Thursday, July 09, 2020

Lone Star Round Up: #CancelCulture comes for TXGOP-Con


Mayor Sylvester Turner exercised the nuclear option in stopping the RPT's state convention from becoming a super-spreader event in Space City next week.  Printers at the legal offices of conservative attorneys are whirring continuously as they churn out the lawsuits.

Update:

It's for their own good; they just don't get it.  Or refuse to.


A follow-up to a news item appearing in Monday's Wrangle:



I have an abundance of social justice pieces for this post.  Let me begin with the sad closing of the case of Vanessa Guillen; marches were held over the long holiday weekend last, and then crime investigators made the announcement everyone feared.


Sexual abuse and harassment of women detained by police officers -- a longtime and under-reported crime -- has become more blatant during the BLM protests.


LGBTQ community leaders have led the fight for Black Lives Matter in Houston.




In Denton -- not the most liberal bastion in the state -- community organizers have called for justice for Darius Tarver and the defunding of the city's police department.  The 20-year-old UNT student died in police custody in January.  His story is all too familiar by now.

Two environmental updates: first, the Permian Highway pipeline may suffer the same fate as the Keystone Xl and the Dakota Access pipelines.



Kinder Morgan’s 430-mile Permian Highway Pipeline faces a maze of litigation, and the legal action against other pipelines around the U.S. could have ripple effects in Texas.


Before I get to some election news ... we know that many of Trump's relatives and friends are on the dole as the CARES Act money was passed out, but a few Democrats also got caught with their hands in Uncle Sam's cookie jar.



The pre-eminent Texas Democratic election law attorney for two generations passed away over the Independence Day weekend.


And these to end the week.

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Wednesday, July 08, 2020

White House Update: Duck, Tucker! plus: Mary T's book, Greens convene, and Jo J's Boogaloo


Finally some lively topics.


-- In what could be a 2024 preview, "deeply silly" Tucker Carlson and rising vice-presidential hopeful Sen. Tammy Duckworth have been exchanging pleasantries over her patriotism and valor.

Their squabble isn't worth rehashing, but it opens the door for me to posit a few things:

1. Biden must not be thrilled with Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren as the finalists whom the media and online pundits have winnowed for him.  Otherwise he's just stringing people along.

2. Drawing out the veepstakes is thus growing unseemly, even if Old Joe did say it would be August before he decided.  Susan Rice, the Dems' version of Condi Rice -- whom Biden would choose if he could get away with it -- does not have the charisma or political experience for the job.  And now that Mayor Bottoms have tested positive for the virus, she's probably on the outside looking in.

3. If we really want to start playing 2024 already, then the betting opens with Pence, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio.  Can't think of any "moderate" that might wish to be flogged publicly just to find out his party isn't where he thought it would be post-Trump.

-- For a candidate I keep hearing is the most progressive evah, there sure are a lot of Republicans jumping on his bandwagon.


Can't say I have any love for the Lincoln Project either.


-- Is it trite to say that Trump is having another 'worst week ever'?


From the psychoanalysis (she IS one, as it turns out) of his upbringing to reports of his paying a classmate to take his SAT exams, it's a scathing expose'.  It's easy to understand why he fought its publication.  Then again, when you redefine "draining the swamp" as "pushing your snout into the government trough with all your swine friends", maybe you don't care what people think.

Tom Friedman suggests some debate rules for Biden that make sense.

“First, Biden should declare that he will take part in a debate only if Trump releases his tax returns for 2016 through 2018. ... No more gifting Trump something he can attack while hiding his own questionable finances.”

“And second, Biden should insist that a real-time fact-checking team approved by both candidates be hired by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates -- and that 10 minutes before the scheduled conclusion of the debate this team report on any misleading statements, phony numbers or outright lies either candidate had uttered. That way no one in that massive television audience can go away easily misled.”


-- That brings me, I suppose, to Kanye West.


He sat for an interview with Forbes in order to sound as serious as possible.  His platform?

