Friday, July 26, 2019

The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update


Cillizza/Enten with their weekly top ten, which gets more wrong than right, so I'll cut to the nut.

Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be a very big deal for all 20 of the candidates on the stage. And with the Democratic National Committee raising the standards of qualification to make it into the third debates in September, this might be the last, best chance many of these candidates have to boost their support before it's curtains for their campaigns.

Some of the laggards have enough money to hang around without being debaters as long as they feel like spending it: Delaney, for example.  Yang, for another.  Some should have dropped out awhile back, as we know: Hickenlooper, Bennet, Ryan.  Some remain in the race -- and will long after next week -- for reasons still mostly unknown to anyone but them: Bullock, Williamson, and everybody who has yet to qualify for a debate.  I have some favorites among these, and I'm sure you do, too.  So we, and they, will soldier on into the fall and winter until, as Ann Landers used to write, they awaken to the aroma of strong coffee brewing.

That wasn't intended to be a lead-in to Howard Starbucks.  He's probably not running.

So with little to report other than the online quarreling pre-debate ...

-- One of the front-running five has been outspoken about the conclusions presented in the wake of the Mueller hearings.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday praised the NAACP for supporting the impeachment of President Donald Trump and took a jab at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her reluctance to do so.

The 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful addressed the annual NAACP convention in Detroit at the same time a House panel conducted a hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller about his report on Russian influence in the 2016 election and whether Trump obstructed justice.

“I read the Mueller report the day it came out,” Warren told moderator April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. “And when I got to the end, I did not stick my finger in the air and ask about the politics. I did not hesitate. I read it. I knew what it said and I concluded first that this is a man who has broken the law and he should be impeached.”

Warren in April became the first Democratic presidential candidate to call for Trump’s impeachment following the completion of Mueller’s lengthy report. Of the 235 Democrats in the House, at least 89 say they support opening an impeachment inquiry into the president.

Despite forceful impeachment calls from progressive Democratic lawmakers, Pelosi has so far shied away from moving forward with such an inquiry, stating it could serve to only further divide the country without enough bipartisan support.

But Warren on Wednesday urged Congress to take action now.

“We have to make clear: No one is above the law ― not even the president of the United States,” Warren said. “It is time to bring impeachment charges against him.”

Asked about Pelosi’s hesitation, Warren suggested the Democratic leader was playing politics by not moving forward with impeachment.

“l understand that there are people who for political reasons say it’s not where we want to be. But my view is some things are above politics,” she said, prompting applause from the audience. “And one of them is our constitutional responsibilities to do what is right.”

“My view is whether it would pass the Senate or not ... this is a moment in history and every single person in Congress should be called on to vote and then to live with that vote for the rest of their lives,” she added.

It really makes me wonder about establishmentarians such as Markos Moulitsas, who organized a fundraiser of hundreds of dozens of roses for Pelosi, and whose blog cultists are devoted to Warren's candidacy, as to whether this is creating any cognitive dissonance in their minds.

-- Uncle Joe is ready to start trading shots with his rivals.

Joe Biden is preparing for a confrontation with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Days from the second Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Biden has become more aggressive against his rivals on the campaign trail -- and a senior campaign official says Biden himself is the driver of his new approach.

Several advisers had encouraged Biden to be "more aggressive" earlier in the campaign, one adviser said. But after the debate -- which Biden rewatched afterward -- the former vice president told aides he felt he needed to fight back more.

[...]

At least some of the criticism awaiting Biden on the debate stage is already clear: In recent days, Booker has repeatedly attacked Biden over his role in the passage of the 1994 crime bill, while, in the first debate, Harris eviscerated Biden over his opposition to federally mandated busing to desegregate schools.

Biden will be sandwiched between the two on stage in Detroit on Wednesday night, the second night of the two-night debate hosted by CNN.

As Booker has ramped up his criticism, the Biden camp felt the New Jersey senator had presented "multiple mischaracterizations" of the former vice president, a Biden aide said.

That has fueled the Biden campaign's willingness to attack Booker. Beyond Biden's own words, his aides have increasingly taken aim at Booker on social media. On Thursday morning, Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield cited Booker's recent comments about the importance of engaging and exciting black voters, tweeting, "We couldn't agree more!" and highlighted a poll that shows Biden vastly outperforming Booker among black voters.

