Sunday, April 15, 2018
Monday, April 09, 2018
The Weekly Wrangle
The Texas Progressive Alliance will pay for Ted Cruz's DNA test ... that is, if he is willing to undergo one. His response to the Austin woman who inquired if he would appears to be 'no comment' ...
The exchange went viral; even Ted Rall got in on the action.
More from around the left of Texas coming your way!
Eric Bradner at CNN's recent account of the Texas Seventh Congressional runoff leads with the observation that Democrats across the country are paying close attention. Brains and Eggs posted the latest on CD-7 (anecdotally; with a wish that he might be mistaken) and the special election for the vacancy on Houston City Council, District K (and a caution for the next representative).
Disgraced Congressman Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned late last Friday afternoon, but still has not refunded taxpayers the $84,000 he used to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit from his former communications director. Patrick Svitek at the TexTrib notes that scheduling a special election to replace him has a few considerations for Greg Abbott.
Meanwhile, Svitek took note of Speaker Paul Ryan dragging his purse through Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi, collecting four million bucks for Team Ryan's PAC, and the Trib's Abby Livingston saw the GOP runoff for Farenthold's seat tightening. (The Democrats in CD-27's May 22 runoff are Eric Holguin and Raul 'Roy' Barrera.)
Off the Kuff noted that Texas lost another federal lawsuit about voting rights.
Socratic Gadfly, seeing the latest anti-Palestinian violence by Israelis, looks at myth vs. reality in a major piece of Jewish history.
Jef Rouner writes in the Houston Press about the urgent need white men have for gun control.
The Lewisville Texan Journal covered the announcement that the city, together with Farmer's Branch, Carrollton, and the waste disposal company Republic Services, have agreed to combine two landfills into one giant 832-acre garbage dump spanning the Elm Fork of the Trinity River.
The Texas Standard talks to Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who doesn't think Trump's tariffs are a big deal for Texas farmers, but does think that restricting H-2A and H-2B visas (for foreign workers, ag and non-ag) are.
*Cheerleader Alert* After more than a generation of one-party dominance, it’s tough for any Texas Democrat to predict what a winning statewide campaign would actually look like. But if Texas Leftist had to take guess, it would come pretty close to the Beto O’Rourke campaign thus far. After a massive fundraising haul, Beto is showing that he means business in this race. And speaking of winning, more great news for Texas’ classical music community as the Houston Chamber Choir receives a very prestigious national honor. /pom poms
Stace at Dos Centavos writes about Tex-Mex Grammy winners Los Texmaniacs' new album, Cruzando Borders, which will touch on border and Mexican American themes. It's quite timely during this era of Trumpismo.
Stan Spinner, Lindy McGee, and Julie Boom in the Texas Tribune's TribTalk urge Texans to not politicize vaccinations, Better Texas Blog explains why a property-tax-for-sales-tax swap is a bad idea, and Deborah Beck at the Rivard Report urges elected leaders to have in-person meetings with their constituents.
Elise Hu remembers her first mentor and his warning about Sinclair Broadcasting, and Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher grapples with the politics of Roseanne.
Neil at All People Have Value attended, as he does each week, the John Cornyn Houston office protest. In other Captain Obvious blog posts, Ted at jobsanger has some monochromatic polling bars that reveal (!) that blacks and whites differ sharply on issues of race.
And Harry Hamid, a blind priest, and a first-year medical student have a free-wheeling discussion/argument out in the front yard.
The exchange went viral; even Ted Rall got in on the action.
Eric Bradner at CNN's recent account of the Texas Seventh Congressional runoff leads with the observation that Democrats across the country are paying close attention. Brains and Eggs posted the latest on CD-7 (anecdotally; with a wish that he might be mistaken) and the special election for the vacancy on Houston City Council, District K (and a caution for the next representative).
Disgraced Congressman Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned late last Friday afternoon, but still has not refunded taxpayers the $84,000 he used to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit from his former communications director. Patrick Svitek at the TexTrib notes that scheduling a special election to replace him has a few considerations for Greg Abbott.
On one hand, a pre-Nov. 6 special could turn #TX27 into something of a national spectacle with Dems energized. On the other hand, a bit hard to argue Coastal Bend doesn't need representation ASAP, post-#Harvey. https://t.co/U8k3w1LGHu— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) April 6, 2018
Meanwhile, Svitek took note of Speaker Paul Ryan dragging his purse through Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi, collecting four million bucks for Team Ryan's PAC, and the Trib's Abby Livingston saw the GOP runoff for Farenthold's seat tightening. (The Democrats in CD-27's May 22 runoff are Eric Holguin and Raul 'Roy' Barrera.)
