The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

It's quite thin, as nobody jumped in or dropped out and those who were in -- or not in yet -- had little but stumbles and speculation for the media, corporate and social, to report and feud over.

-- Let's note that with a very large field of candidates, the DNC is already laying down debate rules well in advance of the first scheduled tilt, in June.

“As many as 20 Democratic presidential candidates will be invited to the party’s first sanctioned debates this summer if they can meet new polling or grass-roots fundraising thresholds to qualify,” the Washington Post reports.

“Candidates can qualify either by attracting campaign donations from at least 65,000 people, including at least 200 people from at least 20 states, or by registering at least 1 percent in three state or national polls from a list of surveys approved by the party.”

-- After launching her campaign during a blizzard, Amy Klobuchar had to speak to allegations about bullying her Senate staff.

“Yes, I can be tough, and yes I can push people. I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work for me, but I have high expectations for this country.”

The matter seems quelled, but look for questions about it during the next CNN townhall on Monday.

-- Speaking of Howard Schultz, his was a complete faceplant.  But guess what?  In our glorious democracy oligarchy/idiocracy, it doesn't matter.

On Tuesday night, CNN hosted a live town hall with former Starbucks CEO and potential presidential candidate Howard Schultz. It didn’t go particularly well. Schultz’s answers were largely vague, with occasional lapses into absurdity (“I didn’t see color as a young boy and I honestly don’t see color now,” Schultz said when asked about race).

But more interesting than the town hall’s content was its existence. Lots of people with no base of political support would like to run for president, but they can’t, because the media wouldn’t take their candidacies seriously. So why is Schultz, a political newcomer who “had the worst numbers of any potential candidate tested” in CNN’s own poll, getting such red-carpet treatment?

The answer, of course, is money. Schultz is a billionaire, and in American politics, money is a shortcut to legitimacy.

“Schultz doesn’t have to do the hard work of building a mass movement or representing a genuine constituency to get attention in our politics, because the media uses ability to spend money as a proxy for seriousness of campaign,” says Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America. “And when the media bestows seriousness on a candidate, the public follows along.”

This, as everyone with a functioning brain understands, is exactly how Donald Trump came to be the 45th POTUS.  What's unfortunate is that many of those who voted for him -- unlike those in the executive offices of our corporate media, which just needs to cash the checks -- do not have functioning brains.  Zombies vote, y'all, and they vote a straight GOP ticket.

-- Turns out Kamala Harris is a Rap Genius.

Imagine being so high you listened to music that didn't exist yet. #KamalaHarrisRapGenius https://t.co/MwnWQfhxQk

— Adam Ullian (@adamullian) February 13, 2019

Charlemagne: you like Eminem?

Kalmala: yea my favorite ones are the Green#KamalaHarrisRapGenius pic.twitter.com/Kf8xBwvxfv

— DKT (@darleneturner53) February 13, 2019

Yeah, my favorite rap song from Fresh Prince was Purple Rain.

Quickly recovering, Senator Copmala announced the endorsement of progressive lioness Barbara Lee, which instantly became a bone of contention for the Berners.

-- Beto O'Rourke trumped Trump's rally in El Paso and then fueled speculation about a potential US Senate race by meeting with Chuck Schumer this week.  Politico also quoted someone anonymously saying that US Rep. Joaquin Castro would run against John Cornyn if Beto decided not to.

"Joaquin believes Beto could beat John in 2020, and if Beto decides to see this thing through and do that, then Joaquin will give him his full support, just like he did against Ted Cruz,” a source close to Castro told POLITICO. “Otherwise, Joaquin will absolutely consider jumping in and finishing the job."

This smells like twin peaks of Castro bullshit to me.  Here's a few reasons why.

1.  Beto hasn't even decided whether to jump in the presidential scrum, yet he's polling considerably stronger than Julián, and will move into the top five front-runners when he announces.

O'Rourke's e-mail network of small donors, at 743,000, is only one-third that of Bernie Sanders' -- whose 2.1 million base is larger than all other Democrats in the hunt -- but is still double that of his closest rivals (Warren, Gillibrand, Harris).  Castro has fewer than 900.

2.  It's Julián who is more likely to drop out and run against Cornyn, because he's not currently employed in government like Joaquin, his campaign is unlikely to gain traction among so many other cautious centrists, and he doesn't want to be anybody's running mate this time around.  He said so just last week (scroll to the end).

3.  Joaquin not only has some tenure in the D caucus -- he's already been a deputy whip and a chair of the Hispanic Caucus -- he sits on the House Intelligence Committee, which is a plum job for anybody with a base of representation that includes so many service members and veterans, like San Antonio's 20th District.  (Candidly, he or his brother could have defeated both Beto and Ted Cruz in 2018 if they hadn't been too fucking scared of losing.  Their reticence let Beto zoom right past them.  Don't take my word for it; read the third graf at Joaquin's Wiki.)

