Wednesday Anarchist Cartoon

(It's gonna be mostly toons around here until the lateral epicondylitis subsides.)

Thanks to Lane Milburn, hat tip Vice)

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance won't be watching tonight's "Trump: The Supreme Court Justice" reality teevee show, but will be Tweeting and blogging about it in the days and weeks to come.

Here's the lefty blog post and news from around the Lone Star State.

Listicles were popular this week past; Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer has five reasons why Ken Paxton is the luckiest son of a bitch politician in the state.

5. Straight-ticket voting is here to clean up Paxton's mess.

According to the Texas Tribune's latest polling, Paxton faces the toughest race of any Texas Republican, leading challenger Justin Nelson by just one point, 32-31. Paxton's advantage is likely larger than that, however, because Texas still has straight-ticket voting for the 2018 election.

Incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott leads Lupe Valdez by 12 points in the same poll, so about a quarter of those voting for Abbott would have to split their tickets and seek out Nelson's name on the bottom in order for him to defeat Paxton. In 2020, Texas voters will have to vote in each of the state's races individually, leveling the playing field in down-ballot races.

Independence Day activities were washed out in Houston.  (Don't miss the video at this link.)

You're excused from feeling a bit paranoid about the weather on holidays in Southeast Texas based on recent history (and also exempt from ridicule for considering Tax Day a holiday).  With "weather panic" apparently the new normal in the Bayou City, Jeff Balke at the Houston Press points out five things Houstonians do during heavy rain events despite being warned not to.

(Please read the first one.  If you're the person who blames government officials for seventy years of poor decision-making every time this happens but continues to vote to re-elect them, their friends, and their staffers when they retire ... why don't you just move to Mexico?  Or somewhere else there isn't a hundred-year flood once a quarter?)

The March for Our Lives tour stopped in H-Town yesterday, featuring as speakers a few of the young men and women who survived the Parkland high school shooting.  A couple of hundred supporters gathered to voice support, while about one-fourth that number of gun nuts protested loudly across the street.  See more at the #RoadToChange hashtag.

The weekly roundup of criminal justice news at Grits for Breakfast includes this piece of news (bold emphasis Brains'):

Grits has been saying for months that the opiod epidemic in Texas is overstated compared to the problem of meth addiction and overdoses, and that hysteria over fentanyl is largely unwarranted here because the drug does not mix with the relatively impure black-tar heroin common in Texas and California markets. So I was not suprised to see Snopes rule that the fentanyl-soaked flyers touted by the Harris County Sheriff's Office as causing the hospitalization of a deputy was a bogus story.

Though HCSO said "field tests" indicated fentanyl on the flyers, lab tests confirmed that was false. Laughably, HCSO said in a statement, "The Sheriff’s Office is also working to verify that deputies have access to the most reliable field testing kits available." Faulty field tests used by law enforcement in Harris County have been responsible for hundreds of false convictions, so don't hold your breath.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston calls out Dan Patrick's bad math on metal detectors.

Bonddad suggests there are some easy-to-understand motivations underlying the Republicans' daily rabid attacks, led by Trump, as it relates to their strategy for winning in November.  Speaking of the fall elections, Off the Kuff made more comparisons to 2014 on relative levels of enthusiasm and candidate fundraising.

Gus Bova at the Texas Observer reveals that the Trump administration's own figures show that 'zero tolerance' immigration enforcement did not work.  In fact it only succeeded in making it much more difficult for those seeking asylum to comply with the law.

Dos Centavos takes (apparently generic, mostly unidentified) Democrats to task over their timorousness regarding the call to abolish ICE.

Equality Texas is hosting town hall meetings on the ramifications of the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court decision in Dallas, Waco, San Antonio, and Houston next week.

Downwinders at Risk passes along the public notice from the Dallas City Council's public hearing on the proposed regional air quality monitoring network, scheduled for late August.

Bruce Melton at The Rag Blog reports on yet another environmental calamity: Alaskan permafrost has flipped from carbon sink to carbon source; it is now melting so fast that it's emitting more greenhouse gas than it formerly stored.

The Spanish language newspaper La Prensa, which closed suddenly earlier this summer, has been reborn in print (and online soon).  The San Antonio Current has the story.