Biden has also notably sharpened his thinly veiled attacks on Harris on the issue of health care since the last debate. The official said Biden decided weeks ago that he wanted to "draw a line in the sand on health care and a defense" of the Affordable Care Act.

"He has drawn stark contrasts between himself and the other candidates specifically on this issue," the official said. "Sen. Harris just doesn't seem to know where she stands exactly when it comes to health care."

Drifty Joe still has lots of policy issues and gaffes to work through, but the polls are bouncing back for him, and as long as he's taking his Aricept, he ought to do okay next week.  If he has another debate performance like the last one, it's time to call A Place For Dad.   

-- DeBlasio and Beto opened the week with their own dustup over Medicare for All.  Another fun Twitter exchange at this link (hey, I can't embed them all).

-- Kamala is also regressing to the polling mean, pre-first debate.  So she is going to need another moment or two next Wednesday evening to regain momentum.

-- As to fundraising: Biden, Harris, and Buttigieg cashed in big with Wall Street.

-- Bernie continues to be a hate magnet for the talking heads on corporate media.


It's been an ongoing issue with Sanders and MSNBC.


It's probably why you see polling numbers like this.


What becomes of this, I can't say.   Comedienne Kathy Griffin chose to pile on.


There's been pushback from the campaign and staff and supporters, but the toxicity of this venom being spit at a candidate with no basis -- a key difference in what the #StillWithering crowd claims in comparison to the 2016 effort against their Kween and these smears -- is going to be extremely difficult to overcome with low info, marginally interested kinda-sorta voters.

Which is why they are doing it.

-- There's going to be a climate town hall before the third debate.

CNN will host a Democratic presidential town hall in September focused on the climate crisis.
The event will take place on Wednesday, September 4, in New York City. CNN is inviting candidates who meet the Democratic National Committee's polling threshold for the September primary debate to participate, meaning they've reached at least 2% in four approved polls by August 28.
Eight candidates so far have met the polling threshold: former Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Jay Inslee is unlikely to qualify for this debate, which is kinda bullshit in a way.  So is Kirsten Gillibrand, who released her plan -- 10 years, $10 trillion -- yesterday.

There is another scheduled after the third debate.


-- Tulsi Gabbard is suing Google for $50 million because it stopped her campaign’s advertising account for six hours after the first debate, on June 28.

-- And last, when Democrats arrive in Milwaukee this time next year for their national convention, they will have to endure some ' sewer socialism' taunts from the right.  Maybe they can start practicing their retorts for that now.

A very odd couple: Milwaukee's last socialist mayor Frank Zeidler (left),
 seen here with Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1948

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett announced March 11 that, for the first time in its history, the city will host the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

In some ways, the choice was obvious. Wisconsin is a swing state whose demographics -- in terms of race, ethnicity, income, education and neighborhood composition -- closely reflect those of the United States as a whole. And the memory of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 snub is still fresh in the minds of many Midwesterners: During Clinton’s presidential campaign, her team (led by Robby Mook) decided that Wisconsin was such a safe Democratic stronghold, Clinton wouldn’t need to visit. She lost Wisconsin by around 23,000 votes.

The Democratic Party has clearly learned from this 2016 mistake as it considers strategies to turn battlegrounds like Wisconsin blue. But one can also make the case that, in choosing Milwaukee, the party is honoring the city’s unique political history. Milwaukee is the only major U.S. city to have elected three socialist mayors: Emil Seidel, Daniel Hoan and Frank Zeidler. They held office for a collective 38 years (between 1910 and 1960) and helped earn Milwaukee a reputation for being, as Time magazine reported in 1936, “perhaps the best governed city in the U.S.”

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, seized upon this history as an opportunity to redbait: “No city in America has stronger ties to socialism,” he said in a statement about the 2020 Democratic convention. “And with the rise of Bernie Sanders and the embrace of socialism by its newest leaders, the American Left has come full circle. It’s only fitting the Democrats would come to Milwaukee.”

Jefferson was being snarky, but he’s arguably correct. Nearly all the Democratic presidential candidates have included policies in their campaign platforms that harken back to the city’s legacy of “sewer socialist” mayors (a phrase coined in 1932 that refers to the superlative public works projects created by Milwaukee socialists). Milwaukeeans didn’t seem particularly bothered by the term, though. “Yes, we wanted sewers in the workers’ houses,” Mayor Emil Seidel wrote in his 1944 memoirs, “but we wanted much, oh, so very much more than sewers. We wanted our workers to have pure air; we wanted them to have sunshine; we wanted planned homes; we wanted living wages; we wanted recreation for young and old; we wanted vocational education; we wanted a chance for every human being to be strong and live a life of happiness.”

Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, seemed to suggest that Milwaukee’s progressive politicians embodied the party’s best impulses, stating at the March 11 press conference, “Where you hold a convention is a very strong statement of your values … of who we are as a party, and who and what we’re fighting for.”

Perez, whose wife grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs, is likely well aware of the city’s socialist history. His own politics around socialism are less clear: A well-respected labor secretary under President Barack Obama, Perez beat out the Left’s preferred candidate for DNC chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, who was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Progressive Democrats of America, Friends of the Earth Action, Unite Here and many other progressive organizations.

The Milwaukee chapter of the DSA, for its part, intends to leverage the city’s history to elevate democratic socialists -- in particular, Bernie Sanders. They’re even thinking of leading a series of socialist history tours for politicians and delegates, with stops at local landmarks such as Turner Hall and the Riverwest Public House. In the meantime, residents continue to express interest in joining the chapter, which has seen its membership surge since the 2016 election.

As more and more Democratic voters, especially millennials, identify as democratic socialists, it feels momentous that Milwaukee, with its proud “sewer socialist” past, will be hosting the Democratic convention. Candidates vying for the nomination will have to ask themselves: Will they embrace socialism, or run from it?
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Monday, July 22, 2019

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance joined 82-year-old Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) ...


... in requesting membership in The Squad.


This is your expanded edition of the once-a-week roundup of the best of the left of, and about, our beloved Great State.  To the above, Bonddad gives a history lesson on how The Squad's members -- that's all of us, but especially the brave women pictured -- are direct ideological descendants of 1850s-era Congressional Republicans (if you saw the 2012 film Lincoln, which starred Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, then you have some additional insight here).


Texas Southern University will host the third Democratic presidential candidates debate, scheduled for September 12 and 13, and broadcast by ABC News and Univision.

The two-part debate will be held at TSU’s Health & Physical Education arena, which has 7,200 seats ... The candidates and debate moderators have yet to be announced. To qualify, candidates must amass 130,000 unique donors and receive at least 2 percent support in four qualifying polls.

Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards joined the US Senate Democratic primary, just ahead of state Senator Royce West's announcement on Monday.  The field includes former Cong. Chris Bell, Air Force veteran MJ Hegar, and activist Sema Hernandez, among others.

And former state senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis declared her challenge to Republican Chip Roy for the right to represent the 21st Congressional District.


Dos Centavos scoffs at the weak Republican response to Trump's latest racist diatribe.

Better Texas Blog urges a vote against HJR38, the anti-income tax constitutional amendment.

The biggest prize in next year's elections will go to the political party that controls the state's House of Representatives, writes Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib.


The idea animating many political candidates, consultants and donors in Texas in 2020 is one that’s way down the list of concerns for many Texas voters: redistricting.

The 150-member Texas House has 83 Republicans and 67 Democrats, creating a GOP majority that could flip to Democrats if the minority party could wrest away nine spots.

[...]

The legislators elected in 2020 will draw the next set of political maps for the state’s congressional and legislative seats. Right now, Republicans hold the governor’s office and majorities in both the state House and Senate -- a trifecta that virtually ensures the resulting maps will favor their party.

Winning a Democratic majority in the Texas House would give Democrats some leverage over at least some of the maps the state will use for the next decade of elections. Specifically, it could break the GOP’s control over the congressional maps that will be drawn after the 2020 census. At the very least, it would allow the Democrats to prevent Republicans from drawing those maps -- and to throw the political cartography to federal judges instead of Texas politicians.

More from Michael Li of the Brennan Center:

“There are 17 seats that Republicans won in 2018 by 10 points or less,” said Michael Li, senior redistricting counsel at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “And that seems to be a lot of opportunity for Democrats, because the investment that would be needed to flip those seats is relatively small compared to the prize of being able to have a role in help drawing 39 congressional districts.”

Kuff reads the Chronicle's article on the millenials running for Houston city council, then pulls out a spreadsheet that reveals the Bayou City municipal electorate "tends to be pretty old" in order to justify the premise that these aren't the candidates the voters are looking for.  (Or something.  Frankly it all smacks of ageism.)  For more enlightened reading, see David Collins, who has some very good questions for council candidates.