  • He’s running for president in 2020 under a new banner -- the Birthday Party -- with guidance from Elon Musk and an obscure vice presidential candidate he’s already chosen. “Like anything I’ve ever done in my life,” says West, “I’m doing to win.”
  • He no longer supports President Trump. “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview.”
  • He’s ok with siphoning off Black votes from the Democratic nominee, thus helping Trump. “I’m not denying it, I just told you. To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy.”
  • He’s never voted in his life.
  • He was sick with Covid-19 in February.
  • He’s suspicious of a coronavirus vaccine, terming vaccines “the mark of the beast.”
  • He believes “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
  • He envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther.

As you could have guessed, this has Biden Bros crapping themselves.


The best the Donkeys could manage were comparisons to ... Jill Stein.


Joe Biden could do something about this himself, of course.  He simply can't.


Nothing will fundamentally change, after all.

-- David Collins reprinted the GPUS press release -- with speakers and schedule information -- for their upcoming convention this weekend.


-- Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen may or may not have a Boogaloo problem.  IPR provides a summary:

The Guardian today published an article from Jason Wilson reporting on 2020 Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen’s appearance on “Roads to Liberty” podcast, which Wilson claims is associated with the “Boogaloo” movement.  “Boogaloo” is the right wing codename for a second civil war.  Supporters of the movement want to bring about civil war either for racial or anti-government purposes.

Wilson connects one of those asking questions on the podcast, named “Squid,” to a Facebook group he says is “strewn with memes that reference insurrectionary violence, and appear to invoke white nationalist and neo-Nazi imagery and subject matter.”  Squid asks Jorgensen about “boogaloo” on the podcast but she does not seem to know much about it.


If you enjoy mindless digressions, the comments there go off to Nowheresville celebrating Ringo Starr's 80th birthday ("Back Off, Boogaloo").

-- And cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce joined Kanye in the presidential indy lane.  He has the same ballot access hurdles as West and anyone else who might join the race this late in the cycle.
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Monday, July 06, 2020

The Weekly "Trouble in Bayou City" Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is masked up and staying at home again, but still delivers the best of the left from around and about our Great State free of charge, every Monday.

Time to make this 'flatten the curve' thing real again.


Yesterday the elected officials of two of the state's largest metro areas appeared on the Sunday talk shows and appealed for help.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler told CNN’s "State of the Union" Sunday that he wants Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to return control of his city to the local government as its hospitals face a potential crisis. “If we don’t change the trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun,” Adler, a Democrat, said. “And in our ICUs, I could be 10 days away from that.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo:

"(A)s long as we’re doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we’re always going to be chasing this thing. We’re always going to be behind and the virus will always outrun us." "And so, what we need right now is to do what works, which is a stay home order. We don’t have room to experiment. We don’t have room for incrementalism, we’re seeing these kinds of numbers, nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die, before we take drastic action."

The governor has -- from his point of view -- bigger problems than Texans dying by the hundreds because of his rush to save the economy.  Bud Kennedy at the Startlegram saw it coming.

With Texas trending purple under an unsteady White House, Abbott can shelter downballot Republicans in November and keep his state from swinging the election to Democrat Joe Biden.

Yet a Texas Republican faction has been unmasked as the Hate Abbott Club.

“(Abbott) has shown us exactly who he is, a traitor to liberty and our constitution,” state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, wrote on Twitter Friday.

Just because barroom mingling and margaritas aren’t a safe combo right now?

And because Texans need to wear face coverings?

In a June 19 letter, Stickland and state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, called mask mandates “tyranny.”

(I wonder what they think about businesses requiring shoes or shirts.)

Even the Fort Worth Republican Women, once a moderate club but now using social media to promote an outlandish fringe conspiracy, seemed outraged that Republican county commissioners would require scarves, bandannas or masks.

“You need to call (Judge Glen Whitley),” the club posted on Facebook and Twitter, launching a phone and email campaign against Republican commissioners the name of “limited government, life and liberty.”

The club also published a tweet Friday tagging its support for the QAnon online conspiracy fantasy.

[...]

“We don’t like government overreach,” said the Tarrant County Republican Party chairman, Rick Barnes of Keller.

University of North Texas political science professor Kimi King predicted more pressure on Abbott as the coronavirus pandemic continues leading up to Trump’s Aug. 27 acceptance speech in Jacksonville, Fla.

She wrote by email that “there will be more heat, not less,” on Abbott.

“The governor at this point is in a no-win situation; he only supported local enforcement of masks because of the growing crisis in several counties.”


Let's roll with some more of this, via Business Insider.