Vanessa Eichler at Rivard Report argues that inadequate funding remains the biggest problem in Texas public education.

David Collins has the details on the latest Texas Green Party PR disaster.  Update: Which, as it turns out, happens to have been bogus.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub compares its namesake to the current White House occupant and finds similarities only in their respective failures.

SocraticGadfly suggests ways to either improve on the current shootout method or reduce them in World Cup games.

And Harry Hamid can kinda sorta relate to the Thai-boys-soccer-team-that's-trapped-in-the-cave's dilemma.

Sunday (Again, Not So) Funnies

Cornel West tries to explain democratic socialism to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson

Pyrotechnics

14 year-old girl assures Trump she wasn't really using her reproductive freedom yet anyway

"It’s every little girl's dream to be forced into being a breeding sow, and if I can be forced to carry my future rapist's baby to term, even better!"

These 11 companies control the sale of every consumable for Independence Day ... except for the fireworks, which are almost entirely made in China

Imagine what the Founding Fathers, most of whom opposed anything that reeked of monopoly, would think if they could see how a few companies profit in the name of their nation’s founding. Certainly it would disappoint Thomas Jefferson, who once opined, "The benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression."

The Firecracker Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their election victories, and has high hopes that Texas can elect progressives of their kind in the very near future.

Also ... when you're firing bottle rockets and Roman candles at each other this Wednesday, be careful not to shoot your eye out.

Here's the blog post and lefty news roundup from the week just passed.

Thousands protested at the Capitol in Austin at hundreds of rallies across Texas and the nation against Trump's immigration policy that separates children from their parents.

As the immigration crisis -- not a crisis at all, according to South Texas ranchers -- morphs into a national one, even ICE investigation supervisors want to disassociate themselves from child detention and deportation.  Paris Johnson at the Houston Press reminds us that the US has a long, ugly history of separating minority children from their families.

The US Supreme Court rulings in favor of Trump's Muslim travel ban, the gerrymandering by Texas Republicans, and the Janus decision against public sector unions made news, but it was Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement that abruptly focused Democrats and liberals on their failures in 2016 -- not just Hillary Clinton's in November, but Barack Obama's and the Senate Democrats' spineless inability to force a vote on Merrick Garland -- and in predictable fashion they blamed everyone but themselves (not just Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein in this go-around, but Susan Sarandon).  Satire is most wicked when it is closest to the truth.

SocraticGadfly talked about the Supreme Court travel ban ruling, along with a bit about the other rulings of last week, and then analyzed Anthony Kennedy's career after he announced his retirement. He'll have a couple of additional Court posts in days and weeks ahead.

In politico news, Carlos Uresti went to prison, a freshly-scented Republican douchebag won a special election to replace the bloated, foul-smelling one previously inhabiting #TX27 for a couple of months, and Pages of Victory demonstrates how you should handle a Republican canvasser who comes knocking at your door.

Off the Kuff took a closer look at the UT/Trib June poll and thinks he found some good news for Democrats that the pollsters overlooked.

In his weekly compendium of criminal justice developments, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast blogged about the federal judge's ruling in Harris County's bail case, the outgoing DA in McClennan County (Waco) firing one of his assistants for cooperating with the FBI, and the DPS conflating traffic stops and immigration enforcement.

The Associated Press (via the HouChron) described in detail the course provided for Texas educators that teaches them how to shoot back at school shooters.  A pro-gun rally last weekend in Santa Fe, the site of the high school murders just over a month ago, was notable for its anemic turnout.

News about the media was news; Jon Tilove at the Statesman chronicled the life of one of the Annapolis Capital-Gazette's journalists who was shot and killed at the newspaper's office by excerpting some of his columns (and adding his thoughts).  And Texas Standard wonders why social media bosses are meeting with GOP leaders.

Somervell County Salon wrote about an anti-SLAPP case that prevailed at the Texas Supreme Court.

Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer covered the million-gallon sewage spill at White Rock Lake.

John Nielson-Gammon at the Texas Living Waters Project would like to see more of that old-fashioned variety in our summer weather.

Keep Austin Wonky wants city-owned land to maximize residents' happiness (whatever that means).

David Collins remembers Harlan Ellison, the noted sci-fi-author who passed away last week.

