Sunday, December 23, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
A cup of kindness, yet: Facebook, Flynn, Schwertner, and Melania
This post tried to get blogged all week, and it reads a little dated in the wake of the Trump shutdown and RBG's latest cancer scare, but I'll throw it up anyway: in the spirit of giving, I should direct a few good wishes at some of those beyond our crappy local Democrats. Just a bit to starboard.
-- Facebook has been sued by the attorney general of the District of Columbia on behalf of the city-state's residents harmed by the company's data breaches, authorized and un-. Other states will surely follow, ah, suit.
IANAL but this sounds remarkably similar to Texas' DTPA, which contains a provision for punishment of three times damages for guilty verdicts. Let's ask Ken Paxton to do something for us instead of to us for once.
This will be the end of Facebook, ladies and gentlemen. They'll be forced into bankruptcy under a blizzard of litigation of this kind if the state attorneys general get their acts together on some mass class action. But the fact is that we the people can move faster than any court of law to end Mark Zuckerburg's foul corporation. If you haven't deleted your Facebook account ... what exactly is it going to take? Pretend you hear Zuck speaking in Arnold Schwartzeneggar's voice (as Dutch Schaefer from Predator): "Kill me! Do it NOW!"
-- Michael Flynn is stewing in his own traitorous juices over the holidays after Judge Emmet Sullivan trashed him at his sentencing hearing last Tuesday. It's going to be a terrible Christmas and a horrible New Year around that dude's house. Sullivan was apparently having none of Robert Mueller's recommendation of no prison time for Flynn's cooperation in his investigation, a gambit I figured was aimed at short-circuiting a Trump pardon. If Flynn gets time in the Big House, Trump is bound to throw more gas on his dumpster fire by giving him a 'get out of jail free' card.
-- State Sen. Charles Schwertner is going to keep insisting he didn't text that UT co-ed right to the end of his political career. Which we all hope is sooner than four years from now. Borris Miles, the other sexual predator still in the Texas Senate, is up for recall in 2020, but since African Americans in southwest Harris County last month re-elected Ron Reynolds, currently sitting in jail on a barratry conviction, I have my doubts as to whether any good Christian can unseat Miles for being too aggressive about his nearly-constant side chick hustle.
-- FLOTUS reports (to an unnamed 'close' source, who is whispering to Hollywood Life's Bonnie Fuller) that POTUS is "under immense stress" because of all the concurrent witch hunts (sic) going on and that she is concerned for his health.
I Really Don't Care. Do You?
-- Facebook has been sued by the attorney general of the District of Columbia on behalf of the city-state's residents harmed by the company's data breaches, authorized and un-. Other states will surely follow, ah, suit.
DC Attorney General Karl Racine on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Facebook, accusing the social-media giant of “unfair and deceptive” practices that violated consumer privacy and led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The first lawsuit of its kind in the United States, the move could result in billions of dollars’ worth of fines for the company and pave the way for states around the country to file similar complaints.
[...]
The lawsuit also comes on the heels of a New York Times report published Tuesday night that revealed that those same data practices allowed at least 150 other companies to access consumer data, including Facebook users’ private messages. The sharing of data with third parties continued well past a 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that required Facebook to disclose its data practices more transparently and improve its privacy practices. Racine says his office will be updating its suit to include the new allegations.
The lawsuit could take years to wind its way through the courts, but if it’s successful, Facebook could be on the hook for serious civil penalties under DC’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act, a blanket law that allows for damages for a number of trade violations, including data security breaches. Under the law, a company can be fined up to $5,000 per violation. According to the DC attorney general’s estimates, as many as 340,000 District residents were affected by the Cambridge Analytica incident.
If the lawsuit is expanded to include more recently revealed violations, which gave parties ranging from Netflix to Russian search engine Yandex access to consumer data, fines could possibly reach into the billions of dollars and could top the nearly $1.7 billion fine Facebook is currently facing in the European Union, where consumer data protections are much more stringent. On Tuesday, Facebook settled for $450,000 a lawsuit brought by Washington state alleging the company had violated political advertising laws.
IANAL but this sounds remarkably similar to Texas' DTPA, which contains a provision for punishment of three times damages for guilty verdicts. Let's ask Ken Paxton to do something for us instead of to us for once.
