The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance will light a scented candle outside IKEA in solidarity with the confused people of Sweden as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff thinks that many opportunities to make gains in 2018 will exist for Texas Democrats, and they should plan accordingly.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is amused by the Republicans hiding from their constituents. No wonder. The GOP has been serving the interests of billionaires and oligarchs for decades, both domestic and Russian, apparently. No Republicans, we are not about to move on. This is more dangerous than Watergate.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston supports Lillie Schechter for Chair of the Harris County Democratic Party.

The last few months have been perplexing as we try to figure out life on the Trump train. UGH. But as Texas Leftist points out, some things are slowly coming into focus. After seeming to be free from consequences, we're finally seeing that the president and his administration can be held accountable for their actions.

SocraticGadfly, on hearing about the death of Norma Jean McCorvey of Roe v. Wade fame, offers an extended take on her, the plaintiff in a simultaneous suit, and the state of abortion in America today.

Shadetree psychologist PDiddie at Brains and Eggs diagnoses President Trump as in desperate need of an intervention.

Easter Lemming Liberal News showcases Pat Van Houte's grassroots campaign (website) for Pasadena mayor, which relies on small donations and prohibits donations from city contractors.

The Lewisville Texan Journal reports that a city council candidate in that city updated her website after being confronted with accusations of plagiarism.

Texas Vox was on the scene at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearings in west Texas as local residents gave officials an earful about proposed changes to storing waste out there.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme warns that the disrespect the Republicans show the US Constitution is only getting worse. Now they want to actually write their hate and kleptocracy into the document itself.

Neil at All People Have Value made note of the climate change art exhibit made by the construction crew on Memorial Drive in Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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More news from across Texas!

RG Ratcliffe's weekly roundup at Burkablog spotlights sex trafficking, a discussion about race in context with Black/Blue/All Lives Matter, and a voter fraud unicorn.

Texas Observer photographer Ray Whitehouse met Vaughan Neville, a conservative activist known on social media as the Man Spot, at the third annual Texas Firearms Festival held last October in Liberty Hill.

The Man Spot, aka Vaughan Neville, photographed by Ray Whitehouse at the Texas Observer

Jonathan Tilove at the AAS blog First Reading celebrates The Rag's long history of politics and weirdness in Austin.

Grits for Breakfast explains why indigent defense costs have risen as crime has declined.

The Texas Election Law Blog analyzes two election-related bills that have been filed in the Lege, and the Texas Freedom Network explains that other bills intend to redefine 'religious freedom' as being able to use religion to discriminate.

Paradise in Hell notes that Trump is now 0.00002% closer to proving his claims about election fraud, and Somervell County Salon sees Trump's "fake news" as just another name for gossip -- in which he also engages.

In the latest Chronicles of an Angry Black Queer, Ashton P. Woods at Strength in Numbers calls out the racism and mediocrity of the white LGBTQ community.

Raj Mankad wants to see multiple approaches taken to make Houston streets safer.

Julie Rovner takes a deep dive into four GOP talking points on health care.

Better Texas Blog describes how the commissioner of Texas education re-interpreted a statute in order to give $100 million in homestead exemptions to already-wealthy homeowners in already-rich school districts.  

Raise Your Hand Texas explains why voucher advocates are becoming irritable.

And Eater Houston notes that several Houston restaurants will be raising money for the ACLU in support of their immigrant employees.

Sunday Flaming Hot Cheeto Funnies

Democrats can't muster votes to stop Pruitt

A fourth bad week for President Barking Yam could have been worse.  It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the Okie AG who sued the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of oil companies -- fourteen times -- was to be confirmed as head of the EPA.  But Senate Democrats fell down again on the way to preventing the GOP from drowning government in the bathtub.

The U.S. Senate (yesterday) afternoon confirmed President Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, even as he faces a new court order.

An Oklahoma district court judge Thursday ordered Pruitt, the state’s former attorney general, to turn over thousands of communications with major coal, oil and gas companies from his time in office.

The nonprofit watchdog Center for Media and Democracy had requested the public records two years ago, and the judge ruled there had been an “unreasonable” delay in responding to the request, demanding that Pruitt comply by the end of the day Monday.

