Sunday Funnies

The Chronic cans their best asset

Nick Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist at the Houston Chronicle, must update his resume' to 'formerly' at the Houston Chronicle.



Always the class act, here are his parting words:

I have an unfortunate announcement: Today is my last day at The Houston Chronicle. My position was eliminated. Much has been written about the reduction of staff editorial cartoonists at newspapers (along with print journalists in general) and today, the odds caught up with me. Ironically, thanks to social media, my cartoons are seen more widely than ever.

One cartoon I posted during the heat of the presidential election campaign last year was shared around 550,000 times on Facebook alone, and those were just the ones I could track. I was at a wedding in New York around that time. The woman sitting next to me asked me what I did for a living. I told her, and she said, "Oh, I saw your cartoon on Facebook today." She pulled out her phone and there it was. Thanks to the internet and social media, the reach of editorial cartoons has never been greater.

While the internet and social media help spread my work widely, they also have made it harder for anyone in the news business to make a living. I was able to drive significant traffic to my employer's web site at times, but not on the same scale as the Facebook traffic. And traffic alone isn't enough anymore. Newspapers are moving to a subscriber/paywall model. Unfortunately, the powers that be decided a full-time cartoonist was not going to be a part of that model.

I've had a good run, and I'm grateful to been a political cartoonist for so long. I've been extremely fortunate in my professional career. I really want to thank my readers for their encouragement, comments, and feedback. Even the insults and disagreements have been appreciated.

But you're not rid of me yet. I'm still syndicated with The Washington Post Writers Group. I’ll continue to draw 3 to 4 cartoons a week for the foreseeable future and, hopefully, for many years to come. Meanwhile, please feel free to let me know of any opportunities that you think would be a good fit, inside or outside of journalism.

One last note: I called our Human Resources department earlier this year to see about getting more vacation time -- be careful what you wish for...

As you may know, the Chronic is owned by Hearst, which long ago employed yours truly as an advertising executive.  I prepared budgets for three of their smaller newspapers at a time (mid- to late Eighties) when they were running profit margins between 30 and 40%.  Newspapers don't make that kind of money any more, but they don't lose money unless they're going head-to-head in a single market, which is how joint operating agreements came into being back in my day and before.  Even those legal and political machinations don't make enough cash for their corporate overlords any longer, and many of the weaker papers have died or gone paperless, like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which Hearst also owns).

The Chronic has laid off staff a few times over the past ten years, sold their downtown office for its high real estate value, watched costly talent like Ken Hoffman bail out for objecting to the paywall model, and now has eliminated the last reason for reading that newspaper.  Truly the best thing they had going, in their last-gasp quest to maintain what is probably only a 10 or 15% profit margin.  Their Austin/Lege coverage has face-planted, their DC bureau is invisible; it's like they've given up on reporting in exchange for photo slideshows on the free site.  I find it embarrassing to have watched the paper fall so far as the result of the decisions made by their consistently weak and excessively staffed management.  There's at least three times the number of managers that there was thirty years ago.  For what?  To do what?  Drive the business further into the ground?

Positively disgraceful.  My subscription has already been canceled.  Nick Anderson will be just fine, but the Houston Chronicle is sinking faster than Hillary Clinton's poll numbers on the day before Election Day.

Starring Sylvester Turner as Donald Trump

And several of the Democrats on city council as Republicans (you pick which ones) in Congress.

Karun Sreerama (l), Chris Oliver (r)

Houston's public works director will vacate his post temporarily following revelations that he made unlawful payments to a Houston Community College trustee now awaiting sentencing on a federal bribery charge.

Karun Sreerama paid $77,143 to longtime HCC trustee Chris Oliver in three installments between late 2010 and mid-2013, when Sreerama owned a private engineering firm. Federal authorities say Oliver was leveraging his power to influence the awarding of HCC business contracts.

Wait for it ...

Mayor Sylvester Turner said (on July 12) he was unaware of the criminal case or Sreerama's involvement prior to this week. Turner added that he spoke with the public works director during a "brief telephone call" before placing him on paid administrative leave.

"I am taking this action so that I may thoroughly review the information to make sure there are no further related implications for the city and him," Turner said in a written statement. "It is against everyone's best interest for a public servant to have to operate under a cloud."

The mayor, who is traveling in Europe on city business, added, "I continue to have confidence in Karun and look forward to his return."

Wait for it ...

City Council members widely praised the mayor's decision to place Sreerama on leave, but largely were reticent to say whether they thought he ought to remain as director of the city's largest department, with a $2.1 billion budget.

