Veep debate scattershooting

-- Snoozefest or something substantive?  You decide.  I'll be live-Tweeting it so you don't have to watch; just check the Twitter feed, top right, if you're inclined.  If you're as intelligent as you have demonstrated just by reading here, you should stop watching teevee news about the presidential election.  I am not kidding.  You'll be less scared, more calm, and better able to enjoy the cool weather, your pumpkin spice whatever, the MLB playoffs or the fall festivals or just life in general if you do.  Seriously.

-- The insiders are saying that the Trumpbatross around Pence's neck is too heavy a lift.  Democracy Now! will feature the Green Party's Ajamu Baraka participating in the debate, as Jill Stein did with Clinton and Trump last week.

-- Voting is already under way -- always two words, please; it's not your underwater underwear, after all -- in 20 states plus the D. of C.  Mail ballots are going out and being returned in Harris County and throughout Texas (the deadline to register to vote is fast approaching; visit your nearest taco truck.  Hopefully there'll be one on every block next election).  These ballots are important tools for the Democrats and Republicans, as most of these voters are seniors, strongly partisan -- which is to say they vote straight-ticket -- and very reliable.  The Ds have upped their game statewide and erased the R's advantage in recent cycles due to the workhorse efforts of people like Glen Maxey.

-- This is, by a long distance, the worst thing I have read in the entire 2016 cycle.  After reading all of it -- turgid, ponderous, uses every single logical fallacy in the book -- I must say that I certainly hope I read nothing worse.  And then he doubled down on it today.

Here's Fred Rogers with some advice to that guy.

And here's Ted Rall speaking for me.

To my many friends and readers who plan to vote for Hillary Clinton: please stop bullying me.

Also please lay off other people, progressives and liberals and traditional Democrats and socialists and communists, citizens who identify with the political left, who plan to vote for Dr. Jill Stein or stay home.

I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump. I agree with the mainstream liberal consensus that he should never hold political power, much less control over nuclear launch codes. He’s dangerous and scary. But that doesn’t mean I have to vote for Hillary Clinton. ...

1. The main reason that I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton is the same exact main reason that I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump: I don’t vote Republican. Being age 53, Nixon was the first president I remember. Hillary Clinton’s politics (and her paranoia and insularity) remind me of Richard Nixon’s. I can’t bring myself to think of a Democrat as someone who solicits millions of dollars from Wall Street or votes with crazy Republicans (like George W. Bush, whose stupid wars she aggressively supported) to invade foreign countries just for fun. She plays a Democrat on TV, but we know the truth: she’s a Republican.

[...]

3. There’s a big difference between an impressive resume and a list of accomplishments. Hillary has the former, not the latter. I hold her resume against her: she has held tremendous power, yet has never reached out to grab the brass ring. As senator, her record was undistinguished. As Secretary of State, she barely lifted a finger on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contributed to the expansion of the Syrian civil war, and is more responsible than almost anyone else for destroying Libya. What she did well she did small; when she went big she performed badly.

[...]

5. She still hasn’t made an affirmative case for herself. By clinging to President Obama, she’s running as his third term. The standard way to pull this off is to present yourself as new and improved: the old product was great, the new one will be even better. Her campaign boils down to “I’m not Donald Trump.” No matter how bad he is, and he is awful, that’s not enough. Watching her in the first presidential debate, at the beginning when Trump was besting her over trade, I kept asking myself: why doesn’t she admit that the recovery is good but has left too many Americans behind? Why hasn’t she proposed a welfare and retraining program for people who lose their jobs to globalization? A week later, the only answer I can come up with is that she has no imagination, no vision thing.
6. She has made no significant concessions to the political left. Frankly, this makes me wonder about her intelligence. Current polling shows that the biggest threat to her candidacy is losing millennial, working class, and Bernie Sanders supporters to the Green Party’s Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson. She would not have this problem if she’d picked Sanders as her vice presidential running mate. Even now, she could bag the millennial vote by promising the Vermont senator a cabinet post. Why doesn’t she? For the same reason that she won’t embrace the $15-an-hour minimum wage (she gets $225,000 for an hour-long speech but wants you to settle for $12) — she’s a creature of the corporations and therefore the political right. She’s not one of us. She doesn’t care about us.
7. My vote is worth no less than the vote of someone who supports a major party nominee. So what if the polls say that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be elected president? Why, based on those polls, should I strategically vote for someone whose politics and personality I deplore? By that logic, why shouldn’t they change their votes to conform to mine? I have my vote, you have your vote, let Diebold add them up.