The state's largest county will have new voting machines, very likely with a paper trail ... but not until the May 2021 primary elections, according to HPM.

Harris County is set to replace its antiquated voting machines, which are based on 20-year-old technology. But the work won’t be done in time for the 2020 presidential election.

A prospective voter tries out an Election Systems & Software voting machine at the
International Association of Government Officials Conference Trade Show.
Photo by Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media

The new voting infrastructure will cost $74 million, with the funding coming out of the 2020 budget. Speaking at a trade show on Tuesday, County Clerk Diane Trautman said it will take until March just to narrow down the selection of voting machines to the top two vendors. She expects to pick the supplier by July of next year.

“Actually just to make 5,000 machines will take months,” Trautman said. “So to get them back, put them in the field, teach the election workers and the voters how to use them ... our estimate is the May 2021 election before they can be used.”

(Recent reports indicate that machines like the one pictured above are still not safe from hackers, and the company that manufactures them has a record of questionable business practices.  Brad Friedman, one of the nation's leading voices for paper ballots, would concur that the only safe ballot is one marked by hand and not by machine.  Clerk Trautman needs to be encouraged to carefully consider her purchase decision in this regard.)

And there remains some confusion about whether the state's hemp legalization law accidentally decriminalized marijuana.  Some county DAs are ending prosecution of petty weed crimes while others are not, and our tuff-on-crime governor weighs in on the question.

The University of Texas-El Paso followed the University of Texas-Austin in reducing the costs of tuition to zero for families of a certain income level.  This is probably a direct consequence of the debate among Democratic presidential candidates on this topic.

With the 50th anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 moon mission this past week, Texas Standard speaks to a historian about LBJ's role in the effort.

President Johnson (r.) with NASA head James Webb in 1967.

In 1957, a Soviet satellite wasn’t a cosmic curiosity; it was a real threat -- a nuclear threat. The public imagination was gripped by the idea that the Russians could bomb the United States from space. A few days after Sputnik launched, Johnson got a memo from an aide named George Reedy, urging the Senate majority leader to push for more aggressive space exploration. He saw an opportunity for good public policy -- and good politics. John Logsdon is professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

“That was Reedy’s message, that this was something that’s a good thing to do. Plus, it will be attractive to the public and position you, as Reedy said, and make you president,” Logsdon says.

Johnson ran with Reedy’s idea. He came to believe that control of space meant control of the world. For the next decade, Johnson worked to make sure that Americans were those controllers.

“Would we be on the moon without Lyndon Johnson? I think the answer is no,” Logsdon says.

SocraticGadfly shows and describes why Texas arts aficionados who have any chance to see the late-life Monet exhibit at the Kimball need to go.

The Lunch Tray wants a real federal response to lunch shaming.

Elise Hu provides your Trader Joe's shopping list.  (I don't even know any rich people who shop at Trader Joe's.  Do you?)

And Pages of Victory uses Tom Englehardt's voice as a stand-in for himself.
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Sunday, July 21, 2019

Sunday 'Racist Bones' Funnies








DOJ declines to prosecute NYPD officer who choked Eric Garner to death



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Friday, July 19, 2019

The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

A much easier Update this week than last, since everyone agrees on the front-runners, and since I don't do much of the weekly shifts in polling and none of the fundraising horse race.

After 'The Draw' last night I thought I would title the first of week-after-next's pre-debate posts "White Night".  But there's always something better.

Had Bernie and Liz wound up on Wednesday, it could have been 'Progressive Night', with Tuesday being 'Centrist Central'.  Anyway, it's a good mix, and kudos to CNN for both the method and the manner in which they were able to create suspense and build excitement.

It's a pisser that they excluded the Gravelanche, though.  He saw it coming.


More from Gravel in a moment; here's something interesting from Christopher Hass about this cycle's emphasis on the number of donors.

I saw firsthand the power small-donor fundraising can have, working as part of the teams that helped Obama raise record amounts of money in 2008 and again in 2012. But as more candidates adopt this approach, we’ve also seen the rise of an industry custom-built to deliver small donors, for anyone who can afford it. Candidates with a large, established base of support like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden will likely meet any donor threshold the DNC sets. For everyone else, the new rules are an invitation -- and maybe even a requirement -- to buy your way onto the stage.