"At this time, I can't say one way or the other," said Councilman Larry Green, who chairs the council committee that reviews public works issues.

Wait ... for ... it ...

Over the years, Sreerama has been a prolific political donor, predominantly to Democrats, and was a key supporter of Turner's 2015 mayoral bid. His family contributed a combined $20,000 to Turner's runoff campaign. He also has contributed to the campaigns of seven of the 16 sitting council members: Green, Ellen Cohen, Amanda Edwards, Brenda Stardig (a Republican), David Robinson, Jack Christie (also a Republican), and Jerry Davis.

Oliver has been reprimanded (!!!) by his colleagues on the community college board, but further action such as removal from office awaits ... something more serious and external than his pleading guilty to felony bribery charges, I suppose.  Sentencing, perhaps?  Sreerama awaits Turner's return from Europe for additional judgement, if any.  The mayor pro tem doesn't think it's a big deal.

Cohen said she could see Sreerama resuming his leadership role with the city.

"As far as I'm concerned with the information I have to date, I believe that he's in a position, once everything is discussed, to continue to do a credible job," Cohen said.

No.  Just no.  Even Marc Campos gets it, and he can't find his asshole without using a mirror.  Oliver should have been gone long ago, and Sreerama should follow him right out the door, along with his firm being barred from receiving further municipal contracts for an extended period of time.

It's almost as if these people know they're not going to be standing for re-election for a long time -- if ever again -- and are grabbing all the money they can, with both hands, while the grabbing's good.

Now do you understand why Houston's Democrats strike me as the kind of thing we used to refer to as moderate Republicans?

Friday Scattershots: Beto's 2, Abbott's 34, and the special session

Normally I leave the fundraising reporting to those that groove on it.  But occasionally it's newsworthy, and this is one of those times.

-- Beto O'Rourke out-raised Ted Cruz, and he did it without PAC money, or big donors, or out-of-staters, like that Blue Dog loser Jon Ossoff.  He merits kudos from The Intercept for his Bernie Sanders-style fundraising, also his (finally) unqualified support for single payer.  Let's pick out just a little of Ryan Grim's piece for consideration.

He is far from the centrist mold that power brokers in Washington might recruit to run for Senate in Texas, but then again, power brokers in Washington don’t spend much time thinking about running for Senate in Texas.

But the way O’Rourke is raising money changes the game. The El Paso congressman does not have much in the way of a national fundraising network, has refused corporate PAC money, and is known among his colleagues to be a less-than-enthusiastic fundraiser. That’s the kind of lawmaker who often had little future in Washington — but exactly the kind many grassroots Democrats would like to see rise. The type of person who is good at spending hours a day with doctors, bankers, lawyers and other professionals who can write four and five-figure checks is a) probably not hard-wired to be a conviction politician and b) vulnerable to have their politics diluted just by virtue of the conversations they’re having day in and day out.

Former Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., said that spending so much time on the phone fundraising winds up creating “an enormous anti-populist element, particularly for Dems, who are most likely to be hearing from people who can write at least a $500 check. They may be liberal, quite liberal in fact, but are also more likely to consider the deficit a bigger crisis than the lack of jobs.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Greg Abbott announces for re-election today with gobs of money in the bank and no challengers.

His lips are ready to smooch the backsides of the big check-writers.

Despite criticism, Abbott remains a popular figure among Republicans statewide and has a campaign kitty that will be daunting to any potential challengers. He had more than $34 million in his campaign account in January, and that number is expected to grow when new fundraising totals are announced shortly.

Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that we're not going to be rid of Helen Wheels until he decides to run for president.  And since he can do so and remain governor after losing a White House bid, perhaps not even then.

If the special session does not go his way, will it damage him politically?  I think the opposite, candidly.  First, note that Texas is already losing commerce to other states for the first time in over a decade (that's at least two oil slumps ago, not counting the current one) and if he and Dan Patrick ram through the bathroom bill, that will hurt the state's reputation for a welcoming bidness climate even further.  But it is the capitalist titans inside and outside Texas that are going to have to make him pay the price for his governmental intrusion and over-reach into our private lives: in corporate or branch relocations reconsidered, in conventions and events like the Final Four canceled, and in their reduced, or embargoed, or eliminated campaign contributions to him.

To the GOP base, though, he'll be martyred on a toilet in a transgender-friendly restroom.  He'll have fended off the primary challenge from Lite Guv Goeb, and he'll have the Christian Soldiers marching onward as to war for him.  He wins by losing (if he loses, and Joe Straus has to be feeling pretty lonely these days).

-- Did the Russians try to hack Harris County's elections website?  Stan Stanart's IT guy isn't saying yes, isn't saying no.