I don’t have a problem with you if you plan to vote for Hillary. This year is the best argument ever for lesser evilism. But the fact that we are selecting between two equally unpopular major party presidential standardbearers indicates that the two-party system is in crisis, if not broken. We need and deserve more and better options. The only way to get them is to start building viable third parties — voting for them, contributing money to them. What better time to start than now?

Anyway, there’s absolutely no way that my refusal to vote for Hillary will put Donald Trump into the White House.

That is game, set, and match.  But here's your memory jogger, just in case.

It is indeed a very strange presidential election this year

Dr. No has quasi-endorsed Jill Stein.

Ron Paul, whose 1988 Libertarian presidential bid and two Republican bids made him the "liberty movement's" best-known figure, told MSNBC today that he couldn't support Gary Johnson for president and saw reasons to back the Green Party's Jill Stein.

"If you tend to lean toward progressivism, you can lean toward the Green Party," Paul said. "She's probably the best on foreign policy."

Bold emphasis mine.  There are two videos at the link well worth watching for context if you're open-minded, as in not subsumed by binary logic.  It's hard to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing; it probably doesn't impact much either way, as with most endorsements these days.  Paul is most certainly correct that actual progressives (not the Hillary Clinton kind) should not be considering voting for Johnson, but that might be a blind hog/acorn kind of correct.

Anyway... can someone get this for me as a mask for Halloween?

Who leaked Trump's tax returns?

Bonddad first:

Here's the really important point:  The key to this news story is a single piece of information among literally thousands of numbers and individual data points.  Whoever leaked this information knew enough about taxes to know what to leak and no more.  

If I was going to make a guess: someone really close to Trump who was intimately familiar with Trump's finances and who also didn't have a professional code of confidentiality.

If You Only News initially suspected it was Trump's daughter, Tiffany.  Then they got a little more plausible with Hair Furor's ex, Marla Maples.  Josh Marshall didn't offer any names but provided background, quasi-legal and personal, and No More Mister expanded on that.

It really doesn't matter who leaked them; Trump is over.  Finished.  Kaput.  Stop being afraid he's going to win.  He isn't.  He can't.  He has eliminated every single pathway to an Electoral College victory, almost all of them by his own hand.

The Russians are not going to hack the election.  (They are simply unable to do so.  This is Democratic propaganda.)  Women and Latin@s and squishy Democrats who only vote every four years will turn out in droves to vote against him.  Every voter living in a non-battleground state -- there are at least forty of them, and their number will increase as this election turns into a landslide for Clinton -- is hereby emancipated from the scare tactics of every Jackass from Obama on down to vote their principles in order to make sure Madam President gets the message: use the next four years to achieve real progress on the issues you say we can't, or else get primaried from the left and be a one-termer.

Clinton won't have an opponent so weak, so awful, and so self-destructive next time.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is anticipating a more reality-based debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence tomorrow night as it presents the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff looks at the sharp increase in voter registration numbers around the state.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is thrilled to learn that Houston-area taco truck owners are registering voters: Houston taco trucks serve up Tex-Mex and voter activism.

Back to Ohio for PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, along with some words from Hillary Clinton about Sandernistas from behind closed doors, and a few voting provisos for those in Harris County.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sick of Republicans siding with the rich and powerful over the health and well being of Texas citizens. Look to the Texas Legislature to be the great corrupt fixer.

Socratic Gadfly tackles the claim that third-party voters assert there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats, and finds it wanting.

Egberto Willies passes along the Annie's List endorsements of Democrats running for Harris County's DA, Kim Ogg, tax assessor/collector Ann Harris Bennett, and the Dallas County incumbent sheriff, Lupe Valdez.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston took note of the Harris County clerk's taunting of the Fifth Circuit's ruling on voter ID.

Texas Leftist feels encouraged about the Astrodome's long-term prospects after the Harris County commissioners voted to construct a two-level parking garage in the underground portion.

Neil at All People Have Value offered his artist's statement as public artist in Houston and America. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

Grits for Breakfast asks what we should teach ninth-graders so that police won't shoot them, a subject John Oliver finds thoroughly depressing.

The Texas Election Law Blog writes about the travails of voting by mail.

The Houston Press catalogs Ken Paxton's obsession with LGBT issues.

Politifact Texas checked Hillary Clinton's statement linking tax cuts and the Great Recession of 2008, and found it 'mostly false'.

Popular Resistance profiles the Texas activists that fought KXL who are now girding up to stop the Trans-Pecos pipeline in West Texas.

Lone Star Ma focuses on the 13th of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Better Texas Blog calls for a renovation, not a complete teardown, of Texas' school finance system.

