No hope and change on the horizon

Scattershooting while we wait for Bernie Sanders to make up his mind ...

-- Kuff wrote a good post -- maybe I should say Will Saletan and Josh Marshall wrote good posts that Kuff aggregated and excerpted and then added a paragraph at the bottom, worth about 15% of his post -- regarding the Trump University scandal that Drumpf has broadened into a racist diatribe spewed at the US judge presiding over the fraud lawsuits ... which has blown back on him even from some GOP tongue-cluckers (not GOP voters so much, to be certain).  Kuff dutifully tied in Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick for their endorsements of Il Douche, even mentioned Ken Paxton's 'cease and desist' order in passing, but left out the Florida attorney general's not-insignificant involvement.  There is -- and has been for awhile -- a national story here, which several of the bigger dung beetles in the media have finally hopped on and dug their pincers into.

Is it possible that no matter who gets elected president, both are going to be facing some measure of criminal justice shortly before or after they're elected?  This is a hideous development for Trump, the GOP nationally, and Pam Bondi in particular, but it won't be so much as a shoo-fly for our Texas fascists to have to wave away from their faces.

-- And Bud Kennedy knows better than this -- as well as do the poli-sci profs he quotes about the possibility of Texas turning blue because the Libertarians might get 10% of Trump's vote -- but like many of us political bloviators, he's running out of things to write about and we're still five months away from the election.

I'll just rewrite the following sentences: Texas has the worst conservatives on the planet, both Republican and Democrat.  And it's going to be that way for years to come.  The Republican voters aren't changing it, and the Democrats who bother to vote can't.

So in the absence of meaningful news or dialogue, we're going to get fair and balanced items like Mark Cuban's Tweets trolling both Trump and Clinton.  Fun!

I'm looking forward to reading a lot of stupid things written by otherwise intelligent people in the months ahead.  The Libertarians are benefiting from the dearth of two-horse race developments, but my guess is that there will continue to be only a little speculation about the Green Party's prospects, even as mockery or criticism, at least until they come to town in August to tap Jill Stein as the November standard-bearer.

They're still trying to move beyond "First they ignore you" stage among the binary thinkers in the media, large and small.

A, o, way to go, Ohio

It was the difference in 2004 for W Bush (maybe we should point out Ken Blackwell's unique role in that) and it is likely to be once again.

-- Latest polling in head-to-head matchups between Drumpf and Clinton have her taking a small lead.  Remember that this was Kasich's big win as favorite son in the spring GOP primary.  Clinton took 56% of the vote against Sanders in mid-March.  Future polling that includes Gary Johnson and Jill Stein should be even more interesting.

-- They have a high-profile US Senate contest on the ballot, with incumbent Rob Portman (R) facing former Gov. Ted Strickland (D).  That race is tight as a tick.

-- There are two indies and a Green running with Portman and Strickland.  Scott Rupert, the most conservative of the two independents, ran in 2012 and got 4.5% of the vote.  That's going to be bad news for Portman, despite his clinging to Trump.

-- Sen. Sherrod Brown has been lightly rumored as Hillary's running mate, and has made some short lists of late, but Elizabeth Warren has a better chance of being picked because it would be less likely that her Senate seat is lost to the Republicans (in the long run).  If Brown should wind up as her running mate, though, the GOP is absolute toast.

-- The big thing for Buckeye Staters in November 2016 is fair trade.  Via Thom Hartmann ...

Don Gonyea on NPRs Morning Edition talked to a former steelworker and lifelong Democrat in Canton, Ohio who is supporting Trump in this election based on his rhetoric on trade.

Other steelworkers told Gonyea that they would have supported Bernie Sanders because he was as clear as Trump about trade, but that given a choice between Trump and Hillary, Trump is more outspoken about how badly the middle class has been hurt by our disastrous trade deals.

And if anything should worry Democrats about the general election, it should be the very real possibility of losing the votes of rank-and-file working people and lifelong Democrats to Donald Trump and other down-ticket Republicans who might start parroting his anti-trade rhetoric.

Ohio's courts have recently turned back voting restrictions attempted by state Republicans, another good omen for Dems.  And this Hill piece is excellent if you want to get deeper into the Buckeye weeds, with the urban vs. rural county divide and GOTV efforts keying on the trade issue.

Even the tenth most populist county in the state, Mahoning County, the heart of the Mahoning Valley, an area devastated by trade deals, new technologies and the home of the remains of America’s once mighty steel industry.

A Democrat powerhouse of voters with Youngstown as its capitol – it went big for Obama in 2012 but the primary results in 2016 showed a big win for Trump and a lot of cross-over votes for the controversial Republican presumptive nominee.

In the primary in March, Ohio saw a tremendous number of Democrats crossing over to vote in the Republican primary said Sracic, “Statewide, about 6 percent of Republican voters in the primary in Ohio were formerly Democrats. In Mahoning County, nearly 27 percent of voters in the primary were previously Democrats,” he said.

“If Trump were to somehow win this county, the election is over,” said Sracic, “I still think that is unlikely, what may be more likely is that Trump performs as well as Reagan did back in the 1980's,” he said.

In 1984, Reagan lost Mahoning County, but earned about 41% of the vote. That may not sound significant, but since then no Republican has ever earned even 40% of the votes of these working class voters.  Will these Reagan Democrats and their children become Trump Democrats?

Ohio is going to be my favorite state to watch in this cycle.

"Transitioning to general election footing"

"Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now."

Democratic discussion fora no longer wish to host discussions that don't build up the Democratic candidates, which is leaving a lot of people who used to call themselves Democrats out of the fold...