Off the Kuff noted that Texas lost another federal lawsuit about voting rights.
Socratic Gadfly, seeing the latest anti-Palestinian violence by Israelis, looks at myth vs. reality in a major piece of Jewish history.
Jef Rouner writes in the Houston Press about the urgent need white men have for gun control.
The Population Research Bureau found that white men over the age of 65 are almost three times more likely to die by their own hands as the general population. Middle aged white people, both men and women, are seeing increased mortality rates even as other groups are seeing down turns. Suicides are becoming more common, especially in men in this group, as are substance abuse problems, which a lecturer joked to me recently was “suicide on the installment plan.”
Coinciding with this rise of suicides in aging white male populations is the increase in gun buying. Men on average possess twice as many guns as women, and whites statistically outnumber all other ethnicities in America. The reasons behind both rising gun ownership and dangerous levels of despair in white men go hand in hand; economic anxiety, a feeling of lost power and agency, and fear of a country experiencing great demographical change. Guns and white men blues are making for a fatal cocktail that thousands of Americans are slamming down every year with horrific results.
White men desperately need gun control right now, and they can’t get it because the movers and shakers in the pro-gun debate have successfully overshadowed the idea of safety with oppression and disarmament. Meanwhile, gun manufacturers and pop media continue to market the gun as a virility-enhancing problem-solver, and white men in distress are eating it up.
The Lewisville Texan Journal covered the announcement that the city, together with Farmer's Branch, Carrollton, and the waste disposal company Republic Services, have agreed to combine two landfills into one giant 832-acre garbage dump spanning the Elm Fork of the Trinity River.
The Texas Standard talks to Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who doesn't think Trump's tariffs are a big deal for Texas farmers, but does think that restricting H-2A and H-2B visas (for foreign workers, ag and non-ag) are.
*Cheerleader Alert* After more than a generation of one-party dominance, it’s tough for any Texas Democrat to predict what a winning statewide campaign would actually look like. But if Texas Leftist had to take guess, it would come pretty close to the Beto O’Rourke campaign thus far. After a massive fundraising haul, Beto is showing that he means business in this race. And speaking of winning, more great news for Texas’ classical music community as the Houston Chamber Choir receives a very prestigious national honor. /pom poms
Stace at Dos Centavos writes about Tex-Mex Grammy winners Los Texmaniacs' new album, Cruzando Borders, which will touch on border and Mexican American themes. It's quite timely during this era of Trumpismo.
Stan Spinner, Lindy McGee, and Julie Boom in the Texas Tribune's TribTalk urge Texans to not politicize vaccinations, Better Texas Blog explains why a property-tax-for-sales-tax swap is a bad idea, and Deborah Beck at the Rivard Report urges elected leaders to have in-person meetings with their constituents.
Elise Hu remembers her first mentor and his warning about Sinclair Broadcasting, and Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher grapples with the politics of Roseanne.
Neil at All People Have Value attended, as he does each week, the John Cornyn Houston office protest. In other Captain Obvious blog posts, Ted at jobsanger has some monochromatic polling bars that reveal (!) that blacks and whites differ sharply on issues of race.
And Harry Hamid, a blind priest, and a first-year medical student have a free-wheeling discussion/argument out in the front yard.
Sunday, April 08, 2018
Sunday Funnies
I for one will not welcome our new robotic overlords. To update the call to arms for the working class: "Seize the means of automation!"
Tuesday, April 03, 2018
The latest on CD-7 and District K
-- Yesterday, in the midst of Monday afternoon business, a knock came at the door, and the wife, working from home and stricken with an upper respiratory infection, yelled out a salutation. It was a blockwalker for Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, who as it happens also had the first mailer in the #TX07 runoff between she and Laura Moser drop in our box later that same day.
After the visitor identified himself and Mrs. Diddie declared our support for Moser, the caller asked (if he could ask) why. My wife said, "because Fletcher is too corporate".
That evening, as I retrieved said advertising piece and the rest of the post from the mailbox, I noticed that the neighbor two doors down had a 'Lizzie' yard sign out in front. This neighbor had not previously committed last month to a candidate lawnwise, so this was a conversion of sorts for Team Fletch. It also marks the strategy for the March 7 front-runner: go into your opponent's area of strength, and do so strong.
