Saturday, August 08, 2020

EOW* Lone Star Wrangle

*EOW -- Eye on Williamson -- was the name of a fine TPA blog managed by a fellow, or fellows, who blogged under WC News and Dem Bones a decade ago.  Brian also served on the SDEC for a brief period of time before moving to Seattle for employment with Microsoft (IIRC).  EOW  -- in this post's title the acronym means "End of Week" -- is one of a bushelful of Texas lefty blogs that have gone kaput over the past ten or so years.  BOR, Burnt Orange Report, is another.  Its founders also moved on to bigger and better things: KT Musselman is now a justice of the peace in Williamson County; Phillip Martin works at Progress Texas and for the Texas House Democratic Caucus; and Matt Glazer, well, has done a whole bunch of important things.

My point is that as independent media comes full circle in terms of its importance to and influence on the dialogue in the public square, I'm looking for more Texas voices to include here: vlogs, podcasts, tweeting, writings on Medium and Substack, what have you.  All I ask is that they be intelligent, consistent in producing content, and original (promoting Democrats and Democratic campaigns is overtilled acreage, y'all.  They also have to have an RSS feed that Blogger can detect so that they show up in the right-hand column, of course.)  Keep sending me your tips, but please also send your favorite sources so I can add them to the blogroll and include them in this biweekly round-up.

Opening today with the optimism brimming among the Donkey herd.  Patrick Svitek and Abby Livingston for the TexTrib compile snapshots of the state of play for a few of the spotlight dances.

 
I'll add some of my thoughts to theirs (the kind you won't read anywhere else, you know).

-- TX24: Candace Valenzuela won her runoff in the Democratic primary and will face Irving mayor Beth Van Duyne.  Republicans have long controlled this Tarrant Count region, but the polling shows it slipping away from them.


-- TX21: The incumbent, former Ted Cruz flack Chip Roy, squares off with Democratic darling Wendy Davis, and recent polling shows a tight race.  The progressive alternative in this contest is also a former gubernatorial candidate, Tom Wakely, who's running under the Green banner.


TX22: After Troy Nehls emerged from the muddy, bloody GOP runoff with Kathaleen Wall, he scraped his website of references to Trump.  That's because he's up against the Democrat who nearly defeated the retiring Congressman (Pete Olson) two years ago, Sri Preston Kulkarni.  Few places in America reflect the changing demographics and politics of America's suburbs better than this Sugar Land district, which was represented by Tom DeLay just a few years ago.

TX10: Mike Seigel is back for another shot at Michael McCaul.  He's the most progressive Democrat in this class, and as you might have guessed, the DCCC is staying away again.  Texas' electeds are treating him better, though, and he came close enough in '18 -- five points in a district Beto O'Rourke won by .1 of a percentage point -- that a presidential turnout might get him over the hump.

TX2: Dems think they have a shot at knocking off Dan Crenshaw, the media favorite who lives to scratch on "libruls" and "Communists" and other so-called ee-vils.  Sima Ladjevardian is a solid establishment candidate but Crenshaw has a national following and the fundraising to back it up.  This district was surgically gerrymandered to cancel Montrose and other inner Houston Democrats with bumfuck East Texas Republicans, and IMO the only thing that will excise Crenshaw is a redraw in 2022 by a Democratic statehouse at the Lege.  I'd like to be wrong.

TX31: After MJ Hegar chose to challenge John Cornyn instead of taking a rematch with John Carter, Christine Mann, the runner-up in 2018, stepped up again.  But she lost the runoff to Donna Imam, another progressive whiz kid whom the DCCC has avoided.  With a small war chest and some bruised intraparty feelings locally, Imam has a tall hill to climb.

TX7: Lizzie Fletcher's challenger Wesley Hunt was diagnosed with COVID-19 as tried to board Air Force One last week, alongside Louie Gohmert and Donald Trump.  Fletcher is the neoliberal poster child: Pelosi sycophant, loves fossil fuels and war toys, hates Medicare for All.  I didn't vote for her in 2018 and I won't vote for her again this November.  She should still win.

TX32: Colin Allred is Lizzie Fletcher's brain in the body of a Dallas Cowboys linebacker.  They vote exactly the same way.  This is classic old school, Martin Frost/Matt Angle Texas Democrat machine politics.  It's also the reason why Joe Biden narrowly won the Texas primary after Obama told all the other shitlibs to drop out and fall in line behind him.  The whining about "soshulism", even from seemingly progressive Democrats like Sylvia Garcia, was at fever pitch that first weekend in March, and Obama heard their cries and answered their prayers.

