annual meeting, the delegates elected Laura Palmer of Harris County to another two-year term as co-chair. She will continue to serve along with Dallas County's Aaron Renaud, who was elected at last year's meeting. Also elected to the SEC:

Secretary: katija assata gruene, formerly known as kat swift (Bexar)
Treasurer: David Wager (Harris)
Members at-large: Antonio Diaz (Bexar), Wesson Gaige (Denton), Ona Marie Hendricks (Dallas)

Three resolutions passed and were referred to the national convention's committee.  Among them was a review of range voting for elections to public offices.

Salinas, who debated her Libertarian opponent on the day before the state convention, appears to be both standard-bearer and dreamcatcher for the GPTX in this cycle.  Her challenge is to keep the Greens on the ballot for 2018 by achieving 5% or more of the vote this November.

There's a chance that presidential nominee-in-waiting Stein could get this done for Texas Greens, and that's essentially the only reason why I would also like to see some early polling of the Texas electorate, with Trump and Clinton as the red and blue team leaders.  The Bernie or Bust movement -- such as it is -- needs to come to Jesus, but that's likely later than sooner.

Better late than never.

The Weekly Wet Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with the LGBTQ communities of North Carolina and Mississippi as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff looks at the insane amounts of money being spent on the Austin rideshare referendum.

Libby Shaw, contributing at Daily Kos, sounds the alarm bells on Ted Cruz. Desperate Republican donors, afraid of Trump, are rallying around the scary man from Texas. Beware Ted Cruz. He is more dangerous than W.

Socratic Gadfly wonders if California's expected full legalization of marijuana could be the impetus in it joining North Dakota and creating a state bank.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that the Texas Republican party, like its national parent, is heading further down the rat hole. John Cornyn was bad enough, but Ken Paxton et al maybe worse.

The water got hotter for Texas AG K-Pax as the feds piled on with some stock fraud charges. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wishes the GOP would take out their trash and clean up their mess, but isn't going to hold his breath waiting for it.

Egberto Willies knows Lady Liberty, aka the woman who was arrested in the Democracy Spring protests last week, and interviewed her for his radio program on KPFT.

In Denton and via Bluedaze, a screening of the film Dear President Obama is being held at the University of North Texas on Wednesday, April 20.

Texas Vox had the advance on the protest by Native Peoples at the Dos Republicas coal mine, near Eagle Pass.

Lewisville's outdoor arts festival Colorpalooza was a hit despite the weekend rains, reports the Texan Journal.

And Neil at All People Have Value spotted and snapped a rainbow over a Walgreens in Houston.  APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More blog posts about Texas from around Texas!

The Observer describes how Amarillo became both safe haven for -- and then a battle ground over -- economic and war refugees from across the world.

The Houston Press underscores the glaring sexual misconduct hypocrisies in the Baylor University football program.

BOR has point/counter point posts about whether the Texas GOP state leadership is still funny, or not quite so much.

Robert Rivard takes issue with a proposal to build a minor league baseball stadium in San Antonio.

Former Texan Elise Hu muses about female role models.

Genevieve Cato tackles the problem of how female ambition is perceived.

Austin On Your Feet, Mike Dahmus, and Austin Teacher Dad all weigh in on the May 7 referendum to repeal Austin's ordinance that regulates vehicles for hire companies like Uber and Lyft.

Newsdesk introduces the anti-LGBT culture warriors who will be running the Attorney General's office during those times when AG Ken Paxton is too busy defending himself from multiple criminal allegations to do it.

Grits for Breakfast calls the ban on surrogate social media accounts for inmates a bad idea.

Juanita Jean welcomes Tom DeLay back to the scene.

The Rag Blog hosts actress/singer Barbara Williams and her husband Tom Hayden on Tuesday, April 26 at Austin's High Road on Dawson.  Hayden has recently switched his support from Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton, notes Ted at jobsanger.

Prairie Weather excerpts some letters to the editor of the New York Times about the Democratic presidential primary, and Carol Morgan excoriates CNN for portraying the Clintons in 'Tom and Daisy from The Great Gatsby' fashion.

And Pages of Victory declares such in the War on Poison Ivy.