Despite widespread alarm over the breadth of Russian cyber attacks on state and local election systems last year, including revelations of Dallas County being targeted, Harris County officials are refusing to say whether hackers similarly took aim at the nation's third-largest county.

Releasing information on whether Harris County election systems saw attacks from Russian hackers would threaten the county's cyber security by emboldening hackers to further target local systems, county officials said this week.

The county's argument was dismissed by experts, who said the secrecy is unnecessary, and could actually downplay the seriousness of the threat and the resources needed to combat it.

So ... 'don't ask, don't tell, maybe it will go away' seems to be the strategy.  This strikes me as pluperfect Stanart.  Did you know that a number of voters greater than one out of every four say they are considering not voting because of fears of the elections being hacked?

More than a quarter of recently polled registered voters say they will consider not casting ballots in future U.S. elections because of hacking concerns, with 27 percent saying they may stay home from the polls when the 2018 midterm elections roll around.

That number could mark a challenge during the midterms, with the possibility of as many as 58.8 million of the more than 200 million eligible voters choosing to stay home, according cybersecurity firm Carbon Black. The June survey of 5,000 people found a lower level of confidence in the overall voting process compared to data collected prior to most recent presidential election.

This is what Democratic paranoia hath wrought.  So in a perverse way, maybe Stanart's office is on to something.  We certainly don't need any more vote suppression efforts, especially not those borne out of Clinton Democrats' fever dreams.

There has been a lot of Moscow-on-the-Potomac to digest this week.  Maha has a good summary, including that McClatchy piece that Gadfly has already skewered.  But her lede is slightly buried.

To those who are certain the Trump/Russians stole the 2016 election, I would like to point out that if the Clinton campaign hadn’t been so brain dead, there would have been fewer vulnerabilities to exploit. Ultimately, it was Clinton’s election to lose, and she lost it. She might very well have lost it had the Russians done nothing at all. Historians will probably be arguing the point for the rest of eternity. But this is about something bigger than who won the election.

Yes it is.  More on that later.

-- I also have some thoughts coming on the dispute between Caitlyn Johnstone and Yoav Litvin (and some who have responded ahead of me) over the potential direction and alliances of the Green Party, specifically David Cobb's role in said, in the middle of it all.  BTW, the Greens' national meeting is happening right now in Newark, NJ.

So how about those Russians?

Toldja it would break open, and I toldja it wouldn't be about hacking the election.

Fake news alert: Neither Reagan nor Nixon are actually in Heaven.

Collusion is a pretty huge deal, as most of us know, but not if you're Sean Hannity or the millions of MAGAs who refuse to accept the truth being told elsewhere on teevee.  But the White House knew it was time for an intervention, so they called in the God Squad.

Such an honor to pray within the Oval Office for @POTUS & @VP . pic.twitter.com/JrDOSJyFeN

— Johnnie Moore ن (@JohnnieM) July 12, 2017

Evangelical leaders laid hands and prayed over President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, and discussed several policy issues, the Washington Post reports.

Pastors at the meeting told The Post that the group discussed issues such as religious freedom, judicial nominees, criminal justice reform and the Affordable Care Act. Vice President Pence and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also present at the prayer gathering.

The group included megachurch pastors Paula White of Florida and Mark Burns of South Carolina, former Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and three Southern Baptist pastors.

Presumably the laying of hands did not involve former Rep. Bachmann's nether region.  One question: if the pastors discuss judicial candidates with the president, then has the wall between church and state been torn down (to be shipped to the southern border)?

The laying of hands is a symbol of God's authority, practiced in many evangelical denominations. Jesus and his apostles used the sign throughout the New Testament to bless and heal people and to commission messengers of the gospel.

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne posted photos of the meeting on Facebook, and said he prayed for "supernatural wisdom, guidance and protection" for Trump. "Wow — we are going to see another great spiritual awakening," he said in the post.

Trump, who enjoyed wide support from evangelicals in the presidential election, is a self-described Presbyterian but does not attend church regularly. In January of 2016, Trump drew criticism from many evangelical Christians for his pronunciation of the Biblical book 2 Corinthians as "two Corinthians" instead of "Second Corinthians".

Trump in fact received more than 4 out of every 5 votes from white evangelical Christians, despite the pussy-grabbing and the Two Corinthians and all the rest of his failings as a Christian.  His religion, as practiced on Sundays, is the Church of Golf.  But his God is money.

This is going so bad so fast that Paddy Power has changed its odds of impeachment.