Hey, it might win one more time, if the polls are right.  Later today, in Sulphur Springs ...

 
More on state Congressional races later.  Here's a bit on the Cornyn-Hegar matchup (Dems are optimistic but I am not).

 
I'll be voting for the Green, David Collins.

 
In East Texas statehouse races:

 
I have a lot more to get to in this Wrangle.  It seems Texas Republicans are having things go from bad to worse for themselves, and quickly.

 
"My professional advice as a financial consultant would be to sell me everything you have for a dollar, except that I already own you."  It should be noted that this is still gallows humor.


There's a point at which Republicans' efforts to demonstrate that government doesn't work becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy just isn't funny.  We reached that point many years ago.

 
Moving on to the latest environmental news ...

 
Save Buffalo Bayou reprints an op-ed from Amanda Fuller and Jordan Macha that ran in the Houston Chronicle regarding the urgency of converting Harris County's flood mitigation from concrete ditches and paved-over prairies to something more nature-based.

 
Missing your hemp headlines?

 
Eater Houston lists their favorite spots to pick up CBD-infused drinks, smoothies, and ice cream-style treats.  Cooling off and chilling out sounds like a great idea.

 
The Rivard Report is up to Episode Eleven in their 'Cabeza de Vaca' series; the latest entitled "Faith the Size of a Pecan".

I told you I had a lot to get to.  We're almost at the end.

Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, August 06, 2020

White House Update: "Are You a Junkie?"

This Update ought to be all about Trump.  Both Facebook and Twitter punished him for shitposting on the coronavirus, operatives of his are busily helping Kanye get on the ballot in swing states like Ohio and Wisconsin*, and now he wants to accept the GOP nomination from the White House, questionable legally but unquestionably unethical.
 

Those ought to be the most important stories of the week, as the incumbent's re-election chances swirl the drain and the August heat bears down like COVID on a senior's heaving chest.  Like the hot breath of a nasty landlord clamoring for the rent (and the late fees).  Like the stress of a pile of dunning letters and a full inbox of messages from bill collectors.  And like watching the Congress and the White House squabble over a bit of relief from them.

But instead we got more Joementia, opening the door of his basement and yelling at those kids in the press to get offa his lawn.


I suppose you read the news that he's still trying to make up his mind about a running mate.


IIRC Biden would have picked Amy Klobuchar back in May, after Obama cleared the field for his nomination.  But then George Floyd was murdered, and the nation's mood shifted, and while Joe kept saying he would put a Black woman on the Supreme Court, he made no such promise about veep.  Finally Amy removed herself from consideration, making it obvious what he should do (I expect we'll read in one of those TIME magazine-styled inside-the-campaign reveals a year or two from now that Jill Biden and Valerie Owens Biden leaned on Klobuchar to do that).

So here we are three months later, with the Kossacks who groveled for Warren left at the altar, Kamala twisting in the wind while Joe drools a little over Susan Rice, and Karen Bass blowing up on the launch pad of Scientology.  Tammy Duckworth is the best longshot, but I still expect the KHive to make it happen for their shero.


Instead of things like this being the top story ...


... this is.


Instead of this ...


... this.


And then there's this.


No, Bernie. This isn't good enough to get me to vote for your friend Joe, or any other Democrat.  
 
Update: There seems to be no humiliation Sanders will not endure for the sake of keeping his status in the Democratic Party and the Senate secure; reports indicate that he will share the stage with John Kasich, speaking together on one of the first nights of the (virtual) convention, in some pathetic display of broad unity and coalition assembly.

Hard pass.
 
David Collins -- your most progressive option in the Texas Senate race -- wrote a Tweet thread everybody should read.  He's gentler than I.


And Walter Bragman, an excellent point.


I am weary of this.



Here's our Daily Jackass: Chris Wright, posting at OpEd News.


A few words about Kanye.


Update: 
 
Amid various reports that Republican and Trump-affiliated political operatives are trying to get Kanye West onto various state ballots for November’s presidential election, the billionaire rap superstar indicated, in an interview by text today, that he was in fact running to siphon votes from the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.

Asked about that directly, West said that rather than running for president, he was “walking,” quickly adding that he was “walking . . . to win.”

When it was pointed out that he actually can’t win in 2020 -- that he won’t be on enough ballots to yield 270 electoral votes, and that a write-in campaign isn’t feasible --and thus was serving as a spoiler, West replied: “I’m not going to argue with you. Jesus is King.”