The Senate confirmed his nomination 52-46 (Friday) afternoon, even after Democratic senators expressed outrage overnight that Republicans were going ahead as scheduled despite the judge’s ruling.

One Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who had said she would vote no before Thursday’s news of the court ruling, held to her vow to vote against Pruitt today. Another, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., skipped the vote, as did Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

But two Democrats -- Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – voted for the controversial nominee, giving him the votes he needed.

Maybe those emails will matter to someone next week, as we wave goodbye to the cow leaving the barn.  If this was the strongest response the Sierra Club could manage, I'm not hopeful for the resistance.

U.S. Senators got a "Pruitt Survival Kit" today including some clean water, a face mask & a letter you can read: https://t.co/le4WP5D3ka pic.twitter.com/5etjjooDD5

— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) January 17, 2017

Am the only one embarrassed by this demonstration of professional activism?  This is where your donations go, folks.  Let's all sign more petitions so that Cornyn and Cruz and Culberson have enough toilet paper to wipe their asses with.  Update: On the other hand, it could be worse.

If Chuck Schumer could enforce caucus discipline the way that Mitch McConnell can, Trump would be looking for some other lousy white guy to dismantle the nation's regulations keeping our air, water, and groundwater protected from avaricious corporations.  But Donnelly, Heitkamp, and Manchin are all Blue Dogs in solid red states (+18 Trump in 2016) running for re-election in 2018, so they have a hall pass to keep voting like Republicans for another two years in hopes they can hang on and avoid letting the Democrats slip into superminority status.

Here is some solace for those who scowl at their monitor or phone/tablet screen every time I slap the Donkeys: Amy Davidson at the New Yorker cuts spineless Ds a little slack with sharp points about why Pruitt is also our nation's spineless Republican problem: nobody from starboard dares stand up to Cheetolini (except a few, like Collins and McCain, and then only on the rare occasion).  A caution to those who prefer their reading at junior-high level and with short paragraphs: this isn't the excerpt you're looking for.

There are two answers to the question of why Republicans rushed Pruitt through, not mutually exclusive. One is that this is just another instance of something that has been seen repeatedly in the weeks since Donald Trump took office: the Republicans’ floppy pose of deference to Trump. They have let him do what he wants, for the most part, unless a shocking “Oprah” tape from the past comes back to haunt an already unfit nominee. (As William Finnegan has written, in that case, involving Andrew Puzder, the failed Labor Secretary nominee, the tape only stopped the senators when combined with his illegal household help and his crudely expressed disdain for working Americans.) They hadn’t stood up to Trump on his executive order barring entry to people from seven countries and to all refugees, despite the direct risk it posed to many residents of red states, not to mention to the Constitution. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hadn’t managed to say much more than that “regrettably, the rollout was confusing,” as if he might have erased the insult to American values with a PowerPoint presentation and a can-do smile. Their hurt speeches on Friday morning about how the Democrats didn’t respect Trump’s choices came less than twenty-four hours after their President spoke casually about blowing Russian boats out of the water; accused his opponents of staging fake anti-Semitic attacks; questioned the legitimacy of the electoral system, the courts, and the media; and asked a black journalist, April Ryan, if the legislators in the Congressional Black Caucus were “friends” of hers, and if she could maybe set them up with a meeting with him.

This is a weak answer, in part because of what is at stake: not only America’s air and water and its children’s health but the future of the planet. Pruitt is so shameless a choice that former E.P.A. employees who have served under Presidents from both parties sent a letter to the Senate expressing concern about his appointment, noting his demonstrated lack of interest in enforcing environmental laws, his stance on climate change, and his failure to demonstrate that he would “put the public’s welfare ahead of private interests.”