Harry Hamid notices how angry everyone is, but is working to avoid being that way.

And Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly bids adieu to the UT-adjacent location of Conan's Pizza.

Sunday Supremely Awful Funnies

Socialist Saturday Cartoon

News item: "House Democrats Reeling After Crowley Upset By Long-Shot Challenger"

(Several mainstream media outlets still couldn't #SayHerName the morning after.)

The Weekly Wrangle

Update: As this week's Wrangle was about to publish ...

5-4, as expected & along ideological lines

Alito writing majority; Thomas & Gorsuch write a 1-page concurrence

Sotomayor with a 46-page dissent#SCOTUS was on the ballot in 2016 https://t.co/NHmZUqGm2K

— Michael Watts (@mjwatts1983) June 25, 2018

Some members of the Texas Progressive Alliance -- and many of its readers -- attended the Texas Democratic Party convention last weekend, and the news, blog posts, and Tweets in this week's roundup reflect the variety of takes and takeaways from Fort Worth.

Lily Seglin, Houston Chronicle: Dems have momentum but no coherent narrative to sell

Christopher Collins, Texas Observer: Texas Democrats want to turn out rural voters, but what’s their plan?

At the convention on Friday, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa told more than 100 attendees at a rural caucus meeting: “Until we start doing better in rural Texas, we can’t win statewide elections.” He’s right, of course, but everyone in the room already knew that. What he didn’t say — and what no one else seems to know, either — is how to actually get rural Texans to vote on the Democratic ballot.

Gromer Jeffers, Dallas News: After passionate convention, Democrats look to sway average Texas voters

The Texas Organizing Project, a progressive group, estimates that Republicans have 850,000 more voters in the Texas electorate than Democrats.

("Average Texas voters", as everyone understands, equals conservatives, regardless of party affiliation, previous voting activity, or lack thereof.  This blog is on record -- and will continue to emphasize -- that the strategy of chasing GOP votes ("moderate", "disillusioned", what have you) espoused by Texas Democratic candidates up and down the ticket, has demonstrably and historically been a losing one.  Growing the electorate by GOTLV, and strongly advocating for progressive principles, will be key to any victories.)

Beto O'Rourke, the candidate upon whose shoulders the heaviest hopes lie for breaking the party's 24-year old losing streak, repeated his message about appealing to Republicans by phrasing it as "showing up".  Erica Greider is saying there's a chance this can work.


via GIPHY

Texas Democrats re-elected Gilberto Hinojosa as party chair despite the fact that the long-awaited Latin@ surge at the polls has become something of a 'Waiting for Godot' affair.

... Democrats are scrambling to keep Hispanic turnout from receding from general election levels to 2014 levels. The focus on family separation was also coupled with desperate calls from the party’s Latino leaders to awaken the so-called sleeping giant that is the Texas Hispanic electorate.
 
“I don’t know what we’re gonna do, but we have to wake up the sleeping giant. Kick it, throw water at it, put five-alarm clocks. I realize some of us are hard to wake up in the morning, but this is ridiculous. We gotta get that sleeping giant up,” Valdez said at a convention forum Saturday morning, according to Texas Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek.

The notion that Texas Latinos are a “sleeping giant” when it comes to potential political power has been around for a long time. Here, for example, was the cover of an issue of the Observer from 1969.

If they have any chance of coming close to winning a statewide election in 2018, Democrats will need a massive increase in Hispanic turnout. The problem so far, though, is that the party doesn’t appear to have a plan to do so.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston, blogging as busily as he has all year, whined about "the far left" and Our Revolution in his convention wrap, laughed as state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Baytown) got thrown out of the Fort Worth Convention Center, and was apparently the only person he heard mention Trump all weekend.  (John's wit is overflowing his toilet again.)

The Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek picked his five biggest takeaways, but none of them were Latinx turnout, and unlike John Coby he heard lots of anti-Trump sentiment, particularly from Houston Congressman Al Green.

Grits for Breakfast has the details on the criminal justice reforms undertaken in the Texas Democratic Party platform.

(T)he Democratic platform had not significantly embraced a reform mindset on criminal-justice in years past. Now they're suggesting cutting edge reforms and distinctly new approaches. For example, "Treating drug use as a public health challenge rather than a crime," and "Reducing possession of small amounts of controlled substances to a misdemeanor, even when it is a repeat offense."