There's no good reason for Joaquin to give up all he's earned in a Dem majority in the House to shoot for a seat in the minority in the Senate.  Julián, on the other hand, has nothing left to wait around for if -- when -- his 2020 bid peters out.  Governor in 2022?  Not a chance if he's at 1% or less in the presidential polls in December.

And by the way: either Castro scares Wendy Davis and MJ Hegar right out of the Senate race, because even white centrist Democratic women can't compete with a Latinx of the same ideological stripe.  If neither Castro runs and one of Hegar or Davis does, look for Sema Hernandez to win the primary on the strength of the Latinx effect in statewide Donkey primaries.  She got 24% of the vote against Beto in 2018 spending just $5K, and similar to Maria Luisa Alvarado in 2006 and Linda Chavez-Thompson in 2010 -- who mashed their Caucasian establishment counterparts -- Hernandez can win the Senate primary with some reasonable fundraising even as the corporate media pretends she doesn't exist.

Beto's running for the White House in 2020, and when he comes up short will gladly be somebody's running mate.  Julián Castro could -- perhaps even should, but may still be too afraid to -- run against Cornyn in 2020.  Joaquin Castro needs to stay in Congress.

That's my reading of the cabrito entrails this week.

Nina Turner, Jim Hightower at St. Arnold's this weekend

Take care of your Valentine before Saturday night because the Revolution needs some planning.

Get your tickets here.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Seemingly-Progressive (But-on-Closer-Inspection-is-Just-Plain-Vanilla-Democrat) Alliance wants to be in El Paso today, but too much 'executive time' last week means we're on the sidelines, aka online (virtual reality) and not offline (reality).

Trump's rally this evening in Las Ciudades de Paso del Norte, or the conurbation of communities where the Franklin Mountains meet the Rio Grande, will occupy (sorry) a large part of the corporate media's attention.  The history of humans in the region is long, much of it economic, only a small part conflict-centered; read an overview here.  What a small-minded US president would wish in order to divide people that have lived for centuries in relative harmony is, quite simply, unlikely to happen.

A variety of groups are organizing to more clearly communicate that to him today.  Potential presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke will speak at the competing counter-protest, creating the kind of "us versus them" narrative the media thrives on.

In Lege developments, the confirmation of Texas Secretary of State nominee David Whitley hit rocky shoals as senators grilled him over a voter roll released to county election administrators described as identifying non-citizens.  The list of 95,000 voters has shown to have been poorly vetted, and state officials who initially gave it their approval, including Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, have been accused of employing a time-honored GOP tactic of voter suppression and intimidation.  Latinx civil rights organizations have already filed suit.

"Are you familiar with the concept of #votersuppression?" @SenRoyceWest asked @TXSecofState -designate David Whitley. "Anecdotally, I've heard voter suppression talked about," Whitley replied. https://t.co/Sz58vdyljB What an unctuous @GovAbbott lickspittle. #TXLege #PurgeWhitley

— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) February 8, 2019

Several reports on the state Senate's property tax plan found it lacking; the TSTA Blog was notably unimpressed.  Justin Miller at the Texas Observer.

Critics of the GOP’s property tax cap have blasted it as a cynical, unserious attempt at reform — and one that likely won’t even provide much in the way of relief, especially if the Legislature doesn’t inject millions of new dollars in public school funding, which is mostly paid for through local property taxes. As the Dallas Morning News reported, more than half of the state’s 254 counties and the vast majority of its cities will be exempt from the GOP’s current 2.5 percent property tax cap proposal. This is a clear ploy to ensure rural Republican support in the House and Senate, Democrats say.

“That’s the only way they know they can get this to the floor. That is just not good governing,” Senator John Whitmire, D-Houston, said at a press conference.

Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib, via Progrexas, can be summarized thusly:

The state government wouldn’t survive its own proposal.

Raise Your Hand Texas advocates for separating school funding from high-stakes testing, and Gizmodo reports on legislation that would prevent the telecoms from throttling wireless access during a natural disaster.

A version of the bill, which has been brought before the Texas House of Representatives, amends Texas law to state: “A mobile Internet service provider may not impair or degrade lawful mobile Internet service access in an area subject to a declared state of disaster.”  [...]  Per KUT News, it’s one of more than 100 state bills aimed at protecting internet access introduced since the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission and its telecom-friendly chief Ajit Pai gutted Barack Obama-era net neutrality rules in a 2017 vote.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had the weekly 2020 Democratic presidential candidate update, with both Liz Warren and Amy Klobuchar making their White House bids official.  (Trump kept up the 'Pocahontas' smear.)  Some Texas Democrats want Beto to run for the US Senate again instead of the White House.  And Howard Schultz's CNN townhall is broadcasting from Houston tomorrow night.

Off the Kuff considers John Cornyn's campaign strategy and what it says about how Texas Republicans are looking at 2020.

Somervell County Salon blogged about the Houston Chronicle's investigation into the sexual abuse cases of the Southern Baptist Convention's pastors and preachers.