Ours is a working-class neighborhood adjacent to Meyerland. I haven't bothered to check the precinct tallies but my guess is that Moser did well in my part of town (her grandmother was the first female director of the city's Jewish community center, and the daughter of a rabbi from Congregation Adath Emeth, now part of the United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, a nearby branch of which was recently forced to close and be demolished after repetitive flooding; another Harvey victim). Ms. Pannill Fletcher is really more of a West University/Bellaire/Memorial kind of Democrat, with her law pedigree and slightly more conservative POV.
This is a long way of saying that if I had to place my wager today, I would bet that LPF is likely to prevail in the runoff on May 22. Team Moser: your work is cut out for you.
-- It turns out to be more than the normal crying shame that Houston City Council member Larry Green died prematurely ... because he died of a drug overdose. His drug usage was perhaps something more than the usual recreational, too. This development stains his glowing posthumous reputation and plays to a regrettable stereotype. As with the resignation of JP Hilary Green -- the lurid drug and sex stories that came out a year ago about her, about her acrimonious divorce with ex-husband and former city comptroller Ronald Green -- and combined with the accusations and charges against Lege members Ron Reynolds and Borris Miles, Houston black Democrats are now compelled to make certain they get CM Green's replacement (and Judge Green's, whenever that occurs, by a vote of precinct chairs in Harris County) correct.
This new elected official must prove worthy of carrying a heavier burden to hold himself, or herself, far beyond any reproach.
To that end, the special election for the vacant District K seat -- a .pdf map can be seen here -- to be held on Saturday, May 5, with an abbreviated early voting period beginning April 23 through May 1, has nine contenders. Of those I would surmise that Larry Blackmon, Pat Frazier, and Martha Castex-Tatum would be the three with the highest name recognition, the campaigns making the strongest effort, and the most likely of two to move on to a runoff. I'll be following Ashton Woods' lead here, and unless I hear differently from him I will take it that he is supporting Castex-Tatum.
After the visitor identified himself and Mrs. Diddie declared our support for Moser, the caller asked (if he could ask) why. My wife said, "because Fletcher is too corporate".
That evening, as I retrieved said advertising piece and the rest of the post from the mailbox, I noticed that the neighbor two doors down had a 'Lizzie' yard sign out in front. This neighbor had not previously committed last month to a candidate lawnwise, so this was a conversion of sorts for Team Fletch. It also marks the strategy for the March 7 front-runner: go into your opponent's area of strength, and do so strong.
Ours is a working-class neighborhood adjacent to Meyerland. I haven't bothered to check the precinct tallies but my guess is that Moser did well in my part of town (her grandmother was the first female director of the city's Jewish community center, and the daughter of a rabbi from Congregation Adath Emeth, now part of the United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, a nearby branch of which was recently forced to close and be demolished after repetitive flooding; another Harvey victim). Ms. Pannill Fletcher is really more of a West University/Bellaire/Memorial kind of Democrat, with her law pedigree and slightly more conservative POV.
This is a long way of saying that if I had to place my wager today, I would bet that LPF is likely to prevail in the runoff on May 22. Team Moser: your work is cut out for you.
-- It turns out to be more than the normal crying shame that Houston City Council member Larry Green died prematurely ... because he died of a drug overdose. His drug usage was perhaps something more than the usual recreational, too. This development stains his glowing posthumous reputation and plays to a regrettable stereotype. As with the resignation of JP Hilary Green -- the lurid drug and sex stories that came out a year ago about her, about her acrimonious divorce with ex-husband and former city comptroller Ronald Green -- and combined with the accusations and charges against Lege members Ron Reynolds and Borris Miles, Houston black Democrats are now compelled to make certain they get CM Green's replacement (and Judge Green's, whenever that occurs, by a vote of precinct chairs in Harris County) correct.
This new elected official must prove worthy of carrying a heavier burden to hold himself, or herself, far beyond any reproach.
To that end, the special election for the vacant District K seat -- a .pdf map can be seen here -- to be held on Saturday, May 5, with an abbreviated early voting period beginning April 23 through May 1, has nine contenders. Of those I would surmise that Larry Blackmon, Pat Frazier, and Martha Castex-Tatum would be the three with the highest name recognition, the campaigns making the strongest effort, and the most likely of two to move on to a runoff. I'll be following Ashton Woods' lead here, and unless I hear differently from him I will take it that he is supporting Castex-Tatum.
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