This will be the end of Facebook, ladies and gentlemen. They'll be forced into bankruptcy under a blizzard of litigation of this kind if the state attorneys general get their acts together on some mass class action. But the fact is that we the people can move faster than any court of law to end Mark Zuckerburg's foul corporation. If you haven't deleted your Facebook account ... what exactly is it going to take? Pretend you hear Zuck speaking in Arnold Schwartzeneggar's voice (as Dutch Schaefer from Predator): "Kill me! Do it NOW!"
-- Michael Flynn is stewing in his own traitorous juices over the holidays after Judge Emmet Sullivan trashed him at his sentencing hearing last Tuesday. It's going to be a terrible Christmas and a horrible New Year around that dude's house. Sullivan was apparently having none of Robert Mueller's recommendation of no prison time for Flynn's cooperation in his investigation, a gambit I figured was aimed at short-circuiting a Trump pardon. If Flynn gets time in the Big House, Trump is bound to throw more gas on his dumpster fire by giving him a 'get out of jail free' card.
-- State Sen. Charles Schwertner is going to keep insisting he didn't text that UT co-ed right to the end of his political career. Which we all hope is sooner than four years from now. Borris Miles, the other sexual predator still in the Texas Senate, is up for recall in 2020, but since African Americans in southwest Harris County last month re-elected Ron Reynolds, currently sitting in jail on a barratry conviction, I have my doubts as to whether any good Christian can unseat Miles for being too aggressive about his nearly-constant side chick hustle.
-- FLOTUS reports (to an unnamed 'close' source, who is whispering to Hollywood Life's Bonnie Fuller) that POTUS is "under immense stress" because of all the concurrent witch hunts (sic) going on and that she is concerned for his health.
I Really Don't Care. Do You?
#Beto2020 explodes on launch pad
I L'dMFAO when I read this earlier in the week.
Coba-rrhea-vias has had a couple of bilious posts about Bernie in the past week, so you can tell he's mad/scared about the prospect of possibly having to vote for him in November of 2020. I haven't checked in with Ted at jobsanger in months; I'll guess he's graphed a few polls that had Biden in the lead earlier in the month.
As for John Coby, facts have a way of destroying one's fantasies. Here's your 'real Democrat'.
(What's ironic is that John, in his capacity as a GS-13 with NASA as of 2017, knows more than the average Bear about things burning up on re-entry. He was part of the team that designed the shuttle's robot arm camera, used to look for missing heat tiles on the underbelly of the space shuttles in the wake of the Challenger disaster. So while I cannot confirm that he is working for a federal government socialism program today *update: his bio says he has recently retired*, the link above shows that he did so for many years. This makes his problem with socialism seem a little ... I don't know, confused. But maybe that's just because he's an Aggie. I had almost forgotten it had happened; it's been over a decade since John got suspended for six months without pay from that job for blogging at work.)
Hope Beto's 15 minutes of fame as a presidential candidate was a few calf cramps for everybody who was into it over the past month.
By the by, that New Democrat Coalition mentioned in the last line of the excerpt above would be the same one that both Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher promptly joined the instant they got to Washington. As I thought might happen, she got elected without my vote, so she's not going to be caring much about what I petition her for over the next two years. I presume the same is true of Allred. They'll both be reachingaround progressives across the aisle for moderate GOP support in order to hang on to those hard-won seats in 2020. And unless the winner of the presidential primary taps him to be his/her running mate, they won't have Beto's coattails to ride on again.
Not even if Bob decides he would rather run against John Cornyn. Heavier lift than Cruz this year.
And if anybody thinks Julian Castro has any chance for any thing other than ticket balance for geographic and/or (hopefully) ideological balancing purposes ... think again.
Once Beto O'Rourke decides to run (Bernie) Sanders will lose his followers. When you have a choice of a real Democrat that does not have "socialist" stamped on his head, and is 40 years younger than Sanders the real Democrat will win every time.
Coba-rrhea-vias has had a couple of bilious posts about Bernie in the past week, so you can tell he's mad/scared about the prospect of possibly having to vote for him in November of 2020. I haven't checked in with Ted at jobsanger in months; I'll guess he's graphed a few polls that had Biden in the lead earlier in the month.
As for John Coby, facts have a way of destroying one's fantasies. Here's your 'real Democrat'.