The Green New Deal, and Speaker Pelosi's objections to it, was duly noted by David Collins.

SocraticGadfly read Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht's lament about some of the judges unseated in November and had a two-pronged response.  Hecht squeezed a bunch of political sour grapes, but Texas could adopt specific ideas from other states on better judicial selection.

In the 5th Circuit today, Judge James Ho wrote a concurring opinion to his own majority opinion in order to opine (unnecessarily to the ruling) on why he thinks LGBT people should not be protected by existing federal sex discrimination bans. https://t.co/UlN0PthPxw pic.twitter.com/COSivo4BfP

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) February 6, 2019

In his weekly statewide roundup of criminal justice news, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast joined others in dismissing the request by Kim Ogg of hiring more criminal prosecutors in order to "advance the docket".

The Harris County DA's request for 102 new prosecutors is meeting with spirited opposition from local reform groups. Grits opposes such an expansion unless 1) the county approves commensurate, new resources for indigent defense, and 2) the funding pays for caseload reduction, not filing new cases. (The HouChron's) Keri Blakinger elaborated on the story in her Twitter feed.

Better Texas Blog warns about undercounting Latinx children in the Census.

Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer thinks the end may finally be near for Dallas' downtown Confederate memorial.

Max Concrete at Houston Strategies collects ridership figures from the Dallas light rail system and analyzes it as a cautionary tale for Houston's MetroNext plans.

The Lunch Tray updates on 'lean finely textured ground beef', otherwise known as pink slime.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub posts this month's dates to fly your flag.

And Harry Hamid is Trigger's broom.

Sunday Funnies

The Friday 2020s update

This weekend's official kickoffs include Liz Warren and Amy Klobuchar.  Cory Booker's declaration fizzled pretty quickly.  Sherrod Brown is going to wait until next month to tell us what he's doing.

-- Let's get the GOP out of the way at the top: former Libertarian vice presidential candidate William Weld is making all the right moves to challenge Trump in the Republican primary.

The clerk’s office in Canton, Massachusetts, confirms on Tuesday that Weld recently changed his party registration to the GOP. If he runs for president as a Republican, he could be Trump’s first challenger within the party. Weld has not returned messages from The Associated Press. He recently told WMUR-TV in New Hampshire that he would discuss his potential political plans during a Feb. 15 visit to the first primary state.

-- Now let's look at the Daily Kos Straw Poll, which the Interweb's most notorious Bernie-hater always spins against Sanders.  Here's the full results; here's the manipulated results.  There's more OCD vitriol from Markos at that second link, which you're welcome to read on your own.  Warning: It's clearly Bernie-Derangement Syndrome in full manifestation.

Kamala Harris is still the Kossack's chosen one despite having no issues pages posted to her website yet.  Lots of platitudes, plenty of swag, no policy.  I find that kind of ridiculous at this point.

-- Warren tripped again over her heritage.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is once again apologizing for claiming Native American ancestry after the Washington Post reported that she filled out a registration card for the State Bar of Texas in 1986 and wrote "American Indian" in the line asking her race. 

Her inability to resolve this matter obviously keeps it teed up for Trump to ridicule, and will be the chink in her armor until she can get it patched.

-- Bernie delivered a rebuttal to Trump's SOTU for which he drew bouquets from his supporters and brickbats from his detractors.  Not because of anything he said, mind you.  Just that he had the audacity to say it.



-- Joe Biden is lining up endorsements on Capitol Hill.  Recent polls favor his entrance.

Biden was the top performer in a Monmouth University poll gauging presidential preferences among registered Democrats. The former vice president received 29 percent support, with the next-closest finisher earning 16 percent. He also earned the highest net favorability rating, with 80 percent of registered Democrats viewing him favorably to 9 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

A CNN poll Wednesday showed that a majority of Democrats — 62 percent — wanted Biden to enter the presidential race.

Politico reported Thursday that Biden was nearing a decision on a run, and was reaching out to Capitol Hill allies including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Chris Coons, D-Del., as well as Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

They like him in Iowa, too.  Uncle Joe would be the establishment's choice, perceived as having some ability to attract white blue-collar workers in Midwestern states back to the Donkey barn, which is viewed in the autopsy of Hillary Clinton's epic fail as her weakest link.  Some of us aren't so sure about Joe, including kos (from above).

Biden has his Anita Hill problem, authorship of that hated crime bill, and sell-past-date feeling. He can exit stage left a winner, or go out a loser.

Howie Klein:

Biden has started -- and aborted -- four runs for president in the past. His brand of Republican-lite centrism is worshiped Inside the Beltway. Outside? Not so much. He never polled outside single digits -- low single digits. Early Monday, Atlantic columnist Edward-Isaac Dovere asserted that as Biden contemplates a 2020 run, he is focused on whether primary voters will support a centrist septuagenarian. He's riding very high in the polls right now, but the overwhelming majority of people who back him don't know his sexist, racist corporate, pro-war record. And if he runs, they'll find out who the real Joe Biden is. Most of the low-info voters selecting him in polls, just see him as a stand-in for Obama ...