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... but not out in the cold.  Now to be sure, there's quite a few Bernie bitter-enders at that shop, which is comprised mostly of folks from the other two, but hey, transitioning is hard work.  It sure beats oligarchy, though.

-- No criticizing DWS at the old places for this.

After mainstream media outlets recently started reverberating what Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been saying about DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for almost a year now, Wasserman Schultz has gone into damage control to save her career.

Among Wasserman Schultz’s stances considered most controversial by fellow Democratic colleagues is her opposition to federal guidelines announced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate predatory payday lenders. Payday lenders offer short-term loans to borrowers at high interest rates, often as a last resort for individuals in low-income communities. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s opposition to the guidelines can be linked to $68,000 in campaign donations she has received from payday lenders, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Her Democratic primary challenger, Tim Canova, has used the donations and her opposing stance to the guidelines as a means to contrast the difference between the two candidates. A liberal group in South Florida has even dubbed her “Debt Trap Debbie.”

On June 3, in a statement released on Facebook, Debbie Wasserman Schultz flip-flopped her opposition to the payday loan guidelines.

Still looking for that elusive Hillbot who has denounced DWS.  Anybody point one out to me?

-- I'm surprised Republicans in Texas haven't enacted 'Top Two' voting.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) will square off to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). For the first time since California voters began electing U.S. senators in 1914, there won’t be a Republican on the ballot.

That’s due to the “jungle primary” system California voters signed off on when they approved Proposition 14 back in 2010. The measure transformed the state’s June primaries into open contests where all voters vote for all candidates, with the top two finishers regardless of party advancing to November.

Cali Dems must be feeling pretty good about that whole 'tyranny of the majority' thing.

Beyond the absence of a Republican on November’s ballot, the election will be significant for another reason. Harris, who won the state Democratic Party endorsement, would be the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate since Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL) was defeated by Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) and left office in 1999. Sanchez, meanwhile, would be the first Latina ever in the U.S. Senate.

That covers a lot of identity caucuses, which is allegedly a good thing.  Harris appears to be farther from neoliberalism than Sanchez.

As Bloomberg reports, Sanchez has established a reputation during her two decades in the House as a moderate who has voted with Republicans on issues like gun control and regulating for-profit colleges. In fact, thanks in part to the “jungle primary” system, her candidacy heading into Tuesday was supported by a number of prominent Republicans. She voted against invading Iraq and the Patriot Act, and as a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, is a respected voice on national security issues.

Harris, meanwhile, has won the endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). On her website, she strikes a populist tone by vowing to “be a fighter for middle class families who are feeling the pinch of stagnant wages and diminishing opportunity.” As Attorney General she’s sought to reduce California’s prison population, reduce police violence, and prosecute polluters. Earlier this year she began investigating ExxonMobil for misleading the public about the risks of climate change, and she recently sued the Southern California Gas Company for failing to report a massive methane leak. 

-- California won't be helping flip the Senate, but Wisconsin will.  Ron Johnson needs to go.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R), running for re-election in Wisconsin, is one of Congress’ more vulnerable Republican incumbents, and polls show him trailing the Democrat he defeated in 2010, former Sen. Russ Feingold (D). Johnson, however, is flush with cash, which he’s eager to put to use.

And while not every campaign commercial deserves special attention and scrutiny, the Wisconsin senator’s newest spot is amazing for an important reason. Roll Call reported:

Republican Ron Johnson is a first-term U.S. senator from Wisconsin. The voters back home wouldn’t know it watching his re-election campaign’s first TV ad.

Even for a time when incumbent lawmakers try to distance themselves from their job titles, Johnson’s new ad takes that approach to an extreme. It doesn’t once mention his work as a lawmaker or even identify him as a senator.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. The Republican’s re-election ad is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that he’s not already a senator.
In the spot, Johnson makes literally no references to any work he’s done while in office; he doesn’t identify himself as a senator; he doesn’t note any Senate achievements; and he doesn’t mention that he’s running for re-election.

Instead, the far-right Wisconsin lawmaker and committee chairman boasts in the ad, in the present tense, “I manufacture plastic,” which is sort of true, except for the fact that he also currently helps shape federal laws from Capitol Hill.

He goes on to say, “I’ve stayed put, right here in Oshkosh, for 37 years.” Left unmentioned: the last six years in which he’s been a powerful Beltway insider.

The GOP has used this ruse before.

Long-time readers may recall this piece from four years ago, featuring a variety of Republicans in Congress running re-election campaign ads that pretended they weren’t in Congress at the time.

My personal favorite was this spot from Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.), who didn’t want voters to know he was a congressman, and who blasted his Democratic challenger who’d never served in Congress as a “career politician.” (It worked; Benishek won re-election.)

The New York Times reported at the time on the larger phenomenon: “Bragging about one’s voting record used to be a staple of political advertising, and a career in Congress was worn as a badge of honor. But this year, many House candidates are deciding not to mention their service here, a blunt acknowledgment of the dim view that a vast majority of voters have of Congress.”

Not one of these incumbents, however, was a sitting U.S. senator. As best as I can tell, Ron Johnson is the first Senate incumbent in recent memory to run ads predicated on the assumption that his constituents don’t know he’s already in office.

Johnson appears confident he hasn’t made much of an impression on Wisconsin voters over the last six years – as if that were a good thing.

"Government is broken, and elect me to break it into smaller pieces" just wasn't effective any more, I suppose.  Now we're playing the "Vote for me because I'm not the incumbent, even though I am" card. 