Denton County, Texas, Sheriff Tracy Murphree said he would not enforce Abbott's mandate, calling it an "executive order not a law," ABC 13 reported.

"A week ago they were carrying signs that said F*** the police, and demanding police be defunded," Murphree wrote on Facebook. "They were ignoring the Denton curfew order and blocked city streets. Now those same people are mad at me for refusing to enforce the mask mandate issued by the governor. Their hypocrisy is mind blowing."

Gene DeForest, a constable in Montgomery County, Texas, wrote that the language of Abbott's order "strips law enforcement of the necessary tools to enforce compliance with the law."

"This order includes specific language prohibiting law enforcement from detaining, arresting, or confining to jail as a means to enforce the order," he wrote in a post to Facebook.

As ABC 13 first noted, the Montgomery County sheriff's office said it would not be writing tickets to people in violation of the governor's order. According to a statement released by county sheriff Rand Henderson, calls about violations will only be dispatched if a person is not wearing a face mask inside of a business and they create a "disturbance" by refusing to leave the business.

A lawsuit filed Friday by several members of the Houston GOP and two business owners sought a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction against Abbott's order, calling it an "invasion of liberty" and arguing its existence was unconstitutional, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Nacogdoches County Sheriff Jason Bridges said it was impossible to track repeat offenders because his officers wouldn't "keeping a database of people who are wearing a mask and who are not" because it did not have the "time or energy" to do so, according to ABC 13.

In a tweet, Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, called the order a "draconian mask law."


The Ector County GOP voted to censure Abbott (!) and state Sen. Charles Perry joined a group of House Republicans in calling for a special session.

The party executive committee in Ector County, home to Odessa, passed the censure resolution 10-1, with one abstention and three voting members who were not present, according to the chairperson, Tisha Crow. She said she was among those who supported the resolution, which accuses Abbott of violating five party principles related to his exercise of executive power during the pandemic.

While the resolution asks that delegates to the state convention later this month consider — and affirm — Ector County’s action, Crow said consideration is “not guaranteed,” and one precinct chair, Aubrey Mayberry, said the resolution “doesn’t have any teeth” for now — but that it was important to send a message about what they consider Abbott’s overreach.

Mayberry, who voted for the resolution, said he was working with precinct chairs in other Texas counties to get similar resolutions passed ahead of the convention.

Perry wrote Saturday on Facebook that he is “deeply concerned about the unilateral power being used with no end in sight.”

“This is why I urge Governor Abbott to convene a special session to allow the legislature to pass legislation and hold hearings regarding the COVID-19 response,” Perry said. “It should not be the sole responsibility of one person to manage all of the issues related to a disaster that has no end in sight.”


There's gonna be trouble in Bayou City ("that's 'Trouble with a capital T") in two weeks.  Even Dan Patrick thinks it's a bad idea, but he's coming to town anyway.  And exactly how sick do you think COVID will make the RPT by November?


That's my segue into this week's collection of "Texas Conservatives Behaving Badly".  "Grandmas for Biden" can get it right sometimes!


Okay then. This IS a political blog; should drop in some political posts.


Here's the link to that Capitol Inside piece mentioned above.  DosCentavos' early voting experience was quick, yet harrowing. The moral of the story...don't leave until you click "CAST BALLOT."


An under-the radar development:


John Cornyn sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee (an oxymoron no matter which way you turn it to look at it).


Kuff has two more polls to analyze.  Bonddad cautiously forecasts the favorable Biden polling pointing to a Democratic flip for the Senate.  SocraticGadfly had two third-party items of note: first, he said RIP to Mimi Soltysik, 2016 SPUSA presidential nominee.  Second, he called out losing Green Party candidate Dario Hunter for "going there" with identity politics and other things.  David Collins is a delegate to the Greens' national convention this weekend, and is both excited and trepidatious about it.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs also blogged about the Thirds -- as in Howie Hawkins and Mark Charles -- but not Kanye West or Brock Pierce.

There will be more later in the week -- there always is -- but for now I'll close on these.

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Sunday, July 05, 2020

Sunday 'Statuesque' Funnies



Trump revealed in his speech at Mount Rushmore an executive order that will establish a
"National Garden of American Heroes," which he described as "a vast outdoor park
that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived."
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