Sunday, August 26, 2018

Sunday Funnies


"A man in his position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous".







Oh, and strip superdelegates of power ...

Women (and everyone who loves and supports them) will take to the streets today -- #WomensEqualityDay -- with rallies and marches to #StopKavanaugh.

Friday, August 24, 2018

Beto O'Rourke: a cult of personality

He's morphed from an upstart longshot right into a presidential wet dream for swooning Donkeys in the span of a couple of weeks.

No. Just no.


When Jon Tilove at the Austin Statesman featured 'Beto 2020' in his column/First Reading blog last week, I rolled my eyes.


That was the first I had read about this (like I've said before, I quit Facebook weeks ago; I'm no longer privy to the hive mind of Democratic activists ... and feel much healthier as a result).  Tilove, who normally has something valuable to contribute to the political discussion, had gone off the rails with this prognosticating.  Or so I thought.

On Monday, I led the Wrangle with my premise about a brightening forecast for O'Rourke's chances against Poop Cruz.  Then Beto's remarks about NFL players taking a knee, video posted by Real News (over 15,000 views and 28,000 reTweets), blew up the Internet.  Then the latest poll broke, from NBC News/Marist, showing a scant four-point lead for the Zodiac Killer.

That poll -- look at Kuffner! On it! And look who his first commenter is! -- does not reflect the impact of the viral 'kneeling' video or his recent teevee ad buy, as RG Ratcliffe at Texas Monthly pointed out yesterday.  (And still no mention of the one poll that had Beto just a nose ahead.  Very odd.)

So then I start seeing all kinds of fawning comments and Tweets about Beto, from locals to statewides to "Hollywood liberals" (as Rafael puts it) to the chattering political consultant class, all dreamily fantasizing not about Senator O'Rourke ... but President -- or Vice President -- O'Rourke.  Just as Tilove above speculated.


Also this, thoroughly refudiated by Gadfly.  And this.  And this.  And way too much more.

It's a shame nobody read the Texas Monthly piece I excerpted in this January post (the original at TM is currently offline) that enlightened me about O'Rourke, and led me to the conclusion that I could not ever vote for him.  It's also a shame no journalist has thought to probe a little deeper -- here on the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey -- about why he was one of four Texas Democrats who voted against tax relief for victims of the storm.  His answer to this point has been his usual superficial BS.

But the real burning question for me is: how does Julian Castro feel about being Pipped by Beto?

Beyond that, the TexTrib via Progrexas sees the 'kneeling' comments on the video as maybe not helping Beto too much here in Deep In the Hearta.  They may, sadly, be right about that.

Monday, August 20, 2018

The Weekly Wrangle

The summer heat is on and it's rising in the midterm statewide races.  The Texas Progressive Alliance got the kids off to school and then got back to blogging about the coming elections.


Beto O'Rourke enjoyed a swelling enthusiasm for his effort to unseat Ted Cruz and go to Washington as Texas' new junior US Senator.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs collected favorable polling and mentions of television and Facebook advertising to revise his prediction to a much closer contest, while Kuff seemed to be feeling a little pessimistic about Beto's chances and speculated on some consolation prizes for Texas Democrats.

The TexTrib's Ross Ramsey has an analysis -- reprinted at Progrexas --  of Greg Abbott's attempt to expand gubernatorial power that would make even Pa and Ma Ferguson, among the most corrupt Texas governors in the state's history, blush.  (With envy, not shame.)  Retiring state legislator Byron Cook warned that the governor's move represented a constitutional overreach, aka power grab.

SocraticGadfly has some fun introducing Lupe Valdez to Aerosmith.

The Dallas Morning News had the best coverage of the Democratic statewides rallying around Texas last week, with the noteworthy development being the "upper-downballot" slate of candidates drafting off of Beto O'Rourke's blue wave machine.

The TSTA Blog sees through Dan Patrick's phony concern about teachers' health insurance premiums.

HuffPo noticed that former Congressman Blake Farenthold is continuing to disgrace himself.

There were many questions raised by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's visit to Houston last week, and the two best were asked in the headlines of articles written by Jeremy Wallace at the Houston Chronicle and Elizabeth Trovall at Houston Public Media.

Grits for Breakfast returned from summer hiatus with a comprehensive criminal justice news aggregation  that included links to stories about worsening wait times at DPS TDL offices, probation tailored for youthful defendants, bail reform, red light cameras, "convict leasing", and a lot more.

With the death by suicide of another Harris County inmate -- and a story by The Appeal about DA Kim Ogg's apparent change of heart on her 'reformer' branding -- The Intercept broadens the question to Democrats generally: why aren't they doing more to help candidates who will practice criminal justice reform instead of just preach it?