PaddyPower, an Ireland-based betting site, has seen more users placing bets on President Trump being impeached before the end of his first term, bringing the site's total odds of the President being shuffled out of the White House by 2021 up to 60%—the highest it’s ever been, according to company spokesperson Lee Price.

"[President Donald Trump] had gone quiet over the last month, and we were starting to wonder if he might have ridden out the initial controversies – but he’s back with a bang today,” Price wrote in an email to Fortune Wednesday.

Not only are PaddyPower bettors increasingly putting their money on Trump being impeached before his first term is over, but they are also betting on him being impeached as soon as this year, bringing those odds up to 33.3%. That's despite the fact that impeachment proceedings are usually lengthy.

"Everyone is betting on the 'yes' side of impeachment," Price said, saying hundreds of thousands of pounds had been placed on that bet.

This is your clue that the Euros gambling on this outcome have no idea what they are doing.  Use that conclusion as you like; I'm not giving any financial advice here. 

That said, PaddyPower is hardly a foolproof predictor. Another betting website called Predict-It sees just a 9% chance of Trump being impeached this year, down from the 30% chance it saw after then-FBI Director James Comey was fired in May.

So the euphoria of a potential windfall may be short lived for those PaddyPower bettors, most of whom are unlikely to be Americans. Although it's not just betting sites weighing Trump’s odds of impeachment since news of Trump Jr.'s Russia meeting.

"We believe the risk of impeachment proceedings is now higher than before," CitiBank’s Tina Fordham wrote in a note on Wednesday, though she added that impeachment is still unlikely. "It would be highly unusual and indeed likely politically costly to the party's electoral prospects to pursue impeachment proceedings against a president of their own party, particularly with Midterm elections a little over a year away."

Meanwhile, California Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman placed a different kind of bet when he filed an article of impeachment against President Trump Wednesday.

Trump won't be impeached by a Republican Congress.  Trump may be forced to resign at some point sooner than later, and the GOP would just be thrilled with Mike Pence.

I cannot BELIEVE I have to protest this Net Neutrality shit again

Whatever issues you are interested in depend on keeping the Internet free and open. ~ Lo

From Battle For The Net

July 12th: Internet-Wide Day Of Action To Save Net Neutrality

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?

Net neutrality is the basic principle that protects our free speech on the Internet. “Title II” of the Communications Act is what provides the legal foundation for net neutrality and prevents Internet Service Providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from slowing down, blocking, or charging websites an additional fee to reach their audience (which they would then be forced to pass along to consumers).

WHY IS NET NEUTRALITY IMPORTANT?

The Internet has thrived precisely because of net neutrality. It’s what makes it so vibrant and innovative—a place for creativity, free expression, and exchange of ideas. Without net neutrality, the Internet will become more like cable TV, where the content you see is what your provider puts in front of you.

FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has a plan to destroy net neutrality and give big companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T immense control over what we can see and do on the Internet, with the power to slow down or block websites, and charge others extra to reach an audience.

If we lose net neutrality, we could soon face an Internet where some of your favorite websites are forced into a slow lane online, while deep-pocketed companies who can afford expensive new “prioritization” fees have special fast lane access to Internet users – tilting the playing field in their favor.

On July 12th, the Internet will come together to stop them.  Blogs, websites, Internet users, and online communities will sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality.

Got any Democrats in mind for governor in 2018?

Because it sure doesn't seem like the Texas Democratic Party does.  The most recent post on the topic that Google returns for me (if you don't count the Castros' turndowns in May) is dated February 9 of this year -- five months ago -- and is a bit of rumor and off-the-record chat collected by the TexTrib about a private meeting at the end of the previous month.

In late January, a high-profile forum for candidates vying to be the next Democratic National Committee chair brought hordes of Democrats to Houston ready to plot the party’s national future. But for Texans in the party, the more consequential meeting may have occurred the day before in Austin.

A tight-knit group of Texas Democratic leaders traveled to the state capital that day to begin preliminary conversations about the 2018 midterm races.

According to over a dozen interviews with Texas Democratic insiders and national Democrats with ties to the state, the meeting included some of the party's most well-known figures from Texas including former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, his twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, Texas Democratic Party Finance Chairman Mike Collier, former state Sen. Wendy Davis, state Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and state Reps. Rafael Anchia of Dallas and Chris Turner of Grand Prairie.

Their main agenda: mapping out a strategy for the 2018 midterm elections.

