Tuesday, May 09, 2017

An open letter to Mayor Turner and the liberals on Houston City Council regarding the homeless ordinance

Time to ramp up the pressure a bit.

Feel free to use and send the text of my email below in time for today's city council session or write your own.  It was addressed to Mayor Turner and CMs Robinson, Edwards, Boykins, Cohen, Davis, Cisneros, Gallegos, Laster, and Green.  I do not believe any of the Republicans are redeemable on this issue, and won't waste my time contacting them.  The ten people above, the so-called liberals on Houston's council, could take the action I demand without any support from the conservative faction anyway.  It's in their hands.

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am aware that the city ordinance which criminalizes homeless encampment goes into effect this Friday, May 12.  At the time Council unanimously passed this ordinance a few weeks ago, I found myself stunned at the callous, inhumane action of the liberals, led by Mayor Turner, joining the worst of the conservatives in this vote.

I STRONGLY OPPOSE this ordinance. Government cuts to HUD and a lack of existing affordable housing in a Houston market once more on the speculative rise due to a strengthening oil economy leaves those most vulnerable at greatest risk of finding themselves on the street.  Additionally, the glaring, unreformed Harris County bail bond program that has created debtor's prisons of our jails must be resolved before this ordinance adds to a incarcerated population with little hope of being released for their victimless "crimes".

This ordinance is likely unconstitutional, and a court challenge is inevitable.  It is abjectly foolish, as Republicans in Austin and in Washington DC have repeatedly demonstrated, to be on the wrong side of the history of social justice.  Why you would wish to stand with them is frankly beyond my comprehension.
The ordinance criminalizes our city's homeless for merely trying to survive.  Houston will not be able to implement quick or long-term solutions, especially after the homeless coalition had announced that the plan to house 500 homeless by September will not be met.  This is the farthest thing from a holistic definition of "meaningful change", an Orwellian hashtag if ever there was one.

As a voter and taxpayer, I strongly urge YOU to postpone the enforcement date of May 12th until you and other stakeholders can move forward with a better plan.  You should respectfully reconsider your action and pause the implementation of this cruel ordinance until such time as you have have arranged a truly workable solution, and not just given lip service and hashtags to one.

Regards,

Perry Dorrell

P.S.  I found it extremely inappropriate for the Mayor to have visited the environmental rally at the end of last month and say to a volunteer there that "y'all are pimping the cause" of homelessness in Houston.  That warrants a retraction and an apology, and those of you who are Council members to whom this letter is addressed should be the first ones to demand it of the Mayor.

This meme speaks for me as well:


Update: In response, the mayor had his stooges in the media roll out "aggressive panhandling", "Meaningful Change Not Spare Change", and "drug users" (thanks, Constable Alan Rosen).  All of which is just more of the same shitty stigmatizing of the poor.


What would Jesus do, indeed.  Not only wouldn't He do that, he wouldn't find a middle man to handle charitable donations for the homeless who was also a registered sex offender.

Word from today's council hearing is that still nobody on council is listening or responding.  My email inbox can confirm the same.  The heat is just going to have to get hotter, I suppose.

Monday, May 08, 2017

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's lefty blog post roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance thinks lacking human decency should be considered a pre-existing condition.


Off the Kuff took a look at the already-crowded field vying to knock off Rep. John Culberson.

Easter Lemming recapped the disappointing Pasadena election, and the the Lewisville Texan Journal also has posted results for elections held there over the weekend.

SocraticGadfly snuck into FBI Director James Comey's Senate testimony hearing and found out the 10 real takeaways.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme noted that Texas Republicans are just as greedy and mean spirited as ever. Insurance industry over consumers and papers please for profiled people.

Dos Centavos saw Greg Abbott's signing of the anti-sanctuary legislation as an outlawing of brown skin.  And on Cinco de Mayo, John Coby at Bay Area Houston issued a call to arms (to the polls).

Texas Leftist decried the passage of Trumpcare by the US House, and Ted at jobsanger sees racism as the cause for the GOP abandoning their own plan.

Texas Vox advanced the state's solar energy conference to be held in Austin in June, as energy entrepreneurs throughout the state will convene and network.

On Star Wars Day (May the Fourth) the Empire struck back, observed PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value attended May Day protests in Houston that called for fair wages for all. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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The Rivard Report takes a look at the San Antonio mayor's election, where a runoff between incumbent Ivy Taylor and city council member Ron Nirenberg will determine the winner.