 
Last:

-- The tickets representing the Party for Socialism and Liberation, also the Peace and Freedom Party (Gloria La Riva is the presidential nominee) have replaced Leonard Peltier, due to his declining health, with Sunil Freeman as its veep.  The parties' nominees will appear on the ballot in California, New Mexico, and a few other states.

-- The Alliance Party (Rocque de la Fuente/Darcy Richardson) has a campaign and ballot access update.  Richardson was recently interviewed, along with the Prohibition Party's Billy Joe Parker (click on the link just for his mugshot) and Tiara Lusk of the Life and Liberty Party, by WikiNews.
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, August 03, 2020

The TexProgBlog Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance will not be delaying the publication of this week's round-up of the best from around and about the Lone Star left from last week.


"Heightened tensions" is an understatement.


This underscores the need for independent media and journalists on the scene; those who are willing to risk the police abuse, tear gas, pepper spray, and "non-lethal" (sic) munitions fired upon the protestors in order to document and report on what is actually happening.

Corporate-funded media simply isn't going to do that.


Socratic Gadfly, in light of ongoing protests about policing, talked about bad cops he has personally known.  And in Dallas, a drive-through rally for police supporters inexplicably chose an African American church to stop at and antagonize people.


The COVID crisis in the Rio Grande Valley has been severely exacerbated by Hurricane Hanna.


Dos Centavos looks at the national reporting of the effects of the virus on the Mexican American population in South Texas.  A combination of bad public policy, bad leadership, and bad personal decisions has made the region a pandemic nightmare.  And the Texas Signal brings news of a mutual aid effort for Hanna victims in the RGV.

COVID-19 is, as we are all acutely aware, changing how we live our lives -- now, in the short-term future and in the long-term.  And our elected leaders are demonstrating that they are completely unable to meet the challenges at hand.


The most appalling thing to this blogger appears in the form of those calling for change who understand what the problems are, but have stridently declared that they have no intention whatsoever of doing anything meaningful about solving them.


"Access to healthcare" IS NOT healthcare.  Expanding Obamacare does nothing for people who cannot afford an insurance policy that barely covers a portion of hospital medical expenses.  Fortunately there are some candidates on your ballot that get it.  Most of them are not Democrats.


I do have some political headlines.

SD14: Sen. Sarah Eckhardt was sworn in following Rep. Eddie Rodriguez’s decision to withdraw from the special runoff election. There are now 10 women serving in the Texas Senate for the first time in state history.

CD23 open: Raul Reyes Jr. will seek a recount of his 46-vote Republican runoff loss to Tony Gonzales II. “We want to ensure all ballots were counted properly through an expeditious recount process as allowed under law.”

Texas Libertarian Convention: At its convention in Big Spring, the state's Libertarians nominated Kerry McKennon as its candidate for U.S. Senate. He received 2% of the vote in 2018 as the Libertarian nominee for lieutenant governor. The party’s delegates elected four women to its top leadership positions, including Whitney Bilyeu as chair and Bekah Congdon as vice chair. 

TXElects has also has some analysis of statehouse races in Collin and Denton counties.  Kuff pondered the implications of having a Democratic majority in the Texas House on the redistricting process.  Jon Fischer, writing for Quorum Report and republished at the PAAT, lays out the possible ways that the 87th Legislature could operate differently under pandemic conditions. And Reform Austin urges greater vigilance in protecting the right to vote.


With the latest environmental developments:


Kendra Chamberlain at the New Mexico Political Report writes about the concerns of worsening air quality in the Permian Basin.

Let's talk about teachers.


Has this Wrangle been long enough for ya?  Let's end here with something cool and refreshing.

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, August 02, 2020

Sunday 'Delaying the Inevitable' Funnies

Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, August 01, 2020

Week-ending Lone Star Round-up

Here's all the news that broke over the past few days, along with updates to Monday's and Tuesday's Wrangles, and a few things I couldn't fit in there from earlier.

Catching up on COVID, Louie Gohmert wasn't the only Republican diagnosed with the virus trying to board Air Force One with Trump to go to Midland and Odessa for the rally there this week.  Gohmert remains the stupidest, however.


Also receiving an award for Ignorant Texan of the Week is Dr. Stella "Alien DNA-Demon Sperm" Immanuel, whose 15 minutes of fame pegged out the meter.

A Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus has become a star on the right-wing internet, garnering tens of millions of views on Facebook on Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Stella Immanuel a “must watch,” while Donald Trump himself retweeted the video.