... O’Rourke has voted for GOP bills that his fellow Democratic lawmakers said reinforced Republicans’ tax agenda, chipped away at the Affordable Care Act, weakened Wall Street regulations, boosted the fossil fuel industry and bolstered Trump’s immigration policy. Consumer, environmental, public health and civil rights organizations have cast legislation backed by O’Rourke as aiding big banks, undermining the fight against climate change and supporting Trump’s anti-immigrant program. During the previous administration, President Barack Obama’s White House issued statements slamming two GOP bills backed by the 46-year-old Democratic legislator.
O’Rourke’s votes for Republican tax, trade, health care, criminal justice and immigration-related legislation not only defied his national party, but also at times put him at odds even with a majority of Texas Democratic lawmakers in Congress. Such votes underscore his membership in the New Democrat Coalition, the faction of House Democrats most closely aligned with business interests.
(What's ironic is that John, in his capacity as a GS-13 with NASA as of 2017, knows more than the average Bear about things burning up on re-entry. He was part of the team that designed the shuttle's robot arm camera, used to look for missing heat tiles on the underbelly of the space shuttles in the wake of the Challenger disaster. So while I cannot confirm that he is working for a federal government socialism program today *update: his bio says he has recently retired*, the link above shows that he did so for many years. This makes his problem with socialism seem a little ... I don't know, confused. But maybe that's just because he's an Aggie. I had almost forgotten it had happened; it's been over a decade since John got suspended for six months without pay from that job for blogging at work.)
Hope Beto's 15 minutes of fame as a presidential candidate was a few calf cramps for everybody who was into it over the past month.
By the by, that New Democrat Coalition mentioned in the last line of the excerpt above would be the same one that both Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher promptly joined the instant they got to Washington. As I thought might happen, she got elected without my vote, so she's not going to be caring much about what I petition her for over the next two years. I presume the same is true of Allred. They'll both be reaching
Not even if Bob decides he would rather run against John Cornyn. Heavier lift than Cruz this year.
And if anybody thinks Julian Castro has any chance for any thing other than ticket balance for geographic and/or (hopefully) ideological balancing purposes ... think again.
Monday, December 17, 2018
T'was the Week Before Wrangle
With the next-to-last week of 2018's best lefty blog posts and news round-up, the Texas Progressive Alliance is hoping Mueller Time is a bigger celebration than was Fitzmas (some thirteen years ago).
A federal judge in Texas accepted the arguments of Attorney General Ken Paxton and struck down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in a ruling that will face years of appeals and create lots of uncertainty for millions of Americans over their healthcare insurance.
But at a time when we spend $3.5 trillion every year and are still uninsured, underinsured, being bankrupted by medical bills, co-payments, remainder bills that the insurance company did not pay, and even dying because we cannot afford our medications ... is the ACA really worth saving?
The smartest healthcare activists realize that this court decision hastens the day when America can have Medicare for All. But does our new Democratic Congress have the political will to force the issue? Can they even make it a campaign issue for 2020? Time will tell, but there are certainly reasons to be pessimistic.
Off the Kuff posted some extremely long and boring spreadsheets full of statistics that nobody except a few political consultants in Harris County could possibly give a shit about.
SocraticGadfly took a skeptical look at the Betomania 2020 Kool-Aid, one of dozens of articles about the phenomenon that shows no sign of ebbing. O'Rourke himself has marveled at his rock star hysteria, teasingly suggesting "it's a great question" whether he is ready for a run at the White House. As he rose in the early polling, many Democratic activists began questioning his progressive bonafides. (You will recall that this blogger answered that for himself last January.) The NYT dug out -- and published in October -- the story behind his family's shady real estate deal in El Paso, and the Segundo Barrio residents who never forgot his role in it.)
PDiddie at Brains and Eggs exposed the oozing neoliberalism of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner in two posts, the first excoriating his interference in the developments surrounding HISD's legacy African American schools ...
... and the second, reminding Houstonians of the only consistent talents Turner has demonstrated over the last three years: his leadership void and political courage deficit.
Democratic infighting over whether to monetize voter data for 2020 spilled out into the open.
In more 2020 musings, John Coby at Bay Area Houston -- the mangeist, most flea-bitten blue dog in the Alliance -- declares who shouldn't be running for the Democratic nomination. Tip: they're all well to the left of him. David Collins had the counterpoint using Beto/Bob as the repetitive example, which centrists like Coby just can't understand.