Advertising firms have reportedly been quoting a cost of $40 and up for campaigns to acquire a single $1 donor. In practice, this amounts to a massive transfer of campaign funds directly to online ad platforms -- 2020 candidates are collectively paying more than $1 million a week to Facebook alone. Not only have fundraising appeals become more numerous, they’ve become increasingly desperate. Kirsten Gillibrand plays beer pong to earn donations. Julián Castro’s mom pleads, “I’m humbly asking for $1 to help my incredible son, Julián, qualify for the Democratic Presidential debates.” As a recent Vice News headline summarized: “2020 Democrats Are Literally Begging for $1 on Facebook.” Even Bernie is offering up copies of his latest book (cover price $27.99) for a buck.

In the end, all 20 candidates in the first debate qualified by polling (with 14 meeting the donor threshold as well). For the third round of debate in September, the threshold will double (to 2% polling and 130,000 donors), and candidates have to meet both criteria. Because each new donor is harder to bring in than the one before it, expect the desperation (and spending) to ramp up exponentially.

There’s a lesson or two in all of this about unintended consequences. There’s also a larger question the Left will need to continue to grapple with moving forward: Do we really want money to be the measure of a good candidate?

If we want a politics focused on building mass movements, then the price of entry should ultimately be participation and solidarity. What we don’t need is to encourage politicians to become better hucksters, offering a brighter future for the low, low price of just $1.

Food for thought.  Back to Gravel and his debate plan.


Why, it's almost as if someone is actually reading this blog (scroll to the bottom).  Speaking of Jay Inslee (click the previous link), Egberto Willies called him out for some unacceptable conduct at last weekend's Netroots Nation.  Sounds really shitty to me.

Some light reading:

-- Yes, Beto is faltering, and even Chris Hooks has figured it out.


Nice ratio, guys.  The replies to this Tweet are more entertaining than the comments under Hooks' article, just sayin'.

Beto is doubling down on Iowa despite currently polling at 1% there.  He's banking -- pun intended -- that his retail politicking effort to shake every single person's hand in the Hawkeye State will have the same result as a slightly better result than his 2018 Texas Senate bid.

Expect him to go after one of the front-runners on the first debate night.

-- 'Sanders and Warren voters have astonishingly little in common'.  It's a classic elitist versus commoner comparison.  I wouldn't anticipate a debate showdown between these two; they need each others' supporters at the time of the eventual winnowing too much.

-- And since both stand in solidarity for M4A, you can expect Boot Edge x 2 to attack that, along with some of the others (Delaney, Frackenlooper, etc.).  Tuesday the 30th might shape up as 'Capitalist Democrat' Night.

-- Just don't expect pushback against Status Quo Joe's Almost Affordable Healthcare plan on Wednesday night from Kamala.  I don't think she's come to agreement with herself on that yet.


-- And don't ask Steve Bullock about his custom alligator boots.

-- We're in the thick of the News Media Primary, and as someone really smart said back here, don't let them pick your president for ya.  Anybody at this stage of the game is capable of winning the nomination, and everybody ought to be electable against the worst incumbent president ever.  It's just the middle of July, after all.  Who's got any business ruling anybody out?!  (This is the hope Betomaniacs are hanging their hats on.)

-- In their new book United States of Distraction, Noah Higdon and Mickey Huff blame the media once again for helping Trump get elected.  But the Texas Observer's Michael Hardy in his review makes a good case for why that is a tired excuse.

-- What's the heaviest baggage the top seven are schlepping into the debates?  Some valuable oppo research if you're into that social media/geek fighting thing.  Kamala keeps adding carry-ons.  "McKinsey Pete" is a pretty pointed nickname.

-- Marianne Williamson is right about our elections.

-- The qualifiers for the Houston debate in September will almost certainly weed out some of the stragglers.  That's when talk of Gravel's climate debate will intensify.

-- And the Green Party's Howie Hawkins is on pace to qualify for federal matching funds.  The GPUS is holding their national meeting in Salem, MA the weekend before the second debates.
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Monday, July 15, 2019

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance knows that #SilenceEqualsCompliance, whether it is Republicans refusing to condemn the remarks of a racist president, or a House Speaker who won't adequately rise to the defense of the four Congresswomen at whom Trump's bigoted tirade was directed.



As the pre-announced #ICEraids in ten US cities including Houston (postponed in New Orleans due to Hurricane Barry) were scaled back due to mass protests, Dos Centavos kept an eye on what Houston officialswere saying about them.  Texas Standard sees volunteers from across the state stepping up to address the humanitarian crisis  at the border.  And Better Texas Blog has the crazy idea that our state should treat asylum-seeking migrant families with respect and dignity.