You should already know what Collier and O'Rourke have decided to do.  It's highly doubtful Davis (who lives in Austin now) will make another bid for the Mansion, and Anchia and Turner have 'special session' on the brain.  Parker wants to run for Harris County Judge, but not if Ed Emmett is still there, and he's still going to be there in 2018.  Of these, perhaps Turner or Anchia will be so frustrated after the special and Abbott's heavy hand that they'll throw their hat in.  Some things haven't changed in the last six months, however.

The expectations in the room were not soaring but were cautiously hopeful. That optimism was mostly rooted around one person: President Donald Trump.

Uh huh.  Maybe Cliff Walker can find Betsy Johnson, clean off her combat boots, and keep the Greens from getting to 5% again.  (The GP already has to petition for ballot access next year, thanks to the two afore-mentioned in 2016.)  In similar vein, the two most vulnerable statewide Republican incumbents have also drawn no challengers to this point.

Party insiders are also coveting two other statewide offices: attorney general and agriculture commissioner. The two Republican incumbents, Ken Paxton and Sid Miller, respectively, have faced a series of political struggles that could complicate their re-election campaigns.

So here's my prediction: as in 2006, there will be a few populist figures with little to no experience in elective office step up; the party won't find any money or other support for them, and ... you can probably guess what will happen.  Then in December of 2018, as all eyes turn to the presidential tilt in two years, the chairman of the TDP will stand up at a meeting of the SDEC and say, "It was a tough year; we focused on a few targeted races".

The House Democratic campaign arm recently announced it was eyeing three GOP-held congressional districts: U.S. Rep. John Culberson's 7th District, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd's 23rd District and U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions' 32nd District. Only the appearance of Hurd's district on the list was unexpected.

Democrats did not spend money in either Culberson's or Sessions' districts in recent cycles, but presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's performance there in 2016 encouraged the party to take a second look.

Yeah, they're swarming into the primaries against Culberson and Sessions.  The money race is already being reported, and thank Jeebus James Cargas isn't winning that, either.

As for the statewide races?  I've seen this all before, and so have you.

Progressives (and Democrats) across Texas answer to the law

-- Facing the law (but not justice):  Shere Dore, Houston's foremost advocate for the homeless, was arrested on an outstanding warrant while she was on her way to a hearing for her felony charges of striking a HPD police horse.

Dore and her partner were driving to the Harris County courthouse for an appearance in the earlier case when officers pulled the pair over and arrested Dore for warrants stemming from a two-year-old speeding charge.

Local activists were quick to cry foul.

"Law enforcement agencies have decided to set Shere up for coming out against them with her activism and various allyship," said Ashton Woods of Black Lives Matter Houston.

"They were on their way to court - the officer was literally staked out waiting for them."

No local person in my memory has been subjected to more continuous, flagrant, and obvious police harassment than Dore.

The 41-year-old was taken to the Fort Bend County jail and held pending payment of her outstanding fees, prompting the Harris County court to revoke her bond when she failed to appear.

"It is interesting that this outstanding warrant did not come up when she was arrested in November of 2016 and more interesting that it would come up the morning of her court date," said Brian Harrison, who has represented her in the Harris County case, along with attorney Jolanda Jones.

It was not immediately clear which law enforcement agency pulled Dore over Thursday.

"I don't know why they were stopped on the morning of her court date, a date which I know a number of people thought was her trial date," Harrison said.

[...]

Local activists, supporters and friends rallied around the well-known advocate for the homeless, chipping in funds to secure Dore's release. But even once she pays the $1,083.10 owed in Fort Bend, she'll still be held until a Harris County judge can reinstate her bond, Harrison said.

The Harris County felony charge - interfering with a police service animal - stems from a spirited November march through downtown Houston.

During the nighttime protest two days after Trump's election, Dore was one of a handful of demonstrators arrested after the gathering spilled out into city streets.

As an officer on a police horse named Astro started to push Dore back onto the sidewalk, Dore allegedly hit the animal with a closed fist, a charge her lawyers have consistently denied.

"I want the world to know that our clients are absolutely innocent. They have a First Amendment right to protest," Jones said after a November court date.

"I think this is one of the first indications of what's going to happen with the new president."

I think it's a clearer indication of what's actually happening with our still-kinda-new police chief and our not so new but extraordinarily weak mayor, but whatever.  This is the kind of repercussion I was anticipating just last week (see the very last sentence).

-- A JP faces justice: the SCOTX suspended controversial (that's an understatement) Harris County Justice of the Peace Hilary Green for ... oh, let's just call it 'conduct unbecoming'.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday issued an order to suspend Harris County Justice of the Peace Hilary Green from office immediately based on allegations that she illegally abused prescription drugs, sent sexually explicit texts to a bailiff while on the bench and paid for sex.