The sad part is that -- having elected, re-elected in a recall, and then re-elected Scott Walker governor again after that -- the people of Wisconsin might be stupid enough to fall for this.  It's a presidential year (higher D turnout) with Trump at the top (Ted Cruz beat the Orange-utan in April 48-35), but with a very restrictive voter photo ID law still in place (despite various court challenges still pending, much like ours in Texas) so really, anything could happen.

-- Here's a good post on the Central Texas Berniecrat taking on Lamar Smith, the climate change denier who is chairman of the House Science committee.  Let's try not to let him be another sacrificial lamb, shall we?

Where to from here

So far on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton has won contests in South Dakota, New Mexico and New Jersey, while Bernie Sanders had won the North Dakota caucuses and Montana. California is still outstanding.

California finally got called about 6:15 this morning.  It went 56-43 for her and was never seriously in play as the returns came in.  Sanders was scheduled to address his supporters in Santa Monica at midnight, but ...

The Vermont senator arrived almost an hour late ... The crowd was as frenzied as ever and hung on his every word. Sanders basked in the adulation, with much of the rally made up of Sanders standing and shaking his head because he was unable to speak over his cheering supporters.

He was reflective.

“It has been one of the most moving moments of my life to be out throughout this state in beautiful evenings and seeing thousands of people coming out, people who are prepared to stand up and fight for real change in this country,” Sanders said.

So the path ahead still looks a little ... winding.   Rocky even, maybe.

Sanders, who spoke with Obama on Tuesday night, will meet with the president at the White House on Thursday. He also has a meeting planned with Senate minority leader Harry Reid, a Clinton backer.

Also on Thursday, Sanders will rally supporters in Washington, D.C., in preparation for next Tuesday’s final Democratic primary here.

And Sanders has said that he will at some point return to Vermont to "assess" the direction of his campaign.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that Sanders will be laying off a significant number of staffers. And Politico released an embarrassing report detailing the inner strife of what looks like the final days of a losing campaign. 

Pretty ugly.  Recriminations galore, as always, on the morning after defeats.  Chris Kofinis hits the right notes in this piece titled "Clinton hits magic number, here's why Bernie won't step aside":

Behind the scenes, emails and texts will undoubtedly flood top Sanders advisors, surrogate intermediaries will be used to carry messages to Sanders himself, and public pronouncements will be made by a host of political insiders, all in an attempt to prod, kick, or push Sanders out of the race (nicely, of course). Soon the chatter will begin: When will he endorse? When will he rally his supporters behind Clinton? Doesn't he realize how he is hurting her, not to mention emboldening Donald Trump? Etc., etc.

Maybe it will work, and Sanders will see the light, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Sanders to quit.

Tuesday night is only the beginning – if not for Sanders, at least for his supporters. 

Bingo.

While it is easy to believe that this is about the 2016 nomination – it is not. Sanders can do the math. He knows it is over. He knew it was over months ago, unless one truly believes that superdelegates will somehow change course at the convention (and, short of an act of god they won't). So, you may ask, why does he keep pushing for something he can't have? Maybe because it's about something much bigger than this one election.  

At 74, Sanders might not be of the fortitude to keep leading what's left of his revolution.  But as with most revolutions, who do you trust to take over?

If you listen to what Sanders is saying and has said throughout this primary season, this is about a revolution. And real revolutions only end when things have dramatically changed (i.e. those who revolt win) or when they are crushed by the powers that be.

Well, we are far from Sanders-like revolutionary change, yet the movement is far from crushed, so that leaves only one option – a revolution that needs fuel to grow.

While pledged and superdelegate math has foiled Sanders' 2016 presidential ambitions, what his campaign has sparked, he is determined to see continue. It will not simply be absorbed by a Clinton campaign, or appeased by a convention speech. Right or wrong, Sanders and his supporters want the party to move far to the left. And, if the goal is to move the Democratic Party to the left, that campaign has only just begun.

While the party hasn't gone "full Sanders," it's headed more to the left than it is to the center. From trade issues to the minimum wage, the party has moved noticeably more to the left now that it was twelve months ago.

Indeed, he's accomplished -- at least until Clinton pivots right -- all that was believed he could.  And quite a bit more.  For one thing, he changed the paradigm on how presidential campaigns can be funded.  (Vox lists four more ways.)

Does anyone really think this movement will now end on Tuesday?

Going forward, the huge challenge for Clinton is to embrace what Sanders is speaking about, not just to whom he is speaking to. In fact, in every political Democratic focus group my firm has conducted since 2015, Sanders' message moved people because it spoke to the economic anxiety people truly feel and the dramatic change they want – and that was true even among most focus group participants who supported Hillary Clinton.

In the coming weeks, the Clinton campaign must aggressively seek to tap this emotion and energy that has been unleashed. They can't take it for granted, even if it's logical to assume that most Sanders voters prefer her to Trump. Can they completely appease those who wholly believe in Sanders' vision of revolutionary change? Maybe, but probably not quickly. The most resolute Sanders voters will not be truly appeased unless the Democratic Party dramatically changes and speaks to their vision for the country and the world.

Regardless of when Sanders drops out, his supporters have only begun their fight to change the Democratic Party. And make no mistake: Sanders' supporters, and the others who want this "revolution," will be there watching and waiting to make sure that change happens – even if Bernie Sanders is in the U.S. Senate, and Hillary Clinton is in the White House. 

If Hillary picks Elizabeth Warren as running mate, be assured that there has been a real impact made by the Sanders run.  If she picks a Latino, the 2016 race galvanizes around the swelling opportunity that caucus presents for the Democratic party in future elections.  I think she'll stick to that, but am less inclined to think the choice is named Castro.  They're still too green for national politics (and much too conservative for my palate and certainly that of the Berners who might be on board with Warren).