BOR interviews Stephanie Chiarello Noppenberg, the creator of the political satire variety show Over the Lege.

Eileen Smith watched the debate so you didn't have to.

And Space City Weather declares Texas' hurricane season (probably) over.

Sunday Funnies

Ohio, what Clinton really thinks of Sanders supporters, and voting in Texas

Ohio, the state I thought would be the most interesting to watch in this cycle, is turning out to be as stale as day-old white bread.  A very good account of the demographics of the Buckeyes and their impact on the 2016 election.

After decades as one of America’s most reliable political bellwethers, an inevitable presidential battleground that closely mirrored the mood and makeup of the country, Ohio is suddenly fading in importance this year.

Hillary Clinton has not been to the state since Labor Day, and her aides said Thursday that she would not be back until next week, after a monthlong absence, effectively acknowledging how difficult they think it will be to defeat Donald J. Trump here. Ohio has not fallen into step with the demographic changes transforming the United States, growing older, whiter and less educated than the nation at large.

And the two parties have made strikingly different wagers about how to win the White House in this election: Trump, the Republican nominee, is relying on a demographic coalition that, while well tailored for Ohio even in the state’s Democratic strongholds, leaves him vulnerable in the more diverse parts of the country where Clinton is spending most of her time.

Ohio missed the diversity train ... so they're taking the Trump one instead.

But its Rust Belt profile, Trump’s unyielding anti-trade campaign and Clinton’s difficulty energizing Ohio’s young voters have made it a lesser focus for Democrats this year, even as it remains critical to Trump’s path to the White House. As Clinton’s aides privately note, the demographic makeup of Florida, Colorado and North Carolina, which have a greater percentage of educated or nonwhite voters, makes those states more promising for Democrats in a contest in which the electorate is sorted along bright racial and economic lines.

And with a once-competitive Senate race in Ohio turning into a rout for Rob Portman, the Republican incumbent, Democrats can quietly pull back from the state with little fear of down-ballot consequences.

Clinton has recently surged back into the lead in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina ... but not in Ohio and Iowa.  One of the clearest reasons is that those two states remain overwhelmingly Caucasian.

But even some of the state’s proudest boosters acknowledge that Ohio, which is nearly 80 percent white, is decreasingly representative of contemporary America.

“Ohio, like a melting iceberg, has slowly been losing its status as the country’s bellwether,” said Michael F. Curtin, a Democratic state legislator and former Columbus Dispatch editor who is an author of the state’s authoritative “Ohio Politics Almanac.”

He continued: “It’s a slow melt. But we have not captured any appreciable Hispanic population, and there has been very little influx of an Asian population. When you look at the diversity of America 30 to 40 years ago, Ohio was a pretty close approximation of the country. It no longer is.”

[...]

“If the Republican Party looks more like the Trump coalition and the Democratic Party looks more like the Obama coalition, then the states Democrats must win will no longer be Ohio and Iowa (91% white in 2012),” said David Wilhelm, a manager of Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign and a former Democratic national chairman who lives in suburban Columbus. “They will be Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.”

Much more there about how Republicans have a winner in fair trade -- as opposed to free trade -- if they can figure out how to leverage it into votes outside their white, rural, conservative caucus in all states, not just Ohio.  For the record: the cleaving of rank-and-file union membership who favor Trump and his populist and nativist rhetoric on trade and immigration, and the union leaders who continue to support the Democrats, is where the fault line lies.  Like the San Andreas, it's way overdue for a big split.

Update: Larry Sabato with the deep Buckeye dive.

-- Here's what Hillary Clinton really thinks about the Sandernistas, on audiotape from behind closed fundraiser doors.

"There is a strain of, on the one hand, the kind of populist, nationalist, xenophobic, discriminatory kind of approach that we hear too much of from the Republican candidates," she said. "And on the other side, there’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel."

[...]

"Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement," she said. "They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t see much of a future."

Clinton added: "If you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t pay a lot, and doesn’t have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing."

Gonna be awfully difficult to blame the Russians for this.  Still feel like voting for her, millennials?  And Hillbots: still don't get why they don't?

Hillary Clinton does not support single-payer health care; Young voters do. Clinton is among the more hawkish members of the Democratic Party; Young voters are not. Clinton is a capitalist, and even within a capitalist party, she is in both perception and in practice unusually comfortable with capitalism’s worst practices. Millennials, by contrast, reject the entire economic system by a bare majority. They are no great fans of financial institutions or free trade.  This should not be surprising in a year when very few voters of any age group are particularly enthusiastic about their prospects.