Legal matters occupied Texas bloggers' and news reporters' thoughts this past week:

-- The TexTrib and Off the Kuff wrote about the Obamacare hearing at the Fifth Circuit.

-- The San Antonio Current posted about Ken Paxton's defeat in state court of parts of his 'sanctuary cities' lawsuit.  A couple of days later, a federal appeals court gave the Trump Administration a victory in a similar-yet-different case.

-- In the state's capital city, the treatment of homeless persons has enraged Republicans.

An Austin City Council decision to rescind local prohibitions on sitting or sleeping in most public areas has kicked off a dispute between state and city leaders about the best way to handle homelessness in urban areas in Texas.

In the weeks since the policy was adopted, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made multiple threats to pursue actions at the state level to overturn Austin’s decision.

The Travis County Republican Party expressed support for state intervention in a news release on Wednesday, titled: "Homeless given more rights than property owners under new camping policy."

That statement was rated False by Politifact Texas.

-- And SocraticGadfly says the most egregiously wrong ruling of this Supreme Court term was not the gerrymandering case, but seven justices -- including two liberals -- ruling against First Amendment religious freedoms.

Silas Allen at the Dallas Observer documented the increased recruiting efforts of white supremacists on Texas college campuses and around the country.

Houston Public Media compiled a list of the more than 70 Space City candidates for mayor and city council.  John Coby at Bay Area Houston is tracking campaign finance reports.  TXElects has a smattering of 2020 declarations from across the Great State.

HD10 open: Waxahachie title company executive Ryan Pitts, son of former Rep. Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie), announced he would seek his father’s old seat, which is being vacated by the retiring Rep. John Wray (R-Waxahachie). Midlothian business owner and former Naval fighter pilot Jake Ellzey officially announced he would seek the seat. Ellzey unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for open HD10 in 2014 (16%) and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for open CD6 in 2018, losing the runoff to Ron Wright, 52%-48%.
#TXSEN: Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) has scheduled a July 22 news conference during which he is widely expected to announce his challenge of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R). West has served since 1993 and was re-elected in November. His seat is not on the ballot in 2020, which means that he does not have to leave the state Senate to run for U.S. Senate.
Texas Supreme Court: Bellaire attorney and Court of Appeals Justice (Dist. 14, Pl. 3) Jerry Zimmerer amended his campaign committee for a potential challenge of Chief Justice Nathan Hecht (R) as a Democrat. Zimmerer won the Place 3 seat on the 14th Court of Appeals in 2018 by ousting Justice Brett Busby (R) (now a Supreme Court justice himself) in the 2018 general election, 51%-49%. Zimmerer unsuccessfully sought the 1996 Republican nomination for a place on the 1st Court of Appeals, finishing third with 29% of the vote.
CD26: Highland Village author and minister Jack Wyman established a campaign committee for a potential primary challenge of U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Lewisville). Wyman served two terms in the Maine legislature and ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate (1988) and governor (1994) there.
El Paso County: County Attorney James Montoya and El Paso attorney Yvonne Rosales announced they would run to succeed retiring District Attorney Jaime Esparza. Rosales narrowly lost the 2016 Democratic primary to Esparza, 51%-49%. The district includes Culberson and Hudspeth counties.
Fort Bend County: Sheriff Tony Nehls (R) announced he would not seek re-election. Nehls explored challenging U.S. Rep. Pete Olson (R-Humble) in the 2018 Republican primary but ultimately did not enter the race. At the time, he said he would wait until 2020. Nehls said a decision on a potential congressional race would come in a few months.
Orange County: Bridge City council member and former Mayor Kirk Roccaforte was appointed to the vacant P3 seat on the Commissioners Court by outgoing County Judge Carl Thibodeaux. The Court will appoint Thibodeaux’s successor, widely expected to be former P3 Comm. John Gothia, who resigned to seek the position. Whoever is appointed will be the third county judge to serve this year.
Houston: The Houston Retired Firefighters Assoc. endorsed mayoral challenger Dwight Boykins.


Our state's leaders want to revisit the question of electing judges in partisan primaries.

After a punishing election for Republican judges, state leaders are set to take a long look at Texas’ often-criticized judicial selection system -- a partisan election structure that Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht has described as “among the very worst methods of judicial selection.”

This summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law creating a commission to study the issue -- signaling that the GOP-led Legislature could overhaul the system as soon as 2021. That move comes after Democrats killed a sweeping reform proposal that Abbott had quietly backed.

In Texas, one of just a few states that maintains a system of partisan judicial selection all the way up through its high courts, judges are at the mercy of the political winds. They are required to run as partisans but expected to rule impartially. They are forced to raise money from the same lawyers who will appear before them in court. And in their down-ballot, low-information races, their fates tend to track with the candidates at the top of the ticket.

That means political waves that sweep out of office good and bad, experienced and inexperienced judges alike. And while sweeps are perennial problems for the judiciary, 2018’s elections “set records,” said Tom Phillips, a former Texas Supreme Court chief justice.

Democrats, riding on the coattails of Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, left the election with majorities on appeals courts where they had previously held zero seats. Republicans were entirely shut out of major urban counties. Voters, largely uninformed about judicial races, differentiated very little between well-funded, experienced candidates and those who had done little but throw their hats in the ring. The judiciary lost hundreds of years of experience.

“Make no mistake: A judicial selection system that continues to sow the political wind will reap the whirlwind,” Hecht warned lawmakers in January, exhorting them to change the system.

But reform is similarly fraught with politics. Voters don’t like having choices taken away from them, even if vanishingly few recognize judicial candidates’ names on the ballot. And any new system has to win the approval of both parties, as a two-thirds majority in each chamber is required for the constitutional amendment needed to change the system.

Those challenges have stalled reform attempts for decades. Then another sweep comes and another effort launches.

“When one of the political parties thinks they’re always going to win, they don’t have any incentive to change -- why would they?” Hecht said in an interview earlier this spring. “There’s got to be enough doubt … about which way the state is going politically, and then some stand-up people.”

This year, for the first time in many, there is at least some doubt about which way the state will go politically. And advocates for reform -- a group that includes Democrats and Republicans, vast swaths of the state bar and a number of former high court judges -- are optimistic. This year, their cause has more wind in its sails: It has drawn the attention of Abbott, a former Republican justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

The Rivard Report commemorates 80 years of Planned Parenthood in San Antonio.

The Longview News-Journal interviewed some of its residents about that New York Times story suggesting they, and other areas of rural Texas, had been passed over by the 'Texas Miracle'.

Michael Barajas at the Texas Observer writes about one of the worst racial purges that took place in the post-Reconstruction era: the 1910 Slocum massacre in East Texas, and the efforts of one survivor's descendants to unearth the violent history.


The Laredo Immigrant Alliance will host an asylum seeker teach-in this week.  LareDOS:

The purpose of the teach-in ... is to dispel misconceptions about the extensive process of gaining asylum and the immigration policies that determine asylum status.

“Seeking asylum is a legal process. There are local organizations that offer families support while seeking asylum,” said (Pastor Mike) Smith. “We urge asylum seekers to join us so that they can be better informed of the process and of local support,” he added.

The Houston Blues Museum archives have found a home at Rice University.


Known for hits like Shirley Jean, Big Walter “The Thunderbird” Price is one of the legends of Houston blues. And his original recordings, cuff links, recording contracts and other treasures were some of the first items that the Houston Blues Museum delivered to its new home at Rice University on June 19.

And Texans said goodbye to Ross Perot (founder of EDS Systems, originator of the 'no pass, no play' policy in public schools, and 'spoiler' for Bill Clinton in 1992, among other accomplishments) and Rip Torn (Artie, Zed, Judas, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and in real life Sissy Spacek's cousin, Geraldine Page's husband, Norman Mailer's assailant, and a few other things)  and Jim Bouton, Astro-for-two-seasons when his book Ball Four "scandalized" major league baseball, according to then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

Bouton used (the) knuckleball in 1969 with the expansion Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros. All season long, he jotted down thoughts and stories whenever inspiration struck -- on air sickness bags, dry-cleaning bills, hotel stationery, all of it now held at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Teammates were suspicious but figured Bouton’s book would be a typically vanilla account by an athlete, not an open invitation for readers to look behind the sanctified walls of the clubhouse. Ballplayers, Bouton revealed, could be boozing, womanizing, pill-popping, ball-scuffing rascals -- overgrown teenagers, that is. But they could also be thoughtful, curious, sensitive and vulnerable.

In other words, they are human beings like the rest of us. Not so scandalous, really.


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Sunday, July 14, 2019

Sunday Funnies










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