Does Sanders lead the parade over to the Greens, or some other progressive party, perhaps one he starts himself outside the duopoly?  Don't think so.  His supporters might go that direction anyway, but he won't be pushing them.

So as we watch and wait for these developments to unfold over the next five months, Sanders gets to endure the second round of ad hominem from the poor sports among the winners.  As long as he's bothering them to some degree, be it minor or major, I can be happy.

Agitation remains the order of my day.

Update: Mother Jones has a nice look back at how we got to this point.

What we might expect this evening

Probably more scenes like this one.  This is SNL territory.  To the action.

Six states are going to the polls on the Democratic side, with a total of 694 delegates at stake. The most important of them by far is California, which has 475 of those delegates and where polls close at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. The second-biggest prize is New Jersey, where 126 delegates are at stake; polls close at 8 pm Eastern.

The other four states to vote are New Mexico (34 delegates, polls close at 7 pm local time), Montana (21 delegates, polls close at 8 pm local time), South Dakota (20 delegates, polls close at 7 pm local time), and North Dakota (18 delegates, caucuses begin 7 pm local time). And technically there's one more contest after this — the District of Columbia Democratic primary is a week from today, on June 14.

Now, the race in California appears tight — Sanders hasn't led a single poll of the state, but he trails by just 4 percentage points in the HuffPost Pollster average. By contrast, New Jersey looks like a blowout for Clinton, and the other (small) states have scarcely been polled.

As reported here two weeks ago, they'll call it -- for real this time -- after the Garden State stops voting at 7 p.m. our time.

Yes, the big question is what Sanders and his supporters do next.

In recent days, the Vermont senator has maintained that if this is the outcome, he'll stay in the race until the convention — and spend the next month and a half lobbying superdelegates to abandon Clinton and support him instead. And his campaign spokesperson Michael Briggs reiterated that sentiment last night, saying in a statement, "Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump."

[...]

There is reason to be skeptical of Sanders's pronouncements, though. Presidential candidates have often argued that they'll fight all the way until the convention, only to reverse course when defeat is finally unmistakable. And Matt Yglesias argues that Sanders will likely do the same.

Whatever Sanders's intentions, the Democratic Party is eager for Hillary Clinton to move on to the general election and focus on taking on Donald Trump. Indeed, according to recent reports from the New York Times and CNN, several key Democratic figures who have remained neutral so far, like President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, will likely endorse Clinton in the coming days, as an effort to signal to Sanders that it's time to throw in the towel.

Gadfly is skeptical (shock me!) but there will be some significant amount of support lost from the Democrats in the days to come.  It depends, of course, on what the definition of the word 'significant' means.  Where the bulk of the defections land -- Trump, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, or NOTA -- is perhaps the more interesting question.

Stein will be appearing on Truthdig's Facebook Live this evening.

“I used to practice clinical medicine, taking care of patients,” (Stein) said in an interview with Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer. “Now I practice political medicine, because it’s the mother of all illnesses.”

Stein will be in the Truthdig offices Tuesday evening for a “Facebook Live” discussion on the final state presidential primaries, including California’s, which will be a deciding factor in the presidential race.

In a country dominated by a two-party political system, Stein wants people to know that the Green Party’s platform is not “radical” in the typical sense. “[W]e reflect the solutions that people are hungering for, and we actually have quite a bit of experience on the ground at the local and the county level making this happen,” she told Scheer.

Stein has been making media waves, with some hoping for a potential third-party ticket with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. She has clear progressive policy stances and recently noted in Rolling Stone that her platform is better for women than Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s.

[...]

Amid fears that Tuesday’s primary will be the end of Sanders’ campaign, Stein is certain that she could be a viable candidate for his supporters. “The whole reason for having an independent third party that cannot be silenced is [that] there are 25 percent of Bernie’s voters who are not going into that dark night to vote for the No. 1 cheerleader for Wal-Mart, for Wall Street, for an endless war,” Stein told Truthdig’s Bill Boyarsky. “They are looking for another place to hang their hat.”

If you're in Houston in early August, come meet Jill Stein at the USGP's presidential nominating convention, being held at U of H.  The convention's theme is "Houston, we have a solution".

Revolutionary News Update (Vol. 7: It's Over -- the AP said so)

It also can't be a revolution any longer, at least not in the traditional sense and certainly not inside the binary logic box that is the D versus R, left vs. right, right v. wrong, black/white either/or yin yang state of American politics.  The headlines from last night include the following:

-- Clinton becomes presumptive nominee

--  CNN ignores DNC request to not count superdelegates before they vote

-- Six states are casting presidential primary ballots today:

Clinton and Sanders are poised to split the 694 Democratic delegates up for grabs in New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. The District of Columbia, which offers 20 delegates, is the last to vote on June 14.

--  Establishment media commit massive act of malpractice, claim Clinton clinched

The Associated Press and NBC News inappropriately reported Hillary Clinton made history and “clinched” the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It spurred other media organizations, such as CNN and the New York Times, to follow suit and splash their home pages with big headlines indicating Clinton was the nominee.

In engaging in this act, establishment media improperly influenced five primaries scheduled for June 7, including the California primary, one of the biggest contests in the presidential race thus far. They collectively stooped to a new sycophantic low.

The reports of “clinching” are entirely based on an unofficial survey of superdelegates, which the AP and NBC News has conducted throughout the 2016 election. They both determined Clinton reached the “magic number” needed to clinch, which is 2383 delegates.

But if it is true that history happened, why didn’t Clinton’s own party congratulating her? How come there was no statement from the Democratic National Committee?