Within this Axios piece about Howard Schultz -- his CNN townhall is in Houston next week -- there was this, which was the most revealing thing I read about Biden's potential candidacy.

If Biden runs, look for (billionaire and former NY Mayor Michael) Bloomberg and (former VA Governor Terry) McAuliffe to bow out, the sources tell us.

-- In 'News You May Have Missed' Department, Marianne Williamson also jumped in.  See these posts from Democratic Underground and Down With Tyranny.



Still think she'd make the perfect successor to Jill Stein, running under the Green Party banner.

-- Finally, the Dithering of Beto reaches another crescendo.

O’Rourke admitted to “thinking about running for president” during a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in New York City Tuesday and said, of the prospect of helping to unify the country, “I’m so excited at the prospect of being able to play that role.” He said he would announce his decision about a run “before the end of the month.”

His Hamlet-esque ruminations have prompted much speculation, as well as heaps of unsolicited advice.  Let's go back once again to Nasty Markos.

Beto isn’t someone who will take the fight to the enemy, preferring to run as an eternal optimist. He wouldn’t even attack Ted Cruz, who was so attackable! I don’t criticize. There’s a place for that kind of politics, particularly in a red-to-purpling state like Texas. But for a Democratic presidential primary? I have doubts. And clearly, so does he.

Witness Beto’s precipitous collapse (in the DK poll) as other candidates emerge. His announcement delay may not be fatal if he eventually decides to run, but he just got off a brutal and long Senate battle. He clearly needed to recharge. Yet the race is rich in talent, so what’s his lane? The fresh new face? (Kamala) Harris has snagged that mantle.

More goat-entrail reading from Politico, with their premise being that Beto and others are waiting to see if some of the early front-runners stumble (note Warren's Native American problems and Harris' glossing over her questionable prosecutorial record).

O’Rourke, who [was quoted saying two days before his Oprah interview that] his decision could “potentially” take months, said, “There are people who are smarter on this stuff and study this stuff and are following this and say you’ve got to do it this way or get in by this point or get in in this way if you were to get in.”

However, he said, “I think the truth is that nobody knows right now the rules on any of this stuff. I think the rules are being written in the moment.”

This leaves geniuses like Gilberto Hinojosa and Ed Espinosa of Progress Texas and Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project to offer Bob some career advice: run for the Senate against John Cornyn.  Because if he doesn't, who will?  (Clue to all of these Jackasses: there is a candidate running, an excellent progressive, and she drew 24% of the vote in the 2018 Democratic primary against O'Rourke despite raising only a few thousand dollars.  Get to know her.  Again.)

Our 2018 campaign was groundbreaking and we're just getting started.
Join our grassroots campaign➡ https://t.co/OgtcnqISpn
Donate➡ https://t.co/1nJyphRq1i#NewYearsResolution #Sema2020 pic.twitter.com/FZYu4vGatE

— Sema 🌹💋 (@_SemaHernandez_) December 28, 2018

But to answer the question: perhaps Julián Castro, if you can believe what he's saying about his no-traction presidential campaign.

Appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday night, Castro said he wasn’t interested in being another Democrat’s running mate should he not capture the nomination for himself, explaining that he’s “been there and done that last time,” in reference to his 2016 vetting by Hillary Clinton.

Frankly, I believe him.  My early money is going on Beto running for president, and staying in that race past the deadline to file for the US Senate -- which is in December of this year -- while Castro will eventually drop out and challenge Cornyn.

We'll see how it goes.

2020's campaign: Socialism

Trump used last night's State of the Union address to lay out themes, policies and symbols for his 2020 re-election race, winning over no Democrats in the chamber but giving new hope to supporters who were turning pessimistic. He softened some edges for his largest audience of the year, but made it clear that he's going to try to re-run many of his 2016 plays in 2020.

A notable new twist that we'll hear a lot more about on the campaign trail: "Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country."

Jason Miller, a top official in Trump's 2016 campaign, told (Mike Allen of Axios) the president "elevated the wedge issue of 'socialism' in a way nobody else could."

Republicans love the freeze frame of Democrats sitting emotionlessly when Trump railed against late-term abortions. And loved even more the endorsement-by-sitting-and-silence when he hammered socialism.

Many Democrats, not jut the one named Joe Manchin, enthusiastically applauded this line.

So there it is, Donkeys.  By contrast, "Not a Democrat".

Sanders provided viewers with the results of a spate of polls that highlight massive American support for affordable prescription drugs and health care, infrastructure spending that would create jobs, background checks on gun purchases, the legalization of marijuana, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, more regulation of Wall Street, a significant increase in minimum wage and government-paid college tuition. The Vermont senator goes on to say that the reason that Congress isn’t doing what the “overwhelming majority of Americans” want has “everything to do with the power of the monied interests.”