From KERA, allegations of voter fraud have delayed the election results of a city council seat in west Dallas, with a runoff likely.  And All Ablog Austin has the final poll numbers from the Central Texas counties of Travis, Williamson, Hays, and Bastrop.

Equality Texas has the call to action on some of the more hateful legislation on tap this week from the Lege, including HB 3859, a bill that would allow child welfare organizations, agencies, employees, and foster parents that contract with the state to discriminate against LGBTQ families and others when making foster care and adoption decisions.

Texas Watch marks the passage of the House version of the Blue Tarp Bill, with the Senate still to vote on its own, and Grits for Breakfast rounds up a few of the police accountability bills that are bottled up in the Lege.

Via the Texas Tribune and the Austin American Statesman, the Texas House passed two other noteworthy bills: eliminating the governor's right to appoint his donors to state posts, and doing away with the straight-party ticket voting button.

RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog documents the trend toward partisan local elections (which used to be much more non-partisan).

Texas has experienced an alarming spike in pedestrian deaths throughout the state, with drunk or distracted walking blamed as the cause, reports CultureMap Houston.

Somervell County Salon ruminates for the easily amused about the demise of net neutrality, and Pages of Victory excerpts from a recent article wondering why, in the face of such repeated and terrible Republican action, the Democrats keep losing to them.

Friday, May 05, 2017

On Star Wars Day, The Empire struck back

May the Fourth was with somebody but not those of us with pre-existing conditions.


After US House Republicans finally -- barely -- repealed Obamacare, they celebrated with a beer bust.  Hope they got a cut rate on their Bud Lite.  Maybe Keystone Light would have been cheaper, added a little more to the symbolism?

It's not over; the Senate (to hear them tell it) is basically planning on ripping the House bill up and starting over.  That might be good news, it might be bullshit.  Don't mistake Lindsey Graham for the last of the Jedi, despite his skepticism.

“Any bill that has been posted less than 24 hours, going to be debated three or four hours, not scored? Needs to be viewed with suspicion.”

Bernie Sanders thanked Trump for supporting Medicare for All -- something Texas Congressman and still lone 2018 US Senate candidate Beto O'Rouke has yet to express publicly, despite his recent fundraising emails declaring healthcare is a human right -- and promised to quote President Cheetolini on the floor of the upper chamber as the AHCA gets its sausage repacked into something perhaps more edible.

In Austin, The Empire struck back a day early, passing Arizona-style "papers please" legislation (SB4, the anti-sanctuary bill) despite the copious tears of internet sensation Gene Wu and others.  The most cogent analysis came from RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog, who stated simply that the Lone Star business lobby, unable to focus on more than one battle at a time, caved on immigrants rights in exchange for fighting what we still hope will be a winning one on the bathroom bill.


I don't agree, by the way, that the Texas House did the same.  Joe Straus telegraphed anti-sanctuary legislation early in this session,  and the electoral facts are that no Republican who voted against SB4 could be reasonably expected to withstand a primary challenge from his or her right in 2018, and that would produce a Balkanized lower chamber in 2019 looking much like a Senate led by Lav Lord Patrick, which is to say some more conservative Speaker than Straus.  This acknowledges another political reality: Texas Democrats will continue to lose just as hard as always.

There's a long court battle ahead (and it will begin right away) on immigrants rights, and Texas may come out less favorably at the end of it than did Arizona given the Fifth Circuit and Justice Gorsuch and all, but at least there's some precedent that gives hope.   Don't count on any help from Sith Apprentice Sessions at the DOJ.

The good news out of the Lege this week is limited: you probably won't have to get your car inspected any longer, and you might get to smoke a little weed if the doctor says you're sick enough.

So the Resistance/Rebellion needs more heroes, maybe younglings stepping up next year.  Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo anyway, parade or happy hour or no.

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Starring Sylvester Turner as Stepin Fetchit


It is a very unfortunate thing to have to point out, especially coming from an old white guy speaking about a black man, a prominent Houston politician who grew up in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, who served that district with distinction in the state legislature (if not always to its best interests) and now serves as the fourth largest American city's mayor, a post he has desired for more than twenty years.

