Sunday Funnies

Houston firefighters, mayor will debate Prop 2 today

There's a handful of events happening today for you Harris County Democrats needing to boost the voter rolls in this last weekend before the deadline.  For those of you less interested in that, Sema Hernandez will be speaking at Our Revolution's meeting in the Montrose this afternoon.  She is John Cornyn's first announced challenger for 2020.

I'll be paying attention to the debate between Marty Lancton and Sylvester Turner.  It nearly didn't happen because Lillie Schechter was apparently trying to game the rules in favor of the mayor, but after some last-minute negotiations, it's back on.

Houston's firefighters union on Wednesday withdrew and then reinstated its participation in a Saturday debate with Mayor Sylvester Turner on the "pay parity" referendum that goes before voters in November, amid concerns that the event's host, the Harris County Democratic Party, may be giving the mayor too much control over the event.

The hour-long forum, which the party will live stream from St. John's United Methodist Church at 2019 Crawford beginning at 10 a.m., will mark the first time the mayor and the union address the contentious issue on the same stage.

So what was the disagreement all about?

Among the union's initial complaints were that Houston Chronicle opinion editor Lisa Falkenberg was to serve as moderator (the editorial board expressed opposition to the parity proposal in July 2017, though Falkenberg noted her tenure began 11 months after that), and that Democratic Party officials did not agree to let Lancton address precinct chairs or let them vote on whether to endorse the proposition.

County Democratic Party Chair Lillie Schechter had said she respected the union's initial decision to withdraw despite "extensive conversations" about the format of the discussion, noting that the gathering never was envisioned as ending in a vote; such tallies only occur at quarterly gatherings of all precinct chairs, she said, the last of which was held Sept. 13.

"I applaud the HPFFA for its steadfast representation of firefighters and am glad we were able to clarify things sufficiently to regain their participation Saturday," she said. "We look forward to an informative session that will educate voters on this important November issue."

More on that from HPM.  I've blogged twice about the referendum, most recently here (link to the first post within).  So I'll just expand once more on the dynamics.

Mayor Turner has toured the city and, as expected, been hard at work bad-mouthing the firefighters and doom-and-glooming.  His PR flack, Sue Davis, together with press secretary Mary Benton, have been responsible for the online pushback against the firefighters and for the proposal.  Benton's had a rough time of it; here's a Tweet thread where Davis and Groogan at Fox got into the weeds; she had to throw in the towel.

Confusing.
Anti-Prop B TV Spot says “more than 300 police officers will lose jobs” if measure passes. Than Mayoral press secretary @IAmMaryBenton tweets 580 Police officers would be cut.
Nearly 50% difference.
What gives? #Fox26 @suedavis1974

— Greg Groogan (@GrooganFox26) October 5, 2018

The math just hasn't been working for the city no matter whose numbers they use.

The (October 2) announcement comes the same day City Controller Chris Brown presented his cost analysis of the ballot measure, estimating the measure would cost $85 million a year. His estimation is $13 million lower than city finance's estimate of $98 million but doesn't include all the extra pay incentives and other special pay some firefighters receive.

All this whining about holes being blown in city budgets did not stop Mayor Turner and City Council from approving a pay increase for police officers this week.

Neither figure (previous excerpt) includes the additional cost that would be added to the fire budget with the 7 percent raises the city council agreed to give police officers in a new two-year contract approved Wednesday. The agreement means police will have received raises totaling 37 percent since 2011, while firefighters have received just a 3 percent raise.

That's called a 'fuck you, firefighters', in case you were wondering.

Now as I have mentioned previously, the conservatives in town are just happy to own the libs on council for having kicked this can down the road to 2019, and hope to sweep themselves into City Hall as a result.  The establishment, centrist, neoliberal Democrats like Turner and mayor pro tem Ellen Cohen and the rest of their cowardly ilk don't give a shit about the city budget any more than than they care about the working men and women who have served the city all these years under a compensation inequality so severe that it boggles the mind.  They're just trying to save their hides from electoral wipeout in 2019.  If they break the union in the process, too bad.

This situation is not unique to Houston.  San Antonio is fighting a similar battle; so is Chicago.

Democrats can brag all they want about having political control of the major municipalities throughout the United States, but what good is it doing anybody if they govern like Republicans?  Like Republican businessmen and women?

Absent a viable, progressive third party option -- even in non-partisan elections -- we are in desperate need of some better Democrats in this country (Joe Manchin), in this state (Texas Democrats) and in this town.  If the Donkeys currently in charge down on Bagby lose their majority next year, are they going to be blaming the Democratic Socialists instead of the Green Party for that?