As of 12 am ET on June 7, the DNC had released no statement. There was no status update on the DNC’s Facebook page. There was no message sent or retweeted about Clinton making history.

There is a Tweet from Hillary in in the top link, and she says we've still got voting to do.

-- Obama had a heart-to-heart with Bernie Sunday afternoon.

-- Michael Lindenberger, writing for the Dallas Morning Views, says, "get on the bandwagon, Berners!" in the most condescending way possible.  This might mean that the Snooze isn't going to endorse Trump, but I won't be restricting my autoneurological respiratory function by having my cortex override my medulla oblongata.

-- Walter Bragman (unfortunately even more melodramatic than HA Goodman) still manages to make a few good points.

Clinton’s problems can be attributed to the internet and the way she conducts herself politically. She is a politician of a bygone era of insider politics. Like Mitt Romney before her, Clinton has fallen victim to the fact that, today, anyone can readily pull up a video on YouTube of her saying different things to people on different sides of various issues.

This is spot on.  In their zeal for 'first woman president', Clinton supporters ignore or weakly discount every single flaw of hers.

I had been of the opinion that Clinton-(VP) could hold serve until 2032, but even if she picks Elizabeth Warren, Hillary is going to be lousy one-termer in the Herbert Walker mold.  The royal flush in 2018 against Democrats will rival 1992 1994's (thanks to DBC in the comments for the correction), her husband's first midterm.  And once her lying, economic misfires and the war she starts on Iran catch up to her, we'll have a Republican president and Congress in 2020 ... just in time for decennial redistricting.

For Democrats, 2020 presents the first chance in a decade to win back the House of Representatives. The election coincides with the next Census, which means the party that takes the majority of the state legislatures will redraw the congressional districts. The GOP won the down-ballot race the last time there was a Census — in 2010 — which allowed them to gerrymander the House districts heavily in their favor, and the Democrats have been unable to win control since.

This time around there are fewer restrictions on the redistricting process because the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act — the formula for states and localities to fall under the Section 5 preclearance requirements. If the Democrats lose down-ballot in 2020, they will not regain control of the House until 2031. Put simply, progress of any kind for the next decade will come down to turnout, and down-ballot voting in the next presidential election. 

Egberto reinforced the point about all politics being local recently.

Far beyond Bragman's fear-mongering about the Democratic party destroying itself by nominating and electing Hillary Clinton, there will be some ominous ramifications for duopolists in the future.  No, the GOP won't die off in the wake of Trump's defeat, certainly not in Texas, the South, or the Mountain states.  Neither will the Dems do so in 2020, if he's correct about them getting swept out of office.  We could wish for these things, but change in politics is too goddamned incremental for either one of the two monoliths to just keel over.  It should continue to be a slow death for both, though, at least until they feel threatened enough by minor parties' ballot strength to adapt and co-opt their most popular initiatives to sustain themselves for some time longer.

By that time all of that happens, we (humans) should have been burned off the Earth like wasps out of their nests.  Mother Nature is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas, as George Carlin presciently observed.

But until then, some of us will party like it's 1999, roll coal, turn the A/C down to 68, stock up on snacks and watch the revolution on teevee.  The AP will call it before ten p.m. so they can get to bed early.  Maybe even a couple of days in advance.

In related news, writers Etan Cohen and Mike Judge, and star Terry Crews (fictional wrestling champ-turned-president Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho) of Idiocracy are going to be making anti-Trump ads this cycle.  That's as perfect as irony gets.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates the life and achievements of Muhammad Ali as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff wonders if Dan Patrick will ever take the time to meet with a transgender person.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos sharply notes that while Houston drowns, the state's top GOP leadership remains fixated on potty rooms. Earth to the Three Texas Stooges: People don't drown and die in bathrooms.

SocraticGadfly reviews a new book about Muhammad Ali's relationship with Malcolm X.

Regular monsoons (and decisions made long ago by fossil fuel companies and real estate developers) aren't the only things lately making Texas a terrible place to be. A Republican party held unaccountable by their voters, and a Democratic Party that suffers generational battered-wife syndrome, contribute to what PDiddie at Brains and Eggs calls the misery that is Texas.

What's the matter with Corpus Christi's water supply? CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders.

The new Denton County Precinct 3 Government Center opened last week, reports the Lewisville Texan Journal.

Humble ISD parents pass along a letter to Egberto Willies regarding the hiring of school superintendent Elizabeth Fagen from a parent in her previous school district.

Andrea Greer at Burnt Orange Report asks if Harris County Democrats are going to let Republicans pick the next county commissioner.

Clear Lake-area Democrats are ready to celebrate with Hillary Clinton Tuesday evening, invites John Coby at Bay Area Houston.

Neil at All People Have Value completed 8 days of jury duty this past week and was glad that he did. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

====================

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

Make West Texas Great Again has the challenge from a Lubbock talk radio host (and Republican) to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick for a public debate on "school choice".

Erika Greider at Burkablog writes about Greg Abbott's Trump problem.

The Houston Press follows the latest on Judge Andrew Hanen, where attorneys have asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to deny his demand for the signatures of 50,000 undocumented persons.

Somervell County Salon's latest Ruminations for the Easily Amused mentioned Hillary Clinton's IT guy pleading the 5th, and the latest misadventures of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton.

The Trinity Railway Express may expand its D-FW service, notes the Fort Worth Star Telegram's 'Your Commute' blog.

Expat Texan Elise Hu-Stiles sees freedom from a different perspective these days.

Scott Braddock considers the Trump effect on legislative races.