Nevertheless, truths are inconvenient, and this is one.  Turner is not the stereotypical character of Vaudeville and 1930's film fame but their careers share remarkable similarities.  Both men are -- were, in Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry's case -- just playing roles dictated by society's circumstances in exchange for money, power, and influence.  Turner in fact might be more accurately described of late as a House Negro or an Uncle Tom, although he is in full command of the house on Bagby and as such has considerably greater influence over the course of events.  But that leadership, more accurately his hypocrisy on the definition of 'progressive', an issue longtime readers know chafes the hell out of me, is causing a little trouble in Bayou City, and it starts with an 'O' and it sorta rhymes with "homeless".  There's also a 'p' for 'panhandling', the most harsh and dehumanizing label that can be applied to the least among us in this regard, but we'll circle back to that in a moment.

Before addressing the ordinance that criminalized homelessness in Houston, advanced by Turner and one of the most conservative members of Council -- I teased it at the top of this post last week -- let's note what has happened since then: attorneys Eric Dick and Randall Kallinen have filed suit against the city on behalf of Phillip Paul Bryant, whose complaint is that the ordinance violates the expression of his religious beliefs.  And Mayor Turner made an appearance at the "Food Not Bombs" weekly feeding of homeless persons at their downtown location last Sunday evening spoke at Houston's rally for the climate at the end of April where he was confronted by a Food Not Bombs volunteer and allegedly retorted: "y'all are parading and pimping the cause" of caring for the homeless.

The mayor's press office, contacted for a response about this phrase, neither confirmed or denied that Turner used those words as of post time.  They did start the pushback early, after I scratched on several members of the mayor's staff for a response on the record.  (Turner was in Philadelphia yesterday for meetings; if his office responds regarding the comment specifically and not with more spin, I'll update here or post fresh.)

It's hard for me to understand why the mayor and all the Democrats on Council would join the Republicans in making poverty a crime -- who is the victim of this crime? -- but some Democrats are scared of panhandlers, so there is obviously that.  Public sentiment runs strongly against homeless congregants, at least according to my neighbors on Next Door, so there's that as well.  Seems to be little question that cracking down on poor people is popular.

But it's more difficult for me to get to the mayor's mindset on this 'pimping the cause', because ... what does anyone have to gain by feeding the homeless that corresponds with the definition of the word 'pimping'?  Does Turner believe there's money, or Doorknob forbid, sexual favors to be had in organizing to share food with poor folks?  Doubtful he believes this.

Let's give our mayor the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is not a full-blown sociopath or psychopath in regard to these continuing efforts to drive the homeless out of town.  His ordinance makes no provisions for where the folks being shoved out from under the overpasses might go; so far, just some friendly chats with non-profits about maybe stepping up their game a bit.  And hey, that's working; he claims two or three people he's gotten off the streets in the last week or so.  Just a few thousand to go.

Honestly, I feel he's just a little overly concerned about holding onto his job, particularly in a year when municipal elections are unlikely to be held, and he's following the lead and using the tactics of the neoliberals who were elected before him to do so.

Turner has paid some heavy dues -- no pun -- in saving the city's budget from the "awful" pension deal for policemen and firefighters that has long threatened Houston's financial future, a problem negotiated by his predecessors long ago which, like so many other municipal retirement obligations across the country, became unfunded liabilities due to the GOP's relentless efforts to drown government in the bathtub via tax cuts.  But Houston's dilemma was most certainly a steel can kicked down the road and smacked into his head by Bill White and Annise Parker, two more of the most conservative, corporate Democrats you can find anywhere.

Turner is smart enough to see a successful model for re-election, and in this town you can talk like a Democrat but you better act like a Republican.  He didn't just barely defeat Bill King because he was a progressive, after all.

And Turner has talked a good game while playing a hard and winning one: he browbeat the Lege into passing his reforms after threatening to lay off thousands of police and firemen, which made obstinate jackass Paul Bettencourt fold like a cheap card table.  Some pretty strong jiu-jitzu; stoking fear of increased crime rates goes straight to the GOP lizard brain.  Let's tip our hat to him on that.  But in the long run, HPD and HFD will go into retirement with much less security because nobody in charge has dared to suggest increasing taxes to pay for unfunded mandates, a reality for a long time now.  Democrats have gotten rolled on that one for decades, not just in Houston and not just public employees but teachers and those of us in the private sector as well.  (How's your 401K been doing over the past twenty or so years compared to your dad and granddad's pension?  A little too much wave in the gravy?  Too rough a ride on the old stock market roller coaster?  Ready to have Wall Street take over Social Security?)