The state supreme court had been asked to take the unusual emergency action by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which in May presented a 316-page document in support of an immediate suspension. That document summarized evidence it had collected in its own investigations of previously secret complaints made against Green from 2012 to 2015.

It's the first time any Texas judge has received a temporary suspension in at least a decade in a contested matter, the commission says.

The commission alleged that in its own closed proceedings, Green already had admitted to many allegations against her, including illegally obtaining prescription drugs and using marijuana and Ecstasy while she was presiding over low-level drug possession cases involving juveniles in her south Houston courtroom. As a justice of the peace for Harris County Precinct 7, Place 1, Green handles thousands of low-level criminal and civil matters a year, including traffic tickets and evictions.

So ends (let's hope) the saga of one of Houston and Harris County's most prominent black Democratic couples.  Their future as political players was once as as bright as the July sun.  Now they'll be lucky if they can avoid the big house themselves.

-- Facing down unjustice: US House candidate Derrick Crowe, a contender for the 2018 Democratic nomination in TX-21 (the incumbent is virulent climate change denialist Lamar Smith), got himself arrested outside John Cornyn's Austin office.

“Demonstrators waved signs, led chants and blocked the sidewalk in opposition to the Senate GOP plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, which would slash coverage for many and the taxes that help pay for it,” the Austin American-Statesman reported.

A coalition of local groups targeted Cornyn because he is a key sponsor of the unpopular Senate health care bill. Mr. Crowe was among a small group that chose to make an even bigger statement against the legislation.

“At about 12:20 p.m., a handful of us blocked the sidewalk,” Crowe explains in a post at Daily Kos. The act of civil disobedience was “a line in the sand against the attack on our families represented by this bill. Blocking pedestrian traffic resulted in our arrest.”

Crowe is one of a half-dozen Dems lining up to challenge Smith.  All across the state, Democrats smell opportunity amidst the overwhelming stench of fear hanging on GOP Congressional incumbents, who are running and hiding from their constituents like roaches when the lights come on.

In contrast to some of my more recent negative postings about their chances, maybe this fierce resistance (and certainly some effective organizing and a positive message) will translate into good news for a few of them.  To boil it down to one sentence: Trump can be neutralized with one chamber of Congress flipped in 2018, and turned out of office in 2020, but Democrats need to get their shit together fast.  And time's a-wastin'.

Update: Somehow I neglected to mention the federal conviction of Houston Community College Trustee Chris Oliver on felony bribery charges.  Oliver has been a candidate for city hall and also Harris County Democratic Party chair in the recent past, while still serving on the school board.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance would like to bottle and sell Angela Merkel's eyerolls as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff comments on the Justice Department's flipflop on voter ID.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks hurricane preparedness is so much more important than building a monument to racism. Today's white nationalist party, the GOP, disagrees.

SocraticGadfly moves from politics to scientific skepticism with an anniversary-based look at one of the most famous events in the UFO world.

The Russians tried to hack our election, and they may try again ... but given the effective suppression tactics of voter ID and partisan gerrymandering in Texas and throughout the country, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs asks: shouldn't Democrats be focusing on the voting challenges they can affect, as opposed to the one they can't?

jobsanger wonders if the media is being played by Trump's Tweetstorms.

The Lewisville Texan Journal was on the scene in McKinney, as Ted Cruz talked veterans' support but avoided questions about Trumpcare.

Texas Leftist took note of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner's abandonment of one of his core issues: removing the city's revenue cap.

Texas Vox decries Greg Abbott's rejection of clean air for Austin.

Neil at All People Have Value posted that freedom-loving Texans showed up at the office of wicked-doing Senator John Cornyn even on the Fourth of July. You can't take a holiday from the work freedom. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

More left-of-Texas news and blog posts!

The Austin American Statesman previews the legal challenge to the state's Congressional and statehouse maps, drawn by the GOP, as they go on trial in federal court this morning.

"Don't miss with Texas Pets" is the message sent in the law signed by Governor Abbott criminalizing the abuse of animals in the state, in a roundup of North Texas news posted at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's PoliTex.

Rivard Report has an early advance on the coming special legislative session.

Grits for Breakfast muses on the future of non-profit journalism.

RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog writes about the TXGOP's long winning streak and how it has created an entirely different set of problems than the more obvious ones posed to Texas Democrats.

The San Antonio Current reported on the state Commission on Environmental Quality's seeming ignorance of 97% of all polluting violations by oil and gas industry.  And Mark Collette at the Houston Chronicle explains how industry gets away with it.