Before Trump and his supporters embrace Immanuel’s medical expertise, though, they should consider other medical claims Immanuel has made—including those about alien DNA and the physical effects of having sex with witches and demons in your dreams. 

Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. 

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.


In the interest of fairness, I'll concede that last claim of hers could be true.

About that Permian Basin visit:


Pretty sure they still get public radio in West Texas.


Masculinity can be toxic, I've read.  I will never believe the social and educational gains of having Texas schoolchildren return to the classroom is worth risking their lives and long-term health, or that of our state's teachers (or school bus drivers and custodians and cafeteria workers).  Just know that the wealthy have options that the rest of you don't.  I don't have any children or grandchildren in the state's school system but I do have a few nieces and nephews (and grands- of those).  Should I care as much as their parents and grandparents?  I don't really have a say or influence.  I certainly didn't think that disregard for the threat, or poor planning and execution -- much less the economy -- was a good excuse for sacrificing our seniors, like Dan Patrick.  (Nor the prisoners and immigrant detainees in our jails, but hey, maybe that's just me and a few other bleeding hearts.)


I wasn't elected to anything, and I sure didn't vote for any of these people who do think that.


Speaking of elections ...





Because of the resignation of Diane Trautman and the withdrawal of Andrea Duhon, there are now two Democratic nominee vacancies on the November 3, 2020 General Election ballot:

Harris County Clerk - Unexpired term, through 2022
Harris County Department of Education Trustee, Position 7, At-Large - Full term

Under state law, precinct chairs from each political party nominate a candidate to appear on the November ballot. HCDP precinct chairs will vote at a County Executive Committee (CEC) meeting to be held virtually (conducted by computer, rather than in-person) on Saturday, August 15, 2020, at 11:00 am.

Environmental updates include these developments.  First, from Juan Cole:

Ashton Nichols at The Dallas Morning News reports that ExxonMobil lost over $1 billion in the second quarter, up from a $600 million lost in the first. Year on year, its revenues are down 33% for the first half of this year. It has been forced to close down half its fracking rigs in the Permian Basin. In recent years, the company is responsible for 124 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually and it is one of the biggest polluters in the world, helping wreck the planet.

Nichols quoted senior vice president Neal Chapman as saying, “Absolute demand fell to levels we haven’t seen in nearly 20 years. We’ve never seen a decline with this magnitude and pace before, even relative to the historic periods of demand volatility following the global financial crisis as far back as the 1970s oil and energy crisis.”

Chevron did even worse, losing a whopping $8 billion.

[...]

This crisis is a foretaste of what is coming when electric cars take off in the consumer market, something that will happen through the 2020s.


As I have written before, I simply do not have the same amount of sympathy for these companies that I do for small businesses.  They haven't only failied to adapt; they have refused to, and have denied that their commerce is at the root of a more serious global pandemic than COVID-19.


ExxonMobil has known about the catastrophic effects of using its product for decades, and has spent tens of millions of dollars to muddy the waters and discourage people from giving up gasoline. It also engages in greenwashing, pretending to be working on renewable energy or the (non-existent) carbon capture, when in fact only 1% of its profits go toward such research. ExxonMobil executives and flacks are committing premeditated inter-generational genocide.


Every dark cloud has a silver lining, and the Progressive Forum's blog, written by Randall Morton, presents the capitalist opportunity in the midst of the crisis:

Let’s rouse the business opportunities at our feet. The next decade is an opportunity to generate a Houston renaissance by taking the most practical economic course. While still works in progress, post-industrial cities like Pittsburgh and Tulsa are proven examples of hope. This common-sense direction is also the path to solve our three major crises: Economic recovery, inequality, and climate. The pain of our current passage, the common suffering of rich and poor, the common suffering of politically right and left, are driving common support for dynamic business answers. The bottom line: Profitable investments toward renaissance and resilience are better than endless trillions for rescue. Let’s put our HAT on.

They'd better get after it because we're all running out of time.  And shit like this isn't the right way to fix anything.


I have a variety of social justice posts and Tweets.


Zachery Taylor blogs about how the mainstream media continues to overlook the murders of US veterans beyond Vanessa Guillen.  Which leads us to the latest news on the killing of Garrett Foster, the Austin BLM protestor gunned down last weekend.



Today is the first of the month, and that is creating a crisis for many Texans who are unable to pay their rent.  Once again, I'm not sure our state's leaders care.


As this post was set to publish, some sad news came over the Tweet feed
.

Sincerest condolences to Rep. Howard and her family.

Traces of Texas closes us out.

Posted by at 1 comment:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)