Turner showed up at the Climate March on Saturday and made another speech emphasizing unity and inclusion.  He's fought hard for sanctuary for DREAMers and the undocumented against the Austin Republicans and the Trump Deportation SS, aka the Texas DPS.  He's big on holding the fort for the LGBT community, and they'll once again be strongly behind him whenever he next stands for re-election.  Those people are well-organized, after all, and the Latino bloc remains the so-called sleeping giant in electoral politics.

Not so much the homeless.  Hard to have a photo ID if you don't have an address.  Trying to figure out where your next meal might be coming from is a little more important than voting in the HISD recapture election wrapping up, after all.  And if we don't have any city elections this year ....well, there goes some accountability for Democrats to act like they care about working people, non-working people, and those less fortunate than that, and to be more concerned with little girls who live in the Heights who want their sidewalks fixed, or the moderate Republicans in River Oaks and Tanglewilde Tanglewood (thanks for this correction to DBC in the comments, also with his take) who despise seeing those dirty people holding signs begging for money at the intersection.  And who write fat checks to politicos.

It's probably not Turner being a sick dude with some deep animosity for the poverty-stricken; he just wants to stay in that nice office downtown, with the limo and the bodyguards and all the other trappings of power and influence.  And he needs a lot of corporate cash from the upper crust in H-Town -- the actual sociopaths, in other words -- to do so.  He's completely lost me, however, just like every other Democrat who conducts themselves in this fashion.  This losing touch with their roots and their base seems to be why Democrats in general are failing, but as former CD-7 candidate Jim Henley noted in a FB post about Obama cashing in post-presidency, there remain a lot of very dense Donkeys unable to see the problem.  So they make excuses, or go lower by playing the race card.

I expect this post will draw some of that vitriol as well.  I'm braced.

Sylvester Turner is not Stepin Fetchit, so I sure wish he would stop acting like him.

Monday, May 01, 2017

The May Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance participated in the Climate March this weekend and fully supports the cause of workers across the world on May Day.  ('Loyalty Day' can suck ass.)


Off the Kuff takes a very early look at potential Congressional races for 2018.

SocraticGadfly offers his reflections on the career and trial of "Our Man Downtown," John Wiley Price.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that Republican hatred of democracy and people marches on in Texas.

Democrats keep looking for excuses to kick people out from under their tent, and the evidence was everywhere PDiddie at Brains and Eggs looked over the past couple of weeks. There aren't enough Marches, Resistances, and Revolutions to overcome so much squabbling, backbiting, and infighting.  In similar vein, Captain Kroc at McBlogger wants to see the two factions battle it out.

jobsanger cites the Economic Policy Institute in detailing the damage Trump has already done to workers in his first 100 days.

MOMocrats writes about Trump's hundred days in terms of the end of Obama Nation. (This is NOT a play on words.)

The Lewisville Texan Journal posts an op-ed from The Mom of No about the low bar she set -- and barely cleared -- for Easter.

And Txsharon at Bluedaze tells a true fracking story in eight lines of poetry.

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The publisher of the Austin Monitor, Michael Kanin, has been named the new publisher of the Texas Observer.  Congratulations!


Jonathan Tilove at First Reading wraps up his coverage of Alex Jones' child custody suit by noting the post-trial press conference where Jones berated the media, Trump-style.

DBC Green Blog was a little disappointed in the Climate March but has greater expectations for today's May Day rallies.

Scott Braddock reports on the school voucher astroturfing story.

Robert Rivard makes a case for changing the timing and frequency of San Antonio's elections.

Michael Li rounds up and summarizes the remaining disputes over the Texas Congressional map.

Therese Odell recoils in horror from the transcript of the AP interview with Trump.

Sandra Thompson follows the money that is opposed to bail reform.

Former Rep. Scott Hochberg explains why he is voting Yes on the HISD recapture referendum.

Somervell County Salon has a good laugh with Stephen Colbert about the red button on Trump's desk that summons a butler bringing a Coke.

Ty Clevenger at Lawflog sees the Booger (Robertson) County Mafia growing nervous again.

And Right Wing Watch documented US Rep. Randy Weber's tearful apology to God (sic) for the American sins of pregnancy termination, prayer in public schools, and marriage equality ... but not slavery, or the atrocities inflicted on First People, or even the excesses of corporate greed or war.  What a f'n guy.