Then again, why would this Republican Party want to block Pruitt? This is the other answer: the senators pushed him through because they wanted to, for their own non-Trump reasons. He is, in many ways, more typical of where many congressional Republicans stand than Trump is, though Pruitt might express his views more crudely and with fewer circumlocutions than some. His ties to industry are, in many cases, their ties to industry, too. (Jane Mayer has covered the influence of the Koch brothers, for example, in this regard.) When Ryan talks about dismantling the regulatory state, he is not far from Pruitt. Indeed, when asked about the influence of human activity on climate change, Ryan has said that he just didn’t know what it all added up to, “and I don’t think science does, either.” In a statement that Ryan issued in December, 2009, he accused certain scientists who did recognize the effect of using “statistical tricks to distort their findings and intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He added that any rules restricting American industry in the name of fighting climate change would be a “tough sell” in Wisconsin, “where much of the state is buried under snow.” Similarly, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, tends to deal with climate change by saying that he is not a scientist. In the opportunistic calculations of the congressional Republicans, Pruitt may not even count as a price they have to pay, or a Trumpian burden to bear. To the contrary: he is their reward.

If fascism is going to keep flourishing in America, it will be wrapped in the sturdy embrace of pretty much every Republican, along with a handful of lily-livered conservative Democrats.  At some point, somebody (who is not already) has to say and do the things that begin to peel away Hair Furor's Congressional support.  His own words and actions don't seem to be having much effect yet.

Update: Down With Tyranny sees Susan Collins fighting judo with Democrats.  I thought martial arts were to be used in countering stronger opponents, so maybe this is more three-dimensional chess.  Some Democrat was allegedly good at that once upon a time. 

The president needs an intervention

That press conference yesterday ...

President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary denunciation Thursday of his critics, complaining he inherited a "mess" and slamming stories that his campaign was constantly in contact with Russia as "fake news."

Trump held court during a news conference that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, carving out a stunning moment in modern American political history. He displayed a sense of anger and grievance rarely vented by a President in public -- let alone one who has been in office for just four weeks.

"I have never seen more dishonest media, frankly than the political media," Trump said, later slamming leaks to the press from the intelligence community -- some of which led to the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"The leaks are real. The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake," Trump said.

While it was a marked contrast with the normal dynamics of a presidential news conference, the East Room show was vintage Trump. He touted his own poll numbers, victory over Hillary Clinton and discussed cable TV ratings and panel discussions.

"I'm here again to take my message straight to the people. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess."

That was the kind of message -- directed at large numbers of voters disgruntled with the performance of Washington's political establishment and delivered in a plainspoken, unvarnished manner -- that helped Trump win the presidency against all odds.

But his manner is also likely to offend or alarm other voters and may do little to alleviate skepticism towards Trump among political elites in Washington. Trump in fact predicted how his animated and unorthodox news conference will be interpreted in the press.

"Tomorrow, they will say: 'Donald Trump rants and raves at the press,'" Trump said. "I'm not ranting and raving. I'm just telling you. You know, you're dishonest people. But -- but I'm not ranting and raving. I love this. I'm having a good time doing it."

Indeed, both the right-wing media defending Flynn, and multiple anecdotal accounts from those who witnessed the reaction of average-Joe conservatives to yesterday's stunt indicate the consensus is of the "Give 'em hell, Donald" variety.  This is what shaking up Washington looks like to them.  It's wearing out some of the establishment GOP, which could be a good thing.

"The people that love him will love him more, the people that hate him will hate him more and the people in the middle probably will look at it the way that we look at in Congress, which is that's just the new normal. That's just the s*** that happens. I don't know how else to manage it," said one Republican lawmaker after Trump's press conference. "We're just trying to manage this s***."

Good luck with that.  We'll wait to see how the new comms guy helps out, and maybe we won't be blowing Russian ships out of the water off the coast of Delaware after all.  Nuclear holocaust would be like no other, you know.  Trump's electoral college victory wasn't the largest since Reagan, and Hillary didn't give any uranium to the Russians, either.

Some of his greatest hits beyond "real leaks are fake news" -- do you remember when he declared he loved Wikileaks? -- included saying he did not ask Flynn to talk sanctions with Russia, but was glad Flynn did, even though he fired him for doing it.  Which is exactly as warped as it sounds.

Without his wife or young son in the White House as a calming influence, with none of the lickspittles around him willing or capable to tell him to tone down his asshole CEO act, and with Trump himself operating under the delusion that the president is not to be questioned or criticized about anything he says or does, it's obvious that his temperament isn't going to be improving any time soon.  So strap in, and hope Russia or North Korea or China don't decide now would be a great time to insert more chaos into his world.  Our world.