[...]

I would like to suggest that the threat these young voters pose to technocratic liberalism is not the possibility of electing Donald Trump. Despite Clinton’s flagging numbers, her chances of success remain high. Rather, the fear is that if younger voters really are committed to a host of ideological positions at odds with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then that Party, without a Trump-sized cudgel, is doomed. It should not escape anybody’s notice that politics by negative definition—the argument, at bottom, that “we’re better than those guys”—has become the dominant electoral strategy of the Democratic Party, and that despite the escalation of the “those guys” negatives, the mere promise to be preferable has yielded diminishing returns. At some point, the Democratic Party will either need to embrace a platform significantly to the left of their current orthodoxy, or they will lose.

There are only so many times one can insist that young voters capitulate to a political party’s sole demand—vote for us!—in exchange for nothing.

You actually have one pretty good choice left

Now would be a great time for millennials -- and every other generation, for that matter -- to vote Green in a non-swing state, of which there are at least forty.  You want better, more progressive Democrats?  Take my word: after ten years of working my ass off for that within the Democratic Party, the only way it will ever happen is without them.

-- Look who is on the ballot for more voters than Evan McMullin.  She's not on the Texas ballot, so you won't read much about her from Texas sources of information.   But you won't hear much about her at all anywhere, because she's, you know, an actual practicing socialist.

-- Speaking of ballots, you can find your sample one now if you live in Harris County.  We have one of the longest ballots in the nation, so start your research now and post a question in the comments about any specific race you may have.  I will have a P Slate post prior to the start of early voting, but may only touch lightly on downballot races due to various time constraints.

-- Speaking of early voting, it begins three weeks from Monday.  You still have ten days to register or change your address, if necessary; and remember that unless the SCOTUS grants some unexpected relief to Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton at the very last minute, you won't need your picture ID to vote.  But if you DO NOT have a photo ID, be prepared to sign an affidavit stating such and bring your voter registration card or something like your utility bill that verifies your address.  Just in case there are some Republicans acting like assholes.

Under no circumstances should you vote provisionally.  Step out of line and call the Texas Voter Suppression Hotline for assistance.

The Daily Jackass: Barack Hussein Obama

This space had been reserved for Howard Dean and his diagnosis of Trump's sniffles Monday night as evidence of a cocaine problem, but in a come-from-behind victory at the wire ... congratulations, Mr. President.  You earned it.

“If you don’t vote, that’s a vote for Trump,” Obama said in an interview on the Steve Harvey Morning Show. “If you vote for a third-party candidate who’s got no chance to win, that’s a vote for Trump.”

This might be too complicated.  Let's check in with Ted (Keanu).

Still a little deep.  What say you, Most Interesting Man in the World?

Obama's having a pretty rough final year, what with being the lone ranger supporting the TPP, getting his veto overridden yesterday, a disturbingly silent voice on the increasing number of racial confrontations in the nation's streets as police continue to gun down unarmed black men like it's open season, scolding people about tarnishing his legacy and now this.

And can anyone explain the genesis of the idea that the Hatch Act should exclude the president and vice-president?  The law is all but toothless anyway; those who violate it -- like Julian Castro -- can simply say they didn't mean to and suffer no consequence (save a political one, of course).

Here's hoping the president can avoid pulling any more Kanye Wests from now to Election Day.

Trump's male chauvinist piggery

That's what we called it back in the day.  Today the preferred words are 'sexism' or 'misogyny', and Trump is certainly a misogynist.  Both words apply to much of Trump's base -- I won't use the d-word; think that's a step too far -- and the tea party/alt-right/whatever they're calling themselves this week.  He long ago maxed out this voting demographic, and now this bit with Miss America might be sealing the losing deal for him.

Tuesday, Trump refused to back down from his criticism of Machado, telling "Fox and Friends" in an interview that she had "gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem."

"She was the winner and you know, she gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem. We had a real problem," Trump said. "Not only that, her attitude, and we had a real problem with her, so Hillary went back into the years and she found this girl -- this was many years ago. And found the girl and talked about her like she was Mother Theresa. And it wasn't quite that way but that's OK. Hillary has to do what she has to do."

Hard to see that temperament resounding with 53% of the electorate.  Statistical note: that 53% figure is from 2013 and is likely to increase in five weeks.  And of the nine states where men make up more than 50% of the population, only two are battleground states.  So there's a whole lot of wasted Trump votes in those red states.  The gender gap is real, and Trump is expanding it.

I know that there's a cottage industry full of bankruptcies predicting the demise of Hair Furor (I went real early myself), but there's precious little time for the Barking Yam to recover from his debate faceplant, no matter what the online polls say.