A few events and a few developments (not Kavanaugh-related)

-- Beto's response to Obama's non-endorsement: "Don't think we're interested."

This seems to have provoked some consternation among white neoliberals concern-trolling on behalf of black Democratic voters.  There also seems to be a complete lack of awareness on their part as to the price paid for chasing Republican centrists and independent conservatives.  Now I don't give one solid shit for Barack Obama or his policies or his endorsements, as you all should know; I just find it highly amusing that establishment Democrats remain this clueless.

(If you think Obama didn't call these folks to make sure they would accept his stamp of approval ... I have a bridge to sell you.)

O'Rourke is under stress to go negative from his supporters, who are being scared by Ted Cruz's onslaught of negative teevee advertising against the Democrat.  We're way beyond yard sign wars.  Lying and smearing were always going to be what Cruz does because that's who he is.

That was a tactic that failed repeatedly before.  Maybe not any longer.

His campaign is now consumed with shaping Beto O’Rourke as the embodiment of  a uniquely dangerous and unhinged opposition. Despite his warm and fuzzy rhetoric, Cruz insists that the El Paso congressman, much like Obama, is a radical. In fact, Cruz says, he’s further left than Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren and even Bernie Sanders.

In Cruz’s portrayal, O’Rourke is a gun-grabbing tax-hiker who wants to abolish ICE, open the borders, legalize narcotics and obstruct Trump. And he wants senior citizens’ crown jewel — Medicare — to become fully socialized.

[...]

Heading into the final stretch, Cruz has dialed up his extremist caricature of O’Rourke with the explicit intent of scaring the bejeezus out of old, white and conservative Texans — the bedrock of a typical midterm electorate. His campaign, along with a battalion of billionaire-backed super PACs, has unleashed a barrage of attack ads. The offensive has included a Willie Horton-style ad falsely claiming that O’Rourke supports decriminalizing illegal border crossings; the ad features mugshots of undocumented immigrants who repeatedly crossed the border and committed heinous crimes.

In one of the most heated moments during their first debate, Cruz lashed out at O’Rourke, twisting recent comments he made about how the criminal justice system has become “the new Jim Crow” into an attack on police officers. Asked whether he’s concerned about police violence against unarmed black people, Cruz gave a perfunctory response about his concern for all people’s rights (echoing the “All Lives Matter” line). Then, with a somber tone that crescendoed into indignation, he said he’d been to too many police officer funerals because of the “irresponsible, hateful rhetoric” that he accused O’Rourke of using.

The black vote shouldn't be staying home or skipping his line because Beto is too afraid to take Obama's endorsement.  But they might.  Just sayin'.

There's some rumoring among the elite set that polls are starting to break Cruz's way.  I suppose we will see by Monday or so.  In the meantime, Henson and Blank at the Texas Politics Project have slightly updated their 9/12 blog post, excerpted and linked here, and posted it at The Conversation, changing the headline to "Beto won't beat Ted".

-- It's the last weekend to get people registered to cast a ballot in November.  Who's showing up at this event?  Stace is going to be taking pictures, you know.

-- This event today is important for our local homeless veterans.

More here.

-- At ten this morning, a press conference will be held at the Harris County Civil Courthouse, 201 Caroline,  regarding Ken Paxton's three-year-old indictment and stalled prosecution.

A group of concerned citizens, led by long-time civic activists Barbara Ann Radnofsky and the Honorable Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, is presenting a “Petition of Remonstrance” compelling the authorities to move forward with the criminal prosecution of indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for securities fraud.

The case, which includes three felony indictments brought against Mr. Paxton by a Texas Grand Jury more than three years ago, has been stalled due to politically-motivated constraints on funding of the court-appointed prosecution.

A Petition of Remonstrance has been drafted and signed, urging the authorities to remove all obstacles to trial and allowing justice to take its course. Radnofsky explains that “a Petition of Remonstrance is an established channel for citizens to express grievances under the Texas Constitution. It’s older than the Republic of Texas, and we are giving it new life. This Remonstrance will also be presented to the Collin County Commissioners Court. They have a legally-recognized duty under Texas law to ‘stop, look and listen’ to this Remonstrance.”

A video explaining the petition is here.

The Texas Observer has written a revealing piece about how the extremists in Paxton's home county have not only shielded him but martyred him in this regard.  Read the 11-count Tweet thread for a summary if your time is short at the moment.  And then give a hand to Justin Nelson.

More events you should know about this weekend will be posted tomorrow morning.