Better Texas Blog runs the numbers on how Trumpcare would screw our state, Bonddad has a thought on Trump voters and the peasant mentality, and Therese Odell takes another dive into the Trump Twitter cesspool.

Saadia Faruqi explains why she wears a hijab.

And CultureMap Houston suggests four Hill Country places to get your grub on after you've floated the Guadalupe or the Comal.

Sunday Funnies

"I mean, have you seen the other guys?"

Shades of "We're not perfect, but they're nuts".

Dems are asking people to vote on a new sticker and I'm not sure anyone in history has been as bad at this. pic.twitter.com/isYaZV60Dp

— Mazel Tov Cocktail (@AdamSerwer) July 5, 2017

Again, gonna be as kind as I can about it.

Yes, national Democrats, I have seen the other guys. But being "not the other guys" isn't enough to wrest control of Washington away from them.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee became a bit of an internet laughingstock on Wednesday due to the circulation of some stickers with prospective 2018 midterm election slogans. One of them read "Democrats 2018: I mean, have you seen the other guys?" The "hey, we're not them!" message didn't go over super-well with plenty of pundits and tweeters, who noted that it packs a whole lot less punch and has a lot less loft than something like "Yes, we can."

Sure, it may have been only a silly sticker, not a party manifesto. But that someone over at DCCC headquarters felt secure enough to promote such a slogan publicly is also emblematic of a party that still hasn't figured out what it wants to be following a wholly unexpected loss to a reality television actor, after a campaign that was in large part premised on "hey, we're not that crazy Trump guy."

Plenty of others, mostly on Twitter, were meaner, so no need for me to pile on.  Oh, wait a minute ... yes there is.

(These pitiful slogans) are coming from the same organization that poured millions of dollars into Jon Ossoff’s failed congressional campaign and that has focused its recovery strategy on converting moderate Republicans. Since Barack Obama assumed office in 2009, the Democratic Party has lost nearly 1,100 seats in elected offices across the country to “the other guys.” Instead of stopping their losing streak with meaningful policies that would risk alienating their donors -- such as single-payer health care -- Democrats have obsessed about Donald Trump’s connection to Russia.

These slogans epitomize the current state of Democratic Party. None of the slogans address important issues or convey moral conviction. Rather, they expect their support base to “vote blue no matter who.” Democrats market themselves as better than Republicans, but they fail to address issues important to voters.

Right now, Democrats are the losing party, and leadership makes it increasingly more embarrassing to be affiliated with the party. It’s not a coincidence that Sen. Bernie Sanders -- an independent who won’t tarnish his name by affiliating with the party -- is the most popular politician in the country.  Americans (including Democratic Congressional candidates in red states like Texas) are increasingly identifying as independent, a symptom of their disenfranchisement from both political parties. Democrats fail to realize that trying to capitalize on hatred of the Republican party only creates more apathy. So far, Democrats have failed to develop a vision that resonates with voters and to sever ties with their corporate donors or widely unpopular leaders. Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tom Perez and Hillary Clinton -- all widely disliked -- are the current party spokespersons. All these aspects combined ensure Democrats will continue losing until they drastically change course.

Ouch.  A less harsh take on the state of play, from the US News link at the top.

As befits a national party that is a bit lost in the wilderness, Democrats are being pulled in several different directions at the moment: There's the so-called Sanders-Warren wing, so named because of Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who espouse an unapologetically progressive vision. There's the tech-bro wing attempting to use Silicon Valley-style thinking to "hack" the party for the internet age. And then there's the rump of Blue Dogs and mealy-mouthed centrists who believe that triangulating and being OK with bigotry is the only way to win back those disaffected white, working-class voters so famously wooed by now-President Donald Trump.

And a sunnier point of view from McClatchy, via Raw Story.

A trio of new political action committees — the People's House Project, Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats — are looking for ways to support candidates with economically progressive platforms and to challenge the party establishment, especially in Rust Belt states where President Donald Trump saw much unexpected success last November.

The activists aren't daunted by the odds.

"Democrats should be able to win in all these places," said Krystal Ball, founder of the People's House Project, which has endorsed its first candidate, Randy Bryce, an iron worker with an attention-getting advertising shtick who is running for House Speaker Paul Ryan's seat in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District.

And in Appalachia.

They've already begun gathering candidates, and they're not just going after Republicans.

Frustrated with increased poverty and poor working conditions in her home state of West Virginia, environmental activist Paula Jean Swearengin launched a campaign with the help of Brand New Congress to challenge centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in 2018.

"It's a disgrace as a coal miner's daughter that I have to beg for clean water and clean air for my children," she said. "He challenged us to primary him, so shame on Joe Manchin that a single mom of four is going after his seat."