The Lunch Tray looks back on six years of blogging.

Iris Dimmick reports on Pride Month activities in San Antonio.

Ashton Woods and Monica Roberts respond to a homophobic op-ed in the Houston Forward Times.

Michael Hardy contemplates the Sugar Land Selfie Statue.

And Houstonia checks in with 2010 GOP gubernatorial also-ran Debra Medina.

Sunday Funnies

He who is not courageous enough to take risks

"... will accomplish nothing in life."

"I would like to be remembered as a man who won the heavyweight title three times, who was humorous, and who treated everyone right ..."

"As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him, and who helped as many people as he could. As a man who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. As a man who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love.

"And if all that's too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader and a champion of his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."

I was in the seventh grade, 13 years old, when Ali fought Joe Frazier the first time.  I was seemingly the only kid in my class that was rooting for him.  All my friends weren't just hoping Smokin' Joe would beat the draft dodger senseless, they were calling him Clay, like so many other race-baiting white people did then.

It was hard being on the playground the next day.  The years after that, much easier.  Ali showed them all, even me, how a champion conducted himself.

Ali's heartwarming response in the 1972 interview with David Frost followed Frost's question of "How would you like people to think about you when you've gone?"

"I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness," the sports legend began.

"He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern and then he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith and he stirred it up well.

"Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime and he served it to each and every deserving person he met."

This is the Zen wisdom of age.  He was rarely so modest as a young man.  But the braggadocio hid -- as it usually does -- some insecurities.

 "We only have so many hours a day to do what we have to do, so many years to live, and in those years, we sleep about eight hours a day ... If a man is 50 years old, he's lucky if he's had 20 years to actually live. So I would like to do the best I can for humanity."

(Longtime friend Gene) Kilroy, (boxing promoters Don) King and (Bob) Arum said they knew of many charitable acts Ali had done. Kilroy said Ali, who was the most popular athlete in the world for years and commanded attention everywhere he went, would always be willing to do charitable acts, but said he didn't want cameras or reporters around because he didn't want anyone to think he was doing it for the publicity.

In 1973, for example, Ali learned that a home for elderly Jewish people was going to close because it was out of money.

"I'll never forget that night," Kilroy said. "It was a cold January night and we saw it on the news. Ali really paid attention to it and you could tell it bothered him, that all these people were going to be put out. They had nowhere to go. He told me to find out where it was, so I called the TV station and got the address.

"We drove over there and walked in and some guy comes up to me. I said, 'We're looking for the man in charge. Where is he?' And the guy says, 'I am. What do you want?' And Ali tells him he wants to help. He wrote him a check for $200,000 and tells him to put it in the bank that night. And then he writes another check for $200,000 and tells him to wait four days, because he has to get home and put some more money in the bank to cover the check."

In 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War between the U.S. and Iraq, he flew to Baghdad to speak with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of 15 U.S. hostages.

Hussein agreed to release the hostages.

For the rest of his life Ali worked to promote the cause of peace and charity. In December 2015, he condemned ISIS and took a shot at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (without mentioning Trump's name) when Trump suggested temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.

After the terrorist shootings in San Bernardino, Ali released a statement through his publicist. The headline said, "Statement From Muhammad Ali Regarding Presidential Candidates Proposing to Ban Muslim Immigration to the United States."

"I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino or anywhere else in the world," Ali said in the statement. "True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.

"We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.

"Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is."

It's the last major public statement Muhammad Ali ever made.

The misery of Texas

You can't blame everything on the rain -- or the oil and gas companies or real estate developers, after all.  I was going to write a long post detailing the latest foibles of Greg Abbott, et.al. (just to give my increasingly former Democratic friends solace),  but then that damnable Chris Hooks threw down the rug and tied the room together.

Yes, it's the running theme now around these parts: the world's worst Republican conservatives, enabled by the battered wives and Stockholm Syndromers of the Texas Democratic Party.

This has been a bad couple of months for Texas Republicans. Bad headlines, petty corruption, clownish behavior. In fact, the couple of months before that were bad, too, and the months before that, and back and back into the mists of memory. So it might stand to reason that it has been a good time for Texas Democrats, whose operating theory has long been that one day, the Texas GOP will scrape the bottom of its own barrel so hard that the thing will collapse and the party of Ann Richards and LBJ will emerge from the ashes, wings spread, ready once again to do battle.

But a strange thing is happening: As the Republican Party gets weaker, the Democratic Party seems to be getting weaker, too. Several senior Democrats will be missing from the next legislative session, depriving the minority party of some much-needed muscle in the increasingly right-wing Legislature. Gone are Senator Rodney Ellis and Representative Sylvester Turner, both of whom left to pursue better-paying, more-rewarding public service jobs in Houston as, respectively, county commissioner and mayor. There’s been a sort of brain drain for years, but this one seems particularly bad.

Bad to worse.  Frying pan to fire.  All those other similar analogies.

It’s hard to blame Democratic political talent for hitting the eject button. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s demolition of the Senate’s minority-protecting two-thirds rule destroyed the unity of the Senate Democratic Caucus: There are few left who do much more than protect their own narrow turf. In the House, there are a number of promising young lawmakers, but it’s unclear how quickly they can pick up the slack left by departing members such as Turner and Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, who kamikazied into a losing Senate bid in San Antonio. Then there’s the “leadership” that is anything but.

Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, hardly showed up to work last session even though she lives within walking distance of the Capitol. Now she’s under criminal investigation for using taxpayer-funded staff as personal servants. In 2013, Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, was arrested on charges of barratry, aka ambulance chasing, and in late 2015 he was convicted on five counts of related charges — illegal solicitation of legal clients — then sentenced to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. In between, for the 84th legislative session, he was given the important position of whip in the dysfunctional House Democratic Caucus.