Trump picked the wrong weekend to stop sniffing glue

Other than being distracted by his sniffling, I was amused by the evening's developments (not highly entertained, but I always keep my expectations pretty low for these).

Yes, Clinton won, and her polling should reflect that in a few days.  Historically the underdog has usually won Round 1, so that's another plus for Clinton.

And my candidate staged a very busy and effective virtual debate in real time, lifting her into the Trending on Twitter before the debate began with her expulsion from the Hofstra University campus, and sustaining that momentum late into the evening.

There's a lot of spinning and some good analysis that I'll update this post with later.

Update:

Here's a montage of Trump sniffling at tonight's #debate https://t.co/0HCcJPsxqt pic.twitter.com/leidFP8jBl

— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) September 27, 2016

Who lost the debate? America.

Expanding the Debate: Jill Stein "joins" Trump and Clinton in Democracy Now!'s virtual merge

The First Debate Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance passes along Heat Street's exclusive betting guide, Moms Rising's bingo card, and the drinking game rules for the first presidential debate this evening.  But before it begins, Houston-area partisans, show up at the Harris County District Attorney debate, between Kim Ogg and Devon Anderson, from 6:30 until 7:30 p.m. on the near southwest side.

Socratic Gadfly "invites" members of Anonymous to hack the TV feed of the presidential debate on Monday, and John Coby at Bay Area Houston has the media's guide for delivering a win to Trump.

Off the Kuff marvels at the latest order from Judge Nelva Ramos in the voter ID lawsuit.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is thrilled by the poll that shows Hillary Clinton ten points ahead of Donald Trump in Harris County: Hot Damn, Houston! We can do this.

A discomfiting conclusion about Ted Cruz folding to Dan Patrick and endorsing Trump was drawn by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

As the Republican Congress fiddles, the Zika virus marches on Texas. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is continually appalled at the Republican war on health care and the well being of citizens.

Neil at All People Have Value pointed out that Ann Harris Bennett would be a far better Harris County Tax Assessor-Voter Registrar than failed incumbent Mike Sullivan. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Asian American Action Fund advances a fundraiser later this week for one of its favored candidates, Rep. Tammy Duckworth (IL-US Senate).

State Rep. Ron Simmons will address the Lewisville Chamber of Commerce regarding the forthcoming legislative session and various transportation matters, reports the Texan-Journal.

Texas Leftist is a little taken aback by the number of teachers slated to lose their jobs under Trump's education plan.

And Dos Centavos humble-brags about the two albums he reviewed that were nominated for the Latin Grammys.

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

More blog posts from around Texas!

The Houston Communist Party, in coordination with the Houston Socialist Movement, plans a counter-protest against the "White Lives Matter" protest next Saturday, at the Anti-Defamation League's southwest Houston office.

Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer laments the state of the media, but not that of journalism.

Karisha Shaw at Strength in Numbers has a view of intersectionality through the lens of a queer black woman.

Grits for Breakfast offers a suggestion to the Texas House committee contemplating a racial profiling aspect to police stops: limit searches to reduce public dissatisfaction.

Swamplot updates the court room battle between two oyster harvesting companies over Galveston Bay's reefs as the bay recovers from the spring flooding.

Pages of Victory explains why the Trans-Pacific Partnership exemplifies his loss of respect for the Democratic Party.
  
Lone Star Ma focuses on the twelfth of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Colleen Aune (a former member of the Rice Marching Owl Band) and Dan Solomon have their say on the MOB's controversial halftime show during the Rice-Baylor game.

Raised On The Rail provides a handy map of Houston restaurants near light rail stops.

The Lunch Tray alerts us to a disturbing report about teens and hunger.

The Austin Chronicle and the Texas Freedom Network both remind us that SBOE member David Bradley is a huge jerk.

And the TPA wishes Tom "Smitty" Smith a happy and healthy retirement.

Sunday Funnies

Ted Cruz, Trump, and Dan Patrick

I don't care whether Ted Cruz has suffered any damage -- any at all, in any way -- with his endorsement of Trump.  It's obvious to me that the man cares about nothing except the next election he's running in.

But it's instructive that it was our lieutenant governor who pushed him off the fence with notice that he would be "left in the rearview mirror" if he didn't endorse the Republican nominee.  What that tells me is that Cruz was intimidated by the realization that he might be primaried in 2018 by someone running to his right.  (Fear is a mutha, ain't it?)

But.  Someone running to the right of Ted Cruz.  Who could win.

Let that sink in.