Since launching her campaign in early May, Swearengin said she has raised $81,000 through small donations from more than 5,000 people.

While she said it's unlikely she could raise more donations than Manchin, who has the financial backing of the coal industry, Swearengin believes her progressive messaging could resonate with discouraged West Virginians.

Sanders won 51 percent of West Virginia's Democrats in last year's primary, easily defeating runner-up Hillary Clinton, who eight years before handily defeated then-Sen. Barack Obama in the state's Democratic primary.

In Texas, we have Libertarians who voted in the GOP primary in 2016 (read the comments) running as Democrats in places like TX-31 against incumbent John Carter.  Some people believe this is the only kind of Democrat that can get elected in Republican districts.  James Cargas, the CD-7 Democrat who supports fracking and still does not live in the district, has sold that line three consecutive times with no luck.  Annnnd he's back for a fourth go.

There remain plenty of twists and turns before November of 2018, but Democrats have a lot of work to do, and despite Charles' optimism about the locals, their compasses still aren't all pointing true north just yet.

Russians may be coming again ... but we've larger voting problems

Before we go to war with North Korea, before the unhinged Right starts killing CNN reporters, before acetamenophin destroys what's left of our empathy ...

When last we tuned in to RT while clicking on Sputnik News, we learned that our antagonists Boris and Natasha Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear (see here and here for the Wiki background) had been hard at work scaring the pants off moose and squirrel everybody from Jameses Comey and Clapper to your friendly neighborhood Dem precinct captain about what, precisely, they had been up to in the summer of 2016.  That is to say, beyond humiliating Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and the rest of the DNC hacks that got hacked.

We learned that they hacked into 39 states' voter databases -- or tried to, and succeeded in getting into perhaps just one, Illinois.  Alex Ward at Vox has it, with a link over to the original at Bloomberg, and previously and briefly referenced by yours truly in the second half of this aggrepost.

While this is indeed alarming, I still find voter suppression via photo ID and partisan gerrymandering to be greater threats to our republic.  Paper ballots with verifiable paper trails -- something like the Scantron-style electronic voting machines Denton County has just adopted -- would resolve the  Russian problem, but nothing short of a blue tsunami will fix the other two, and unless they can find something to run on besides "Trump is evil/Russia/Impeach",  2018 isn't going to be the cycle the Donkeys are looking for.

(*Ed note: let me pause here and acknowledge my friend Brad Friedman's lasting concerns about anything machine count-related.  Experts appear to disagree on the hackability, or at least the ease thereof, of scanned ballot counters.)

For the benefit of my conspiratorially-minded Democratic friends, let me point out -- as I have repeatedly in the past -- that the key to cracking the Russian code lies not in tracing election hacking attempts but in Trump's still-concealed tax returns.  Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Felix Sater, and the rest of that ilk are the threads special counsel Mueller should be -- and hopefully is -- pulling on.  And if Trump, or Jeff Sessions, or Devin Nunes, or any Republican in the administration or the Congress is found to be obstructing that investigation, then the walls will come tumbling down.

Focusing on the wrong Russiagate is starting to show up in polling as a loser for Democrats.  It's a winner for the corporate media and ratings, however, especially MSNBC.  Before Mika B's facelift became an atrocious but ultimately distracting Tweet -- even Tucker Carlson thinks so, by Jeebus -- Trump usually didn't give half of one solid shit about the other liberal media news channel; he's mobilized his base to destroy CNN, and now even Julian Assange is piling on.

I would like to also point out that the Democratic Party has bigger fish to fry than continuing to demonize Jill Stein, but I'm convinced that unhealthy obsession has become part of their DNA.

So with all that, plus 1) Kris Kobach, 2) a Texas Legislature poised to over-reach once more with a photo ID law that will require a couple of years for the courts to once again nullify, and 3) gerrymandered congressional and statehouse districts thanks to Tom DeLay almost fifteen years ago, as Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker reminded us in his comprehensive and compelling piece "America's Future is Texas"... why are you more worried about what Russian hackers may or may not be doing in the next election cycle?  Your vote barely counts for anything as it is.

On a more positive note, here's an easily attainable goal for those of us in Harris County: #FireStanStanart and replace him with Diane Trautman, and then push the mostly Republican county commissioners to approve and purchase paper ballots for 2020.  Because if Democrats can actually win some elections -- particularly this one -- in 2018, those GOPers will be forced to do so, due to the caterwauling from their base about Ill Eagles voting.

See how easy this is?  Just requires a little focus on the proper thing.