(Failing to call for the legalization of cannabis, not just the medicinal forms, is a squandered electoral opportunity for the Donkeys.)

Read this thread about the unwavering influence of corporate $$$ and fracking in @texasdemocrats. RED SIREN WARNING: there aren't enough @TXGOP votes to overcome the loss of #Progressives on these issues in #TX2018. #TDP18 https://t.co/4dy9Cxe2Hi

— PDiddie (@PDiddie) June 24, 2018

Dr. David Brockman, covering the convention for the Texas Observer, attended the Secular Caucus and has some ... observations.

“The future of American voters is secular.”

So said Sarah Levin of the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Secular Coalition of America, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at the Texas Democratic Party Convention in Fort Worth Friday. The occasion was the second-ever meeting of the Secular Caucus, a Democratic group aiming to represent the legislative agenda for roughly 6 million nonreligious Texans.

Levin’s prediction probably overstates the case; religious belief in America isn’t going away soon, if ever. But the enthusiastic turnout of about 250 delegates, coupled with candidates’ growing willingness to identify as secular, points to what may be a turn in the political tide — even in religious-right Texas, where the state constitution still mandates that officeholders  “acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”

Look at the second picture at that link and you'll see Ted from jobsanger in the foreground, who had to argue with party officials for his media credential in order to blog the conclave.

Moving on from TDP convention reporting, the crisis of migrant family separations at the southern border enters its third week.  Reuters has long-range overhead photos of the tent city in Tornillo.

Down With Tyranny says 'follow the money', in an understatement about why this disaster of capitalism continues.  News Taco points to Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) as one of Congress' largest beneficiaries of campaign cash from the GEO Group, one of the many companies profiting on child detention.  Another is Southwest Key, which plans to operate the 'baby jail' being proposed in Houston.  In framing that would make George Orwell spin in his tomb, the company's CEO described its operation as "daycare".  One of SW Key's employees was found to have an arrest record involving child pornography.

Ernesto Padron worked at Austin-based nonprofit Southwest Key’s Casa Padre shelter last year, where, as a case manager, he had direct access to unaccompanied immigrant minors. He had previously worked as a Border Patrol agent until his resignation in October 2010, when he was arrested in Brownsville for alleged possession of child pornography, a second-degree felony, according to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office and publicly available Cameron County criminal court records. His case was later dismissed after a years-long case backlog allowed the statute of limitations to expire.

There are severe mental health-related ramifications associated with forcibly removing young children from their parents, and that does not include instances where the children have been injected with psychotropic medications, as has happened at the facility in Manvel, TX operated by Shiloh, a company that has already received millions in federal dollars to detain migrant children.

Mayor Sylvester Turner and several city council members have declared their opposition to SW Key's proposed operation in the Bayou City, but Sam Oser at Houston Press Free Press Houston has uncovered a very cozy relationship between the City and the owner of the building who is leasing it to Southwest Key: David Denenburg of 419 Hope Partners LLC, a real estate mogul well-entrenched in H-Town's political and social circles.

Finally, there are nationwide protests against Trump's family separation policy scheduled for this Saturday, June 30.

And in other news ...

Texas Vox's Citizen Stephanie went to Washington to testify against the EPA's roll-back of the Chemical Disaster Rule.

Downwinders at Risk reports on the state's first permanent smog monitor overseen by civilians, up and running in Wise County.

Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer wonders what comes next after the Texas Supreme Court nullified Laredo's plastic bag ban, and thus several similar laws passed by other Texas cities.

The public hearings in association with the plans to reimagine Alamo Plaza were loud and unruly, as reported (in somewhat irritable tone) by the publisher of the Rivard Report.

Red meat allergies are on the rise due to bites from Lone Star ticks, and their range is expanding in the US, reports NPR.

Socratic Gadfly talks about why, if the unemployment rate is so low, there aren't more jobs out there.

H-Town's PRIDE Parade was once again off the chain.

PrideHouston.org

And Jef Rouner goes behind the bones at the "Death by Natural Causes" exhibit at Houston's Museum of Natural Sciences.

Sunday Funnies