“Let us bring our people together,” concludes Sanders, “to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. The billionaire class must learn that they cannot have it all. Our government belongs to each and every one of us, not just the few.

“Let us create the kind of America we know we can become.”

Where is the middle ground here?  Who do the compromises favor?

The time is upon us.  Be bold or be sold.



If anybody thinks there's a way to soft-pedal the changes that are long overdue past a president and a party that are going to fear-monger the shit out of them to their ignorant base of voters no matter who is running against them ... better think again.  Even Republicans want someone who will stand up for them against the 1%, as the polls reveal.

Who's going to negotiate that away?  Besides Nancy Pelosi, I mean.

Update:

“Here in the United States we are alarmed to hear new calls to accept socialism in our country,” Trump said, clearly referencing (Rep. Alexandria)  Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and other new Congresspeople who came into office on the back of their support for democratic socialism.

NBC’s anchors asked AOC whether she believed the comment was a dig at her. Rather than answering—she just grinned and calling it a “major coincidence” -- she launched into an explanation of what it is about so-called “socialism” that many people find so appealing.

“The vast, vast majority of Americans believe that you should be able to feed your family on 40 hours a week. We believe that health care is a right, that work should be dignified and we believe that all people should be accepted regardless of their race, gender, or ethnicity,” she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about an ‘ism,’” she added. “That’s exactly what the president is trying to do. He’s trying to mischaracterize, frame, associate. Because our policies are popular. Because we fight for improved and expanded Medicare for all, which has a 70 percent approval rating, because we believe in at least a $15 minimum wage, because we believe in the labor movement, we believe in the unionization of workers.”

“I think what he’s seeing is that he’s losing the war on the issues, so he’s going to try to go ad hominem, he’s going to call names, he’s going to try to distract. We’re not going to let him do it, we’re going to stay focused on our cause,” she concluded.

She’s right: Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage, taxing the rich... these are all incredibly popular policies. And Republicans, Trump included, are terrified that these ideas will gain so much popularity that they’ll be unable to oppose them. Better call her and her fellow lawmakers scary names before it gets out of hand.

But that’s not going to work either. People are no longer scared of the word “socialism.” In fact, most young people support it over capitalism. The time of Trump and his cronies is coming to a close. And AOC and her colleagues are setting the tone for a new era.

The pre-SOTU Wrangle

The Texas Fauxgressive Alliance, having endured the most boring Super Bowl game and the worst commercials ever, is now prepared to sit through Trump's rescheduled State of the Union speech tomorrow night -- expected to be bombastic and inflammatory -- with drinking games and STFU memes at the ready.

Two Texas Congresspersons are making statements with their invitees to the SOTU.

Rhonda Hart, the mother of a Santa Fe High School shooting victim, will be the guest of Houston U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address (on) Tuesday.

Another congressional freshman, San Antonio Republican Chip Roy, is inviting Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council and an outspoken supporter of Trump's hard line on illegal immigration.

[...]

Judd ... is a frequent guest on Fox News, where he is a vocal defender of the Trump administration's border policies. He has also taken aim at Democrats on Twitter.

TXElects has the executive summary of last week's special elections in the Texas House.

Art Fierro, the chair of the El Paso Community Collefe board, won a three-way race outright to succeed former Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso). Fierro received 53% of the vote, defeating El Paso council member Michiel Noe (27%) and Republican candidate Hans Sassenfeld (20%). Pickett resigned in December, citing health reasons.

In HD145, funeral home director Christina Morales (36%) and former Houston council member Melissa Noriega (31%) advanced to a runoff. Republican candidate Martha Fierro, no relation to Art, finished third with 25%. None of the other five candidate received more than 3% of the vote or more than 100 votes.

Turnout was light for both races.

Greg Abbott has not scheduled the runoff election date for HD145 yet.

Off the Kuff has been all over that bogus SOS advisory about alleged non-citizen voters.  Likewise, Paradise in Hell was not impressed by Abbott's voter purge.  Meanwhile, a legal advocacy group will sue the state's top officials over the issue.

The federal lawsuit, filed in Corpus Christi by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, names Secretary of State David Whitley, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton as defendants. It contends that Whitley, in questioning the status of more than 95,000 registered Texas voters, singled out naturalized citizens because they were born outside the country.

Texas Standard wonders if it's really possible that our state lawmakers can cap property taxes and increase public education funding.  Better Texas Blog checks up on health care bills in the Lege.  And CultureMap Austin notes that the capital city is one of the biggest anti-vaccination hotspots in the country.

Grits for Breakfast has some questions about that police raid in Houston that left two police officers dead and five injured.  So does Leif Reichstad at Texas Monthly, specifically the nature of 'no-knock' warrants being served with SWAT backup, a seeming invitation to disaster.

“It’s a use of force, it’s them taking people by surprise,” said Ashton Woods, the founder of Black Lives Matter Houston. “They want to over-police the community. They think they are preventing crime when they are really creating larger problems with community relations. It seems like a police state. They need to be reined in, and we need to know more about the way that they are policing.” Woods also noted that had Tuttle and Nicholas been minorities, their deaths likely would not have been so heavily covered by the media, nor would the incident have drawn such widespread criticism of the police.