Kyle Kulinski at Secular Talk deconstructed Julian Castro's announcement of presidential exploratory committee formation.
The Dallas Observer's Stephen Young snaps some of the corporate media (and associated sycophants like Frank Luntz) back to reality with their weird infatuation over Ted Cruz's beard.
Better Texas Blog updates the status of public school finance one month away from the next legislative session. And Progrexas wishes to remind you that it can't be fixed until everybody agrees on the definition of the word "fix".
Texas Leftist notes the worries of the Texas Vietnamese community in the wake of the latest Trump administration deportation threats.
Texas Standard read a DHS report and noticed how a portion of SpaceX's south Texas launch facility will get cut by Trump's border wall.
A child speech pathologist who worked with elementary school students for 9 years in the Pflugerville Independent School District (which includes part of Austin) lost her job after she refused to sign an anti-BDS oath, reports Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed in federal court, alleging a violation of her First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.
San Antonio had a week of swirling political winds; read more about them at the Rivard Report.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/c7546e92a6ae06ec7ac67b0400646551/2018-09-15_HIGHSPEEDRAILTEXAS_012_TT.jpg)
The critics of Texas Central, the bullet train between Dallas and Houston, want the Lege to administer more oversight of the project via limiting the use of eminent domain, writes Matt Zdun for the Texas Tribune. (But in a Republican, pro-business, 'less government is best' environment, there is probably not much appetite for that.)
Emotions ran high at a public hearing on the coastal spine proposed along the Bolivar Peninsula, as residents and property owners decried the massive project. It's intended to protect Houston and Galveston from future hurricanes and storm surges, but the concerns are that it will leave the sparsely-populated Galveston and Chambers County vacation and fishing communities surrendering their livelihoods. Areas north and east of where the 'Ike Dike' would end would also be unprotected.
Texas Vox celebrated the closing of the filthy coal-fired Deely plant, on the southeast side of San Antonio and operated by CPS Energy.
Joe Nick Patoski at the Texas Observer asks if Texas' overcrowded and underfunded state parks are being loved to death.
Somervell County Salon followed up on an obscure comedian's strange take about Trump's sniffling being a symptom of his crushed-Adderall snorting habit.
Elise Hu reported on brain-machine interfaces at the University of Houston.
The Bloggess presents the Ninth Annual James Garfield Christmas Miracle.
Swamplot has the perfect gift for the Astrodome-phile in your life.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub re-visits Banksy's seminal modern Nativity portrait, and alludes to Trump's border wall.
Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly ponders the demise of the breastaurant.
And Harry Hamid's story moved ahead to 3 a.m.
A federal judge in Texas accepted the arguments of Attorney General Ken Paxton and struck down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in a ruling that will face years of appeals and create lots of uncertainty for millions of Americans over their healthcare insurance.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth sided with the argument put forward by a coalition of Republican-leaning states, led by Texas, that Obamacare could no longer stand now that there's no penalty for Americans who don't buy insurance.
The U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the law in 2012, by classifying the legislation as a tax. But since Congress removed the individual mandate in 2017, O’Connor ruled, there's no way the ACA can be allowed to stand.
"The Individual Mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress's Tax Power and is still impermissible under the Interstate Commerce Clause — meaning the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional," O'Connor wrote. "The Individual Mandate is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA."
Without the system being upheld by a wide pool of mandated participants, the ACA cannot stand, O'Connor ruled.
But at a time when we spend $3.5 trillion every year and are still uninsured, underinsured, being bankrupted by medical bills, co-payments, remainder bills that the insurance company did not pay, and even dying because we cannot afford our medications ... is the ACA really worth saving?
Republicans should be careful what they wish for. If the Supreme Court ultimately strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will speed the day when America finally moves to Medicare for All. https://t.co/ZrcPobPB3U— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 15, 2018
The smartest healthcare activists realize that this court decision hastens the day when America can have Medicare for All. But does our new Democratic Congress have the political will to force the issue? Can they even make it a campaign issue for 2020? Time will tell, but there are certainly reasons to be pessimistic.
Off the Kuff posted some extremely long and boring spreadsheets full of statistics that nobody except a few political consultants in Harris County could possibly give a shit about.
