Stein rises, knives come out

The reason the smear got called out early is because the smear, sadly, got traction.   CNN, hosting tonight's town hall with the Green Party ticket, had to do the responsible journalistic job and report on it and the other silly attacks listed there.  But if this is the best Jill Stein's detractors -- most of them being the crappiest of conservative corporate Democrats, mind you -- can do, it's a pretty weak case against voting for her ... except in the vanishing number of swing states.  Which Texas will not be (sorry, Charlie).

What we see here with the 'cranks' and 'kooks' business is the logic dictating that Hillary just might need that 2% to carry Texas, so we'd better beat harder on the Greens.  (Two percent is about six times the amount that Stein drew here four years ago.  Democrats have a better shot at peeling off Harambe's 2%, or Deez Nutz's 3%.  I'm just saying.)

Downballot digression: throughout the Lone Star State we see the lousiest of the lousy who show on our ballots representing both sides of the conventional aisle, as we believe and as we know.  It took them over a dozen years and a few election cycles, but the TDP finally figured out that if they just fill up the all the lines, the ignorance of straight-party voting would enable them to stand the best chance of knocking the Greens off the ballot and absorb what is left of the actual left in Texas into their collective.  Consequently you have a circumstance this cycle where an appellate court candidate who is all but invisible makes a stand against the Green who got the most statewide votes two years ago, 10.45% (without a D opponent).  Neither of the two women -- Betsy Johnson (D) and Judith Sanders-Castro (G) -- are exactly favored in their respective bids for the Texas Criminal Appeals Court against Scott Walker.  No, not that one.

Scott Walker, the failed presidential candidate and Wisconsin governor, wasn't on the (Texas GOP primary) ballot. But Dallas-based criminal defense attorney Scott Walker is vying for a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The Republican barely campaigned before the March primary. His opponents weren't even sure he was running, and he didn't give any interviews. But he still dominated the first round of voting, winning 41 percent in the four-person race. Many credit that to his recognizable name; voters who make it that far down the ballot sometimes pick a name that sounds familiar. But Walker sees it differently. He told The Texas Tribune (after he won the runoff in May) that he spent "a lot of time praying about this election."

“I believe God heard my prayers," he said. 

Glowree Be!

So watch the CNN town hall tonight whether you have an open mind about an alternative to "lesser evils" or not, livestream or in the company of others, follow the Twitter feed -- look for a hashtag like #GreenTownHall or something similar -- and laugh at the putzy snark attempts by Democrats who can only win something every four years (fortunately for them it's the big enchilada; you know, "SCOTUS" and all that), then try to imagine what it would be like electing a female president who would stave off our looming environmental apocalypse, stopped our country's all-but-endless wars, eliminated student debt by telling the Big Banks to eat it, and advanced a jobs program based on an update of FDR's New Deal.  Then ask yourself how crazy that would really be.

Why, it's almost as crazy as this.

PPP has Trump leading Clinton by just six points in Texas

This will buoy the hopes of Lone Star Democrats.

Hillary Clinton is within 6 points of Donald Trump in Texas, according to a new poll released Tuesday, as the Democratic presidential nominee continues to make inroads in traditionally red states.

Trump, the Republican nominee, has 44 percent support in the state to Clinton's 38 percent, according to a survey by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP).

[...]

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson had 6 percent support, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein had 2 percent. Evan McMullin, the former GOP House staffer who just announced his independent bid, polled at 0 percent.

My sense is that it's better news for down-ballot Dems, especially in Harris County, and probably for Pete Gallego in CD-23 in his bid to usurp Will Hurd in their biennial game of musical chairs.  Will the flow of money out of Texas be reversed?  Doubtful.

The CNN town hall with Stein and running mate Amaju Baraka tomorrow evening might be the Greens' last shot at lifting these numbers into a range where she qualifies for the CPD-sanctioned debates.  Those parameters have been released, and they give the appearance that only Johnson/Weld has a chance at reaching them.

(In Houston your watch party is at Midtown Bar and Grill.  Other locations in Texas -- El Paso, Laredo, Austin, and two in the DFW area are listed here.)

Charles will have a sunny take posted in the early morning darkness tomorrow, as he's been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of Texas turning blue in 2016 for some time now.  Hey, it's nice to dream big and all, like he's said before, but I have a standing bet for anybody who wants to take that it that it ain't hap'nin.  Love to be wrong more than I'd like to take anybody's money ...

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance announces that all of its members have renamed themselves "Simone" as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff notes the changes to the voter ID law that were approved last week.

Harris County Republicans completed the epic fail trifecta with Commissioner Steve Radack's "enjoy your floods!" remarks, which piled on the continuing troubles of DA Devon Anderson and Sheriff Ron Hickman. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posted that Democrats have a good shot at a clean sweep of these three offices, and only one of them should require a little effort to accomplish.

Like PDiddie and most others around Houston, Texas Leftist was quite surprised to hear/see Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack's insensitive comments about flood victims. Thankfully his Democratic challenger Jenifer Pool was quick to respond. This race may have just gotten interesting.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is appalled at the McAllen Monitor for publishing an oped describing how to strip TWO Supreme Court Justices from Barack Obama.

Socratic Gadfly, as he continues to recover from a fairly bad broken arm, tells 1 percenters he's not a freeloader because of the legitimate assistance of workman's comp.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston can't tell if his Congressman, Brian Babin, has endorsed Donald Trump or not.

MOMocrats sees the 2016 election as a referendum on continuing gun violence.

Priscilla Villa at Bluedaze writes about the Eagle Ford shale's deleterious health effects on the residents of South Texas.

Neil at All People Have Value saw a mother steer her young daughter away from some Legos at the Lego store saying that a Lego airplane and truck was for boys. Neil wondered what is wrong with people. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

More great lefty Texas blog posts!