Making the situation worse was HPD union president Joe Gamaldi, whose words in the wake of the shooting inflamed tensions between civil rights activists and law enforcement.

Johnny Mata, the presiding officer for the (Greater Houston Coalition for Justice), said that (Gamaldi) went too far and created an untenable situation by threatening civil right activists and organizations who speak out against police brutality and misconduct.

“All the work that has been done by a lot of people cannot go down the drain,” Mata said. “He (Gamaldi) is inciting tensions between police and communities with his egregious comments.”

[...]

Houston police Chief Art Acevedo said (Gamaldi) went "over the top" with his remarks about the shooting.

Gamaldi's remarks are at the link.  John Coby at Bay Area Houston weighed in.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs updated the 2020 Democratic nomination developments, with Cory Booker jumping in and Howard Schultz mulling an independent run.  Maria Recio at Texas Monthly reveals that the woman behind Kamala Harris' campaign is the granddaughter of  Ann Richards.

Jim Schutze at the Dallas Observer has the latest on the Dallas mayor's race, with the campaign turning a little dirty as it becomes 'stop the perceived front-runner' (Scott Griggs).

Somervell County Salon has a deep dive into the local government's violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Socratic Gadfly speculates on what White Castle selling veggie burgers has to say about the future of meat-eating and cattle-raising in Texas and elsewhere.

David Collins took issue with the HouChron business writer Chris Tomlinson's misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and misinterpretations of the Green New Deal.

Jeff Balke at the Houston Press points to the real issues with technology and privacy.

Beyond Bones posts the February guide to the night sky.

Brendan Gibbons at the Rivard Report writes about Pearsall Park's nature trails, on San Antonio's southwest side.

Steve Rossignol at The Rag Blog tells a tale from a hundred years ago in East Texas about baseball, socialism, and oil.

And Harry Hamid has a mapp that shews the order and causes of salvation and damnation.

Super Sunday Funnies

2020 this week: Cory Booker, etc.

Senator Spartacus of New Jersey big-footed Liz Warren's tease this morning (her hotly-rumored declaration a week from tomorrow).  These developments are pushing Howard Starbucks out of the headlines, thankfully.  More at length on Booker, Warren's wealth tax, Schultz's potential indy run, and other items below.  There's been a few comings and goings since I last updated.

-- Richard Ojeda realized he had no path to winning, so he dropped out.  Less than two weeks after he resigned his seat in the West Virginia state senate, which enabled the Republican governor to tap one of his cronies to fill it.

-- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti decided against a bid for the White House.

-- Former AZ Sen. Jeff Flake will become a teevee talking head rather than challenge Trump in the GOP presidential primary.  Nobody has more fully lived up to their name since Anthony Weiner.

Okay then.

Everybody that's in today, except for Booker. Can you name them all?

-- Cory Booker has some razzle-dazzle, as even not-so-close observers know.  His rejoinder to John Cornyn during the Kavanaugh hearings was a standout moment, if not quite Kirk Douglas-worthy.

During the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh last fall, Booker dramatically threatened to release confidential documents from Kavanaugh's time in the Bush White House, even though, as he claimed, "the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate." Booker called it his "Spartacus moment," but the drama was significantly deflated when it became clear that the documents in question had already been approved for public release.

He's also got some heavy baggage.

He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions) and the perception that he’s close with Wall Street. 

There's also the big money he's been taking from Big Pharma until recently, the appearance of quid pro quo to them, and this.

If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016

*heavy sigh* There's always a Tweet.

Like Kamala Harris, there's a great deal in Booker's record that both does -- and does not -- reflect progressivism.  Like Harris, he's going to depend on charm to overcome it.  Senator Copmala might have a slight edge with their shared ethnicity voting bloc.

... about 60 percent of black Democratic voters are women, and black women may want to make history and elect a black woman.

How the black caucus breaks probably rests on how the vetting of her record as a prosecutor goes.

-- Elizabeth Warren's 'wealth tax' proposal, which came on the heels of Alex Ocasio-Cortez's 70% marginal tax rate suggestion, was followed up with legislation presented by Bernie Sanders to ask the most well-off Americans to share their wealth with the poorest among us.  It's a lesson most of us learned in kindergarten.

No surprise, though, that Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg are strongly opposed.  It was enough to make Schultz reconsider his Democratic Party membership.

The proposals have plutocrats shook. Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor who is flirting with a run in the Democratic presidential primaries, invoked the spectre of Venezuela and suggested Warren’s wealth tax could lead to Americans “starving to death.” Billionaire Starbucks emeritus chairman Howard Schultz this week blasted Warren’s plan as “punitive” and “ridiculous,” and insists he cannot run for president as a Democrat because he doesn’t believe in steeply progressive taxation. “I no longer feel affiliated” to the party, he said, “because I don’t know their views represent the majority of Americans. I don’t think we want a 70 percent income tax in America.” 

