Monday, August 17, 2020

The TexProgBlog Wrangle (DNC Week)



The leftists in the Texas Progressive Alliance won't be tuning in to the DNC convention this week (not even to Bernie and AOC).  The DSA and progressive Democrats in the Alliance may or may not be, depending on how strenuously they define 'progressive'.  The Blue Dogs, shitlibs, Blue MAGAts, neoliberals, establishment Dems and their paid consultants, lobbyists, pollsters, and associated lickspittles -- and of course the RINOs and the Never-Trump Republicans -- will have their eyes glued to the screen every single night.


Lone Star Latinxs in particular seem a little put out about it ...

"I think that we could win the battle and lose the war," (Julian) Castro told "Axios on HBO" of Democrats' chances this fall. "We could win in November, but you could see a potential slide of Latino support for Democrats."

... even Stace, reverting to his milquetoasty form.  But the Texas Signal, your home away from Kuffner with all the insidery establishment goodness you can tolerate without any clues to what's actually going on with the Donkey Party's eroding youth base, is there for you.  Their opinion editor -- a Latina -- even managed an English-only interview with the "Spanish press secretary" for the TDP.  Somebody let me know if they get around to posting a transcript en Espanol.  At least they mentioned "the" chancla.

And all this time I thought Texas was a swing state ...

Updates:

-- Can Joe Biden win over the young Latinxs that flocked to Bernie Sanders?

Houston PD chief Art Acevedo apparently spoke last night.  Acevedo, who's welcoming furloughed cops from other cities to come to Houston, probably delivered a real puke-a-thon about law and order and Blue Lives Mattering and such.  I didn't look too hard to find anything about his talk.  If you did, hit me up.  Update: Stace, coming a little stronger.  Judge Hidalgo, by contrast, belonged at the top of this schedule.

Then there's Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, who resurrected his ten-year-old grievance with the Texas Green Party.


And sure enough:

Charles Waterbury, the Green Party candidate for Texas Supreme Court chief justice, has dropped out of the race after an opponent questioned his eligibility to run.

Waterbury’s withdrawal notice was submitted to the Texas secretary of state’s office Monday after being notarized Friday, the same day his Democratic opponent, Amy Clark Meachum, sought a court order declaring his candidacy invalid.

Meachum’s emergency petition to the Supreme Court, the same body she hopes to join, argued that Waterbury is prohibited from appearing on the ballot as the Green Party nominee because he voted in the March 3 Democratic primary.

State law prohibits candidates for state or county office from representing one political party in the general election if they voted in another party’s primary in the same election cycle.

I have three things to say about this.

1. If you search the archives of this blog hard enough (yesyes, I should have tagged posts long ago) you'll find one where I actually agreed with Angle on this point of his. Along about in 2009 when I became disillusioned with Obama's capitualtion on health care and began to look at the Green Party more seriously, I asked them about this business of having the TXGOP fund their ballot access. The response was quick and certain: "no permanent enemies, no permanent allies". That's kind of how it it with Donkeys and Elephants, too yes?  Isn't John Kasich demonstrating precisely that premise by speaking at the DNC, endorsing Joe Biden, but declaring he's not abandoning the GOP and has been assured that Biden "isn't moving left", toward AOC, as the Jackasses applaud?

2. Amy Clark Meachum just lost my vote in November.

3. If this affects any other Texas Green Party candidates' eligibility, then that's on them, too.  As a member of the Harris County Ballot Board in 2010, the presiding judge disqualified me for the exact same reason (voting in the D primary and serving as a Green judge).  It's a chickenshit play, and in that case, it did not withstand scrutiny; the County Clerk -- Stan Stanart at that time -- asserted that his office selected HCBB judges and that nobody other than him had authority to disqualify them.  (I chose to say off the Board anyway, FWIW, until a new presiding judge took over.)  I have not blogged about this until now for many reasons, as you might suspect.

We're still waiting for that court ruling.

Since I turned this post into a rant, I'll have an actual Wrangle in short order.


(Here's the original for a bigger view)

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Sunday "The Election is in the Mail" Funnies


Bald eagle attacks gov't drone, sends it to bottom of Lake Michigan

White House Update: 2020 is in the mail


As I fell behind this week, here's a brief post (brief for me, anyway) on the race to 1600 Pennsavainya.

-- Kamala is catching the racism and misogyny slings and arrows from Trump and the Right, as all thought she would.  She's deftly blocking them, as everyone also expected.

-- The efforts the president is expending to scrunge the election by sabotaging the post office are shocking even by the standards he has established.


Conspiracy theories abound.


I've read lots of speculating over the past several weeks about 'what if Trump doesn't leave', if/when he loses the election, as I'm sure you have.  I personally haven't given it any worry time, as I'm of the opinion that there will be some soldiers who will do the ejecting if it becomes necessary, and that they might have to fight their way through some other soldiers loyal to the incumbent, not to mention a few militias, to do so.  All in a day's work for the military.

This is going to be a more salacious development.


"From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump's clandestine lovers, I wasn't just a witness to the president's rise -- I was an active and eager participant ..."


Fun.  Here's a few barely-related Tweets from the past week regarding developments that are, shall we say, self-explanatory.


I'll have a lot to say about the DNC convention next week.  Trust me.


-- Libertarian Jo Jorgensen was bitten by a bat in Hattiesburg, MS prior to a rally for inclusion in the presidential debates.  She got inoculated for rabies as a result.  Politico and The Hill also covered the incident.  No word on the condition of the bat.

-- In the only other news I care to mention this week, there were a couple of vice-presidential selection developments in two minor party campaigns.  Via Indy Political Report:

Green Party turned Independent candidate Dario Hunter, who will be on the ballot in Colorado under the banner of the Progressive Party, has announced Penobscot Nation activist Dawn Neptune Adams will replace Darlene Elias as his running mate. No reason for the replacement was given.

Independent Candidate Mark Charles released a statement announcing Sedinam Moyowasifza-Curry was no longer going to be his running mate. Again, no reason was given for the change.


Wednesday, August 12, 2020

"Kampala"

"Why was the name of Uganda’s biggest city trending on Twitter Tuesday night?"  Because of 'damn you, autocorrect', and not Tommy Chong.


In an evening Tweetstorm of snark and snidery, that was hardly the best.


Maybe Susan Rice was a bit too ... I don't know, swampy?


She'll probably make a fine secretary of state, in the Mike Pompeo tradition.


Anyway ... most of the Donkeys are happy this morning.


Kamala was, after all, the easy choice.  The safe choice.  It seemed as if Biden wanted somebody else, but this piece suggests that it was pretty much hers all along.  If you believe what Obama was tipping, anyway.  (No mention of Klobuchar there, I note.)

Seriously, the KHive brings it, and Trump is somewhat lost for insult words.  'Nasty' and disrespectful' (#3 in this list) aren't gonna play like they did against Hillary four years ago, especially since he donated to Kamala's campaign for CA AG.  Oops.  I'm less sure about "Phony", as that happens to be progressives' primary complaint.  Michael Goodwin at the NY Post is a conservative asshole, but his critique here is mostly spot on (replace "violent radicals leading riots and looting" in the last graf with "police and unidentified federal goons beating up peaceful protestors", for one example).

Let me close this out with two questions I look forward to hearing the answer to:


A White House Update is forthcoming, with more about the other candidates in the presidential race, and less about the duopoly.