The Texas Moratorium Network links to the WaPo's video of Jeff Wood, whom the state of Texas has condemned to die for a murder he did not commit.

Grits for Breakfast interprets the declining prisoner population numbers as evidence for closing a few TDCJ units ... by letting some private prison contracts expire.

Not-Breaking News: Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer reports that Lone Star neoliberals with more money than critical thinking skills will once again be used as an ATM by the Clinton campaign.

Zachery Taylor assembles the evidence that the corporate media has indeed 'rigged' the 2016 presidential election.

Josh Blackman highlight's the Electoral College's intended role as a check on despotism.

Paradise in Hell counts all the ways that George P. Bush's endorsement of Donald Trump is awesome.

The TSTA Blog reminds us that school finance depends on legislators, not lottery players.

Fatima Mann guest-posts at Ashton Woods' Strength in Numbers that liberation for black women is a demand and not a request.

Texas Freedom Network has the most absurd right-wing quotes from last week.

CultureMap Houston details the $44-million Galveston beach restoration project.

Space City Weather explains why hurricanes go where they go.

And John Nova Lomax ponders the morality of Steve Miller's rock classic Take The Money And Run.

Sunday Funnies

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody
and I wouldn’t lose any votes.”

The Daily Jackass: "A vote for..."

"Repeat after me..." (and remember: every time you say it, an angel gets its wings).

Some people are comparing it to rape.  That's an overreach, but "bullying, badgering, shaming, scaremongering, insulting, belittling, mocking, and abuse of all varieties" isn't.  What I have been persuaded of is that Hillbots think that Berners are just as shallow and intellectually corrupt as they are, and thus will respond to these playground taunts.

They won't (not if they're as smart as I believe they are, that is).  And if it is you that is saying "a vote for the greater good is worse than a vote for the lesser evil", then it is YOU that has become the Jackass.

The best response to bullying has always been a punch to the bully's nose.

Since we're shaming bullies on the playground these days, it certainly seems appropriate to do the same to the grownups online.  And offline, as necessary.

Capitalism's psychopathy

The Green Party, at their Houston convention last week, passed an amendment to the platform that replaced the words "responsible stakeholder capitalism" with "an alternative economic system" based on "workplace and community democracy."

Because capitalism has demonstrated that it cannot function properly without socialism to rein in its rapacious greed.  Here's how Bill Maher -- who gets it wrong on the "chicken or fish" choice in this election -- gets it right here.

"Someone needs to explain to the free-market crowd that when it comes to socialism, you’re soaking in it.” So many Americans hate the word ‘socialism’ but love the concept: Medicare, unemployment, disability, farm subsidies...."

"America’s real religion is capitalism. And like any religion, it needs a devil. And that devil has always been socialism."

"... (T)he unfounded fear of socialism spreading out of control is nothing compared to how we've let capitalism spread out of control. It's eaten our democracy. It's eaten our middle class. It's eaten our health care system, our prison system, our news media. It's even eaten our food system so thoroughly that a lot of our food is no longer something that should be eaten."

In the common unacknowledged ground rule of negotiations, you can't get a little if you don't ask -- or demand -- a lot.

One of Maher's main targets in the kind of capitalism most often seen corporate in America, and the way it leaks into every part of our culture. Recently, the National Parks system decided it would allow naming rights as a solution to it's $11 million debt problem, which Maher thinks of as the last brick in the fall of America. "Get ready to see the bison roaming at Yellowstone with the Nike swoosh shaved into their ass."

In the end, Maher doesn't say socialism is a replacement for capitalism, but that he thinks of it as "capitalism's lap band." 

I can settle for some if we can't have it all.  And if Clinton's Democrats are afraid to ask for any... then I suppose we'll be back here in four years.  And Bernie Sanders, the guy who lit the socialism fire that burns so brightly this year, is probably going to be lying on the dock in back of his new summer home, on the lake in Vermont.

Harris County GOP fails: Anderson, Hickman, Radack

Throughout the year I've left the wild tales of incompetence of DA Devon Henderson and Sheriff Ron Hickman by the wayside in spending time blogging about the presidentials.  In the local contest to see which Republican can be the biggest ass, Precinct 3 county commissioner Steve Radack elbowed his way to the top of the dung pile with his "Enjoy your flood!" remarks over the weekend, videotaped and in heavy rotation on social media.

He's not backing away from them, either, presumably because he's getting some support from commenters on and offline.

So... suppose I was one of those "some people" who wanted a new car, my house redone, but wanted my insurance company to pay for it all?  How would I go about summoning a deluge in order to get my upgrade?  Prayer? Rain dance?  What if my insurance company short-sheets me and I don't get enough for my flooded car or home to replace it or make it like new?  Steve Radack doesn't mention how much I'll like that.

I could write at length about these three public servants who have lost focus on the meaning of their jobs, but I really shouldn't have to.  Everybody knows what you're getting when you vote for a Republican these days, and it's the farthest thing from good governance that your mind can imagine.  I'll just point out that Anderson, Hickman, and Radack all have election opponents, worthy challengers who are better choices for these county executive responsibilities, in November.

Kim Ogg is running to defeat the DA, Ed Gonzales is going to take out the current appointed sheriff, and Jenifer Rene Pool is the Democratic candidate aiming to replace the odious and insensitive county commissioner.

In a wave election -- which 2016 is portending to be -- where Democrats and Republicans of the establishment variety throng the polls to cast votes against Donald Trump, Ogg and Gonzalez should be able to ride Hillary Clinton's coattails to victory.  Pool is going to need a little more help to get there, and you can assist in a least a couple of ways.

(Who said I was a lousy Democrat this cycle?)