He's wrong, naturally.

But Schultz — who stubbornly and wrongly insists he’s standing up for a “silent majority” — does not have the people with him. According to recent polls, wide majorities of Americans support both Warren’s wealth tax and Ocasio-Cortez’s top-bracket tax hike.

The proposal to tax income earned above $10 million-a-year at 70 percent is favored by nearly six in ten Americans — and even 45 percent of Republicans according to a recent HarrisX poll. And a new poll by YouGov, commissioned by the liberal group Data For Progress and reviewed by Rolling Stone, finds a wealth tax is even more popular: 61 percent of Americans support Warren’s proposal to tax the rich, including 44 percent of Republicans. (A near majority, 46 percent, “strongly support” the measure, while only 15 percent “strongly oppose” it.)

“The idea of taxing billionaires is extreme to the Beltway elite that takes their money, but not to voters,” says Sean McElwee, a co-founder of Data for Progress. “Meanwhile, ideas like Social Security cuts that billionaire elites love are despised by ordinary voters.” Politicians looking for “bipartisan solutions” McElwee believes, should start with “expropriating the wealth of billionaires.”

To be clear, it does not happen without a Democratic Senate in 2020, and like Medicare for All, almost certainly requires the suspension of the filibuster.  <<Follow the links here.

Get more, including the 'Draft Beto' movement, from the sources I've linked in past posts: FiveThirtyEight's 'What They're Saying and Doing' this past week, and Vox's 'Biggest Questions So Far, Answered'.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas More-Centrist-than-Progressive Alliance solemnly noted Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday with remarks appropriate to the occasion.  Not so the Harris County GOP, which was quickly shamed into deleting its "Leftism kills" Facebook post.

A lack of understanding of Nazis and political history is the root cause of this oft-repeated error.  From the Chron link:

"Nazis, who killed left-wing activists among other victims, have traditionally been viewed by historians as a right-wing fascist movement."

Pages of Victory posted Janis Ian's song, "Tattoo", inspired by her thoughts about the Holocaust.

Here's the rest of the blog post and lefty news roundup.

==============

Election day is tomorrow for two Texas House seats; early voting opens today in a third. TXElects:

Three seats in the House of Representatives were vacant when the Legislature convened two weeks ago:

• HD79, an El Paso Co. seat vacated by former Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso), who resigned in December, citing health reasons.
• HD125, a Bexar Co. seat vacated by former Rep. Justin Rodriguez (D-San Antonio), who resigned earlier this month to accept an appointment to the Commissioners Court; and
• HD145, a Harris Co. seat that was held by now Sen. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston) prior to her special election victory.

Tuesday is Election Day in HD79 and HD145. Early voting begins (today) in HD125. Early voting turnout in HD79 was 3.1% of registered voters, as a total of 2,705 people had voted through Friday. Turnout was lower in HD145, where just 1,528 ballots were cast through Friday, amounting to 2.1% of registered voters.

There have been nine expedited special elections for legislative seats since 2010, and turnout has exceeded 10% of registered voters in just one of them.

Dan Patrick's reprimand of state Sen. Kel Seliger carries some session-lasting ramifications.  The TexTrib's Ross Ramsey analyzes the unspoken messages being sent from both directions.

The government shutdown may have ended but the hypocrisy of Ted Cruz lasts forever.  Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer posted the smackdown from Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Trump's wall is a manufactured immigration crisis and is unnecessary, say two Texas sheriffs who police the southern border, reports Kate Groetzinger of the Texas Observer.  Jessica Reyes and Christina Sullivan at Texas Monthly compiled a list of Texas Congresspeople who refused to cash their paychecks during the shutdown.

At least 20 of the 36 Texas members of the U.S. House have confirmed that they are withholding their $174,000 annual salary for the duration of the nation’s longest partial government shutdown. [...] The remaining sixteen members of the House did not say that they were continuing to take pay; they simply have not yet responded to our queries. Sixteen of the House members from Texas who are withholding or donating their pay are Republicans. Ten of the sixteen members who did not respond are Democrats. Neither of the two U.S. senators responded about their intentions.

Patrick Svitek at the Texas Tribune brings word that the DCCC has announced its plans to challenge five incumbent Lone Star Republicans in 2020. 

As part of its first digital ad campaign of the cycle, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Chip Roy of Austin, Pete Olson of Sugar Land, Kenny Marchant of Coppell and John Carter of Round Rock. They are among 25 GOP House members across the country included in the ad offensive, which the DCCC announced Friday.

The ads criticize the lawmakers for voting against recent Democratic-backed legislation to end the government shutdown without funding for a border wall -- a demand by President Donald Trump that prompted the closure.

Down With Tyranny says that Mike Siegel, McCaul's 2018 challenger who fell just short, has already declared he will run again next year.  Meanwhile a call has gone forth for a progressive to stand against the mangey Blue Dog in South Texas, Henry Cuellar.