Harris County officials were "in over their heads" when they struck deals for contingency fees with lawyers who would be litigating on their behalf against opioid manufacturers, says a Yale professor emeritus of law quoted at Forbes.

The Texas Observer's nine-part series on border water and climate change, "Shallow Waters", has part four posted, about the 15 aquifers shared by the US and Mexico at the Rio Grande border and how little both countries understand about them.

Better Texas Blog can't understand the arguments against paid sick leave.  Austin became the first city in all of the southern US to pass a mandated paid sick leave policy, but Texas Standard quoted a Houston-based law professor predicting that the Lege will get involved after both the capital city and San Antonio approved ordinances enabling the employee benefit, exerting its eminence over "local control" again (as it has done with local anti-fracking laws, plastic bag bans, and so forth).

The ongoing Harris County flood bond election is noted by Save Buffalo Bayou with information about the new projects recently added.

Early voting on the bonds started Aug. 8 and continues through Tuesday, Aug. 21. The election is Saturday, Aug. 25. The $2.5 billion target is widely considered a small down payment on a $20-30 billion county-wide flood resiliency program that should emphasize buyouts, land acquisition and preservation, floodplain restoration and other non-structural approaches.

The list of 237 projects includes 38 projects that were added as a result of community meetings held across Harris County in June, July and August, according to the district website. Note that the list of potential projects is not fixed or obligatory, and citizens should still have opportunities to influence future plans and priorities.

Six additional projects were added through community input to the projects on Buffalo Bayou below Addicks and Barker dams.  (More details at the links.)

The Houston Justice Coalition has a full slate of events and media appearances this week.

The Houston Press reports on a local elementary school that believed starting the year off with a big sign that shamed girls was a good idea, and the Lunch Tray takes issue with a partnership between Houston ISD and Domino's Pizza.

BeyondBones warns of the Bananapocalypse.

And the Rag Blog's Ivan Koop Kuper bid farewell to Bayou City troubadour and the "mayor of Montrose", Don Sanders.

Arlo Guthrie and Don Sanders perform on national television as Houston’s KPFT-FM returns to the air 
after the KKK blew up the Pacifica station’s transmitter. Courtesy Kuper Group Archives.

Sanders was at the forefront of the founding of Houston’s progressive, noncommercial radio station and Pacifica affiliate, KPFT-FM, in 1970 and was an on-air personality in the station’s early days.

This was the very same public station that was bombed off the air, not once but twice. Historically KPFT-FM is the only radio station in the United States that has ever been under attack by right-wing extremists. The transmitter bombing was the handiwork of four members of the Pasadena, Texas Klavern of the United Klans of America, Inc. aka the Ku Klux Klan. However only one Klan suspect, Grand Wizard Jimmy Dale Hutto, age 24, was formally indicted and served time for the offenses.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Sunday Funnies







Why did Nancy Pelosi avoid two of the hottest 
Texas Congressional races during her Houston visit last week?




Though Aretha Franklin wasn't the first person to record "Respect," her 1967 rendition is by far the best known and most revered. That year is important to mention because it was after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the year of the U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia and the year leading up to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It was right in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and the movement for gender equality.

In her 1998 autobiography, Franklin said the song was "the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher — everyone wanted respect. ... The song took on monumental significance."

Thursday, August 16, 2018

DNC 2020

There's a (neoliberal) party goin' on right here this morning.


From everything that's been happening recently, I do not get the impression that when Bernie Sanders comes to town to accept the party's nomination two summers from now, he will be wildly greeted by the party's local centrists.


Alex Wukman at Free Press Houston isn't a fan of the city hosting, regurgitating the same tired historical reasons about why Texas isn't a blue state.  Not really a good excuse.

I'd be cool with the Donks coming to town, Bernie or Biden or some other being crowned.  It's an open question as to whether the nationals would credential me as media; you may recall the state party cut those out for blogs this year in Fort Worth.  Ted argued with them until he got one, but I wouldn't have bothered.  It would not stop me from covering the convention.  The problem would be all of the lazy, half-ass, intermittent local and state sycophant bloggers who would suddenly want to fanboi and -girl their way in, squeezing out someone who writes critically of the party.  Like I said, wouldn't stop me from being there and writing about it.

So best of luck to the Chamber of Commerce and I hope all of the Blue Dogs' dreams get dashed.

Update: This list is about the farthest thing from 'definitive' I have ever seen.  Positively hideous.  Cillizza is always this dumb, but Harry Enten has no excuse.


I bet you could name 1-5 in the left column and #6, top right, but can you name #7 without clicking the link?  I could not.