Ron MF-ing Reynolds.

One Houston politico recently described him, admiringly, as a man who’d steal your mother’s life insurance money and show up to her funeral, smiling and shaking hands. It’s not inconceivable that he could end up in caucus leadership once again.

Figures such as Dukes and Reynolds are as embarrassing to Democrats as Sid Miller and Ken Paxton are to Republicans: They just have significantly less power. Democrats are often frustratingly silent about the weaknesses of their own lawmakers, fretting, perhaps, that beggars can’t be choosers.

With the state convention coming up fast on the calendar, the penultimate neoliberals who comprise the apparatchik of the TDP are going to mute their dysfunction -- or at least drown it out -- by clapping and cheering to celebrate the coronation of their Queen.

But the party must present a more robust and defensible profile if it ever expects the state to trust it again. Instead, it often seems as if Democratic lawmakers are content to be consigned as a rump party, leaving the token politicking to the rotating staff of the state party.

And Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project.  He's the actual chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. The patron listed on the masthead is a token.  A sock puppet.  The most-clicked post in the fourteen-year history of this blog, with 13,000 unique hits and counting over just the past four years, is this one.

People don't read this blog, though, so he'll be re-elected chair in a couple of weeks.

With Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination, 2016 might be a relatively good year for Democrats in Texas. (Whether they’re poised to take advantage of it is another question.) But if a Democrat wins the White House, the midterm election in 2018 looks grim: Hillary is deeply unpopular with Republicans, and a Democratic president has been historically bad for Texas Democrats. The same goes for 2020, when Democrats will have held the White House for 12 consecutive years. The next realistic shot at controlling redistricting might not be until the 2028 and 2030 election cycles, which might just give Texas Democrats enough time to get their act together.

There's going to be some bright spots: Hillary (or Trump rather) is motivating Latinx registration and will surely drive up Latinx turnout; voter photo ID stands a good chance of being struck down by the courts in six weeks or so, and the Libertarians will siphon off a significant portion of formerly GOP votes at the top of the ballot and maybe down it as well.  But this will be that incremental, pragmatic progress we've grown to love.  Harris County and some of the other urban metros will enjoy a little azure wave; the rest of Deep-In-The-Hearta stays flooded under the Red Sea.  Texas won't be turning blue in my lifetime.

The core issues of Democrats are, at this point, mostly chiseled in stone.  And like the GOP, their base voters are being carried off to the nursing home and the cemetery.  Younger voters not seeking consulting gigs tend to be a lot less brand loyal than their parents' and grandparents' generation, leaning considerably more left than Texas Democrats find themselves capable of doing.  It presents a huge opportunity for Texas Greens, but only if they can capitalize by doing the hard labor of organizing by precinct, statehouse and senate district, and statewide.

It's about the only interesting trend worth watching for the next five months and thereafter.

Alternate parties rising

-- Mentioned previously here is the on-the-radar polling appearance of the Libertarians, now at double digits nationally.  This has garnered attention in the corporate media, which is awfully big and early for this level of publicity.  Polling outfits consequently are now including both in their methodology ...

On RealClearPolitics’ Latest Polls page (yesterday), Quinnipiac and Public Policy Polling have begun including presidential candidates Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party) in their Georgia polls.

Quinnipiac results (Georgia) have Clinton at 40%, Trump at 38%, Johnson at 5%, and Stein at 3%.

Public Policy Polling results (Georgia) have Trump at 45%, Clinton at 38%, Johnson at 6%, and Stein at 2%.

In the past, even when the occasional poll does list a third-party candidate, RCP has ignored that listing. This appears to be a sign that both Johnson and Stein will now be listed in most, if not all, national and state polls.

... which can only help with the ultimate goal of getting them both into the nationally televised debates in the fall.  Here are a few calls to action in that regard, designed to appeal to the roadblock that is the Commission on Presidential Debates.  Free and Equal sponsored 2012's presidential debate, moderated by Larry King, which included Johnson, Stein, Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party and blogged in this space.

In an interesting development, V-P nominee Weld told the New York Times in yesterday's issue that he saw nothing 'criminally' wrong with Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server.  There's sure lots of different ways for that to be interpreted.  I'll wait for the spin from various quarters before I lend my two cents' worth.

And pay no heed to Debbie Downers who say that the Greens and Libs always poll higher than they actually wind up with on Election Day -- this isn't going to be a normal year -- or that dreaming big on the part of alternate candidates and parties is something to be mocked.  That kind of discouragement is not how we raise our children and grandchildren; it's not even how our mayor manages the city.

Democrats used to dream of moonshots; now they can't even allow the consideration of universal single payer health care, allegedly on the basis of pragmatism.  It's a very sad decline in ambition for a once-esteemed political party, and the Texas version is even more pitiable with respect to thinking small.

As for Johnson and Weld: If I were conservatively inclined, I would be more likely to vote for a Republican than a Lib for president ... unless it was Donald Trump running as a Republican.  And that's precisely why Gary Johnson and William Weld are polling so well.  Be reminded that should the Libs hold onto or build on this share of the electorate, then Drumpf is dead in the Electoral College water (if he isn't already).

I say this as someone who has voted for many Libertarians down the ballot, for judicial and even statewide posts where there was no Green or Democrat for me to vote for.  On the basis of where they are in the political/chronological cycle, the Libs are to be used electorally in the same way that the Greens should be used against the Dems; as the best tool in the box to get better governing from the two major parties.  Nothing -- certainly not undervoting -- better sends the message that your vote cannot be taken for granted by the Ds or Rs.