Dubbed “Big Oil’s Favorite Democrat,” Cuellar is the first who Justice Democrats will be recruiting a primary challenger for ahead of the 2020 election. When he voted to lift the ban on crude oil exports in 2015, Cuellar said in a press statement that “with the Eagle Ford Shale in my district and the Permian Basin nearby, I recognize the great potential for our domestic oil industry, and I also understand the way in which it is being suppressed by this outdated export ban.” Lifting that ban helped clear the way for the rash of new fossil fuel development over the last few years and will continue to fuel the development analyzed in OCI’s report. In the summer of 2017, he was among the first to join the Congressional Oil and Gas Caucus intended, per inaugural chair Vicente González, D-Texas, to “assure that there is support on this side of the aisle for the oil and gas industry.”

Cuellar has voted 69 percent of the time with Trump. In the 2018 cycle, he accepted $145,000 from PACs linked to oil and gas corporations and has taken $711,627 from the industry over the course of his career.

With so much progress being made so quickly on criminal justice reform -- and specifically cash bail reform -- it was inevitable that "LawNOrder" groups would start pushing back.  Grits for Breakfast points out that the organization representing Texas counties is lobbying the Lege about the costs of indigent defense with fake news.

Global warming developments topped bloggers' interest this week past.  Downwinders at Risk celebrated victory as the Dallas city planning commission voted to deny a permit to the concrete facility south of that city.  Texas Vox also saw Big D taking several important steps to mitigate the forthcoming impacts of climate change.  San Antonio's climate plan calls for the Alamo City to phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2050, according to Brendan Gibbons at the Rivard Report.  The Texas Living Waters Project writes about reforesting stream banks.  But Progrexas has some ominous news: Permian Basin drillers are flaring almost twice as much natural gas as they are reporting to the Texas Railroad Commission.

“In 2017 alone, Permian oil and gas operators burned enough gas to serve all the heating and cooking needs of the state’s seven largest cities,” wrote Colin Leyden, the Environmental Defense Fund’s senior manager for state regulatory and legislative affairs, in a blog post describing the findings. “That’s roughly $322 million of natural gas that went up in smoke.”

Natural gas is a fossil fuel hitchhiker that comes up with oil. When burned off, it releases earth-warming greenhouse gases and pollutants that can wreak havoc on the human respiratory system.

Off the Kuff kept up with the census lawsuit news, now being fought in two courts.

The Somervell County Salon sees some similarities in the lack of governmental transparency between a death in the Travis County jail and the Texas Public Information Act violations she's covered in Glen Rose.

Raise Your Hand Texas highlights some of the many public school choice options available to Texas students and families.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston has some advice for would-be city council office seekers.  (My advice is to ignore his advice.)  Derrick Broze at The Conscious Resistance wonders why Mayor Sylvester Turner won't answer questions about the city's 5G plan.

SocraticGadfly had two different pieces on just how real and how strong the national "jobs miracle" is.  First, if as much as half of Internet traffic is fake and bots, then how "real" are many Internet-driven jobs such as SEO marketing?  Second, he advised people not to believe semi-legend pieces about the ease of job-hopping.  The reality is different; it's driven by IT-tech jobs, followed by sales, and doesn't apply if you're over a certain age.

In Texas media news, the federal bankruptcy court has approved the reorganization plan for iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel).

The company once was a great San Antonio success story. Businessmen Lowry Mays and Red McCombs founded the company in 1972 with a purchase of a local radio station. It grew over the decades to become Clear Channel Communications and then iHeartMedia with 850 stations on its roster, including KJ97 and WOAI 1200 locally.

Mays and McCombs sold Clear Channel in 2008 to two private equity firms in a deal reported near $25 billion, but it has struggled under the weight of growing debt since the acquisition. It was renamed iHeartMedia in 2014.

Mike McGuff blogs on the demise of a hyperlocal news outlet in Katy, Texas, and extends his thoughts about the state of today's corporate media.

From my vantage point of running a little Houston media blog for a decade plus, no one is getting rich doing this - even if you see ads running around these very words. And it's not just the little sites - the big dogs in publishing are hurting too. In fact, if you follow me on Twitter, I just tweeted a New Yorker article that asked Does Journalism Have a Future?

I should note however, that the Houston Chronicle just posted the article "Houston Chronicle parent reports record profits, again". So don't cry for Hearst, Houston. 

David Collins explains cognitive misers, useful idiots, and how multiple complex narratives get reduced to two boxes ... and one narrative.

Texas Rural Voices sees the state's doctors looking for other treatments for opioid addiction available under Medicaid.

And Texas Standard has a profile of 'cosmic cowboy' Michael Martin Murphey on his induction into the Texas Music Legends Hall of Fame and the release of “Austinology: Alleys of Austin.”

Murphey teams up with old friends Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Gary P. Nunn and others to recreate the soundtrack of a vibrant scene that somehow emerged in the Texas Capital City.