SocraticGadfly took a skeptical look at the Betomania 2020 Kool-Aid, one of dozens of articles about the phenomenon that shows no sign of ebbing. O'Rourke himself has marveled at his rock star hysteria, teasingly suggesting "it's a great question" whether he is ready for a run at the White House. As he rose in the early polling, many Democratic activists began questioning his progressive bonafides. (You will recall that this blogger answered that for himself last January.) The NYT dug out -- and published in October -- the story behind his family's shady real estate deal in El Paso, and the Segundo Barrio residents who never forgot his role in it.)
PDiddie at Brains and Eggs exposed the oozing neoliberalism of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner in two posts, the first excoriating his interference in the developments surrounding HISD's legacy African American schools ...
In 2015, Bell got tarred and feathered by Turner and the whole La Griglia crowd for being a MO-ron because he proposed getting the COH more involved with HISD.— Texan Jake Barnes (@TxJakeBarnes) December 16, 2018
Sly should’ve taken his own advice. #TxLege
... and the second, reminding Houstonians of the only consistent talents Turner has demonstrated over the last three years: his leadership void and political courage deficit.
Democratic infighting over whether to monetize voter data for 2020 spilled out into the open.
.@DNC Chair @TomPerez goes to war with state parties over voter data https://t.co/Gr6Zhe4QBm @HinojosaTX: what's your response? @TexasDemocrats #DNC #ToShareOrToSell #ThatistheQuestion #CapitalismOrSocialism #IstheLargerQuestion— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) December 16, 2018
In more 2020 musings, John Coby at Bay Area Houston -- the mangeist, most flea-bitten blue dog in the Alliance -- declares who shouldn't be running for the Democratic nomination. Tip: they're all well to the left of him. David Collins had the counterpoint using Beto/Bob as the repetitive example, which centrists like Coby just can't understand.
Kyle Kulinski at Secular Talk deconstructed Julian Castro's announcement of presidential exploratory committee formation.
The Dallas Observer's Stephen Young snaps some of the corporate media (and associated sycophants like Frank Luntz) back to reality with their weird infatuation over Ted Cruz's beard.
Better Texas Blog updates the status of public school finance one month away from the next legislative session. And Progrexas wishes to remind you that it can't be fixed until everybody agrees on the definition of the word "fix".
A preview of 2019 Austin and Washington attractions?
Texas Leftist notes the worries of the Texas Vietnamese community in the wake of the latest Trump administration deportation threats.
Texas Standard read a DHS report and noticed how a portion of SpaceX's south Texas launch facility will get cut by Trump's border wall.
A child speech pathologist who worked with elementary school students for 9 years in the Pflugerville Independent School District (which includes part of Austin) lost her job after she refused to sign an anti-BDS oath, reports Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed in federal court, alleging a violation of her First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.
San Antonio had a week of swirling political winds; read more about them at the Rivard Report.
The critics of Texas Central, the bullet train between Dallas and Houston, want the Lege to administer more oversight of the project via limiting the use of eminent domain, writes Matt Zdun for the Texas Tribune. (But in a Republican, pro-business, 'less government is best' environment, there is probably not much appetite for that.)
(click to enlarge)
Emotions ran high at a public hearing on the coastal spine proposed along the Bolivar Peninsula, as residents and property owners decried the massive project. It's intended to protect Houston and Galveston from future hurricanes and storm surges, but the concerns are that it will leave the sparsely-populated Galveston and Chambers County vacation and fishing communities surrendering their livelihoods. Areas north and east of where the 'Ike Dike' would end would also be unprotected.
Texas Vox celebrated the closing of the filthy coal-fired Deely plant, on the southeast side of San Antonio and operated by CPS Energy.
Joe Nick Patoski at the Texas Observer asks if Texas' overcrowded and underfunded state parks are being loved to death.
Somervell County Salon followed up on an obscure comedian's strange take about Trump's sniffling being a symptom of his crushed-Adderall snorting habit.
Elise Hu reported on brain-machine interfaces at the University of Houston.
The Bloggess presents the Ninth Annual James Garfield Christmas Miracle.
Swamplot has the perfect gift for the Astrodome-phile in your life.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub re-visits Banksy's seminal modern Nativity portrait, and alludes to Trump's border wall.
Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly ponders the demise of the breastaurant.
And Harry Hamid's story moved ahead to 3 a.m.
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