Update: Since we're collecting spitballs, this dude at Cato has some convoluted speculation we can amuse ourselves with.

Ilya Shapiro has this piece in USA Today, suggesting that three individuals might receive electoral votes in November 2016, thus depriving any candidate of a majority in the electoral college. He suggests the third person to receive electoral votes might be Gary Johnson. He speculates that Johnson could conceivably carry New Mexico. Then he also speculates that some Republican presidential electors from other states might “disobey” or “be faithless” and vote for Johnson instead of Trump.

There's also polling data supplied that suggests Clinton is leaking support to Johnson.  That poll was taken in March.  You know, when Ted Cuz and John Kasich were still in the race.

Can you believe that there are people who get paid handsomely for writing shit so crazy that I wouldn't even try to pass it off as legit?

-- Jill Stein has been getting her earned media also. GQ profiled and interviewed her in the past week; Rolling Stone did so twice.  The Greens go last with their presidential nominating convention, for the first time being held in the South and right here in Houston the first weekend in August.  Let's keep our fingers crossed that the monsoons -- and hurricanes -- take some time off.

Revolutionary News Update Vol. 6: Ready for Oligarchy

2008 was a very different year. Democrats were trying to replace a Republican president who had job disapproval ratings in the mid-60s to low 70s throughout the summer and fall of 2008. Democrats -- both Obama and Clinton-- were pledging to change the direction of the country in a year when more than 80% of Americans consistently told pollsters the country was on the wrong track.

So Democrats could afford a little disunity. They had the wind at their backs.

They don't have the wind at their backs now. They're trying to win a third straight election, something that's been done only once by a party in the past 56 years (the GOP in 1980/1984/1988). President Obama's approval/disapproval numbers right now, according to Gallup, are 51%/45% -- but that's not overwhelmingly positive the way Bush's numbers in 2008 were overwhelmingly negative. And the "right direction/wrong track" numbers are still negative -- not as negative as they were in 2008, but they'd have to be as positive now as they were negative in 2008 for the two elections to be analogous for the Democrats. We'd need 80+% of the country to be happy with the way things are going; we have about 30%.

(And even in 2000, when the country was extremely happy with the status quo under a retiring Democratic president, the Democrat who wanted to be his successor couldn't put the election away.)

No, the Democrats can't afford the luxury of a sustained fight.  Not this year.

Oh let's fight anyway.  A little while longer, June at least?  There's still be months left to fight the real bad guys, yes?

Then again, we could fight in the streets like it's 1968, when ...

... the Democratic Party establishment, led by the authoritarian Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, rigged the nominating process at the Democratic National Convention.

In the run-up to the Convention, over 80% of Democratic primary voters sided with the two anti-war candidates, Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-NY), the victim of an assassination, and Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN).   The will of the electorate was ignored by party elites. Daley’s backroom maneuvers secured the nomination for a candidate who had not won a single primary — Vice President Humbert Humphrey.

Daley’s authoritarian manipulation of the process produced chaos and violence both inside and outside of the convention. During a convention speech, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT) denounced what he described as the “Gestapo tactics” of the Chicago PD — tactics that a federal commission later described as a “police riot” orchestrated by Daley. The violence and chaos inside and outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, not to mention the betrayal of the anti-war sentiments of the electorate by the party establishment, led to the party’s demise that November and six more years of carnage in Vietnam.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz isn't as stupid and malicious as Daley, but we get the point.  There's going to be a lot of yelling "RELAX!" at each other, some calls to simmer down, shut up, or go away.

Matthew Yglesias makes the case that Bernie will -- sooner than the convention in July -- back down, endorse Clinton, herd his sheep in behind her.  He uses the tired trope of comparing Jill Stein to Ralph Nader and using the word 'spoiler', but even without that mistake, some of Bernie's herd will still go astray, most certainly.  Even Noam Chomsky encourages swing state voters to wait until the last minute, watching to see if your state is in Electoral College play before casting a ballot, saving Hillary Clinton and the rest of us from Donald Trump.

But the 2016 election is much more likely to be disrupted by the Libertarians, Gary Johnson and William Weld, who are already polling at ten percent.  Bill Kristol, the very model of modern autocratic arrogance, has selected the GOP's alternative to Trump without soiling his gloves on any of those messy primaries or that nasty voting business.  And he has picked obscure conservative blogger David French, the Rick Santorum of 2016.  What fun.

Update: More from Steve Benen on French. And this from Non Prophet News details the historical ramifications of strong alternate party bids, from Teddy Roosevelt to Strom Thurmond to George Wallace to Ross Perot.  Notably not Nader.  That's a myth, as we all should know by now.

I'll have to miss the state convention here in Deep-In-Hearta; Mrs. Diddie's new hip and Mom's 90th birthday take precedence over the desire I have to get in a fight with some Clinton folks and wind up in the Bexar County Jail, to say nothing of the thrill of listening to the minions cheer Hillary's coronation, watching as the parliamentarians run Robert's-Rules-roughshod over the Sanders delegation, and generally drive off what remains of a Democratic progressive wing in the party.  To be followed by a reprise at the DNC in Philly in July.

So enjoy, Texas Democrats!  You've once again managed to silence the voices that would lead to an invigorated Democratic Party in Texas in favor of a conservative, corporate-controlled Republican Lite version, the kind of Democrats that haven't won a statewide election in a generation.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Dream big of turning Texas blue like you usually do.  In the meantime you'll find me reporting on the only progressive presidential nominating convention left, the US Greens here in August.