Texas Tribune looks at "independent voters" in a semi-failure piece

The Trib interviewed eight allegedly independent voters. I wrote that first sentence in anticipation that they'd screw the pooch on this.

And, they didn't totally.  They did include one guy who voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, then Biden in 2020, and plans to vote for Chase Oliver this year. And, a second who did the same the past two elections, but fears Trump so much he's voting Harris.

There was one Clinton → Trump voter listed who had planned to vote Brainworm Bobby, and another Wasted Space supporter who voted Dem in both 2016 and 2020 — AND was one of the Brainworms 40 pledged electors. Both are currently undecided, tho the second one is looking at Cornel West.

But? James Barragan couldn't find ANYBODY who voted left of Democrats in either 2016 or 2020, though? And, couldn't find more than eight participants?

So, in that sense, it's a failure.

So, let's add ...

ME!

2016: Voted Jill Stein; regret that even without Yashar Ali's basically true but Democrat oppo research hit piece on Stein coming until after early voting started, that I didn't vote for SPUSA's Mimi Soltysik.

2020: Did not vote. I had moved, but didn't want to pay just to change my driver's license address when, because of the Real ID changes, I would have to renew it in person by early 2021. Howie Hawkins didn't hugely jazz me, but he had the SPUSA line as well as the GP one, and I don't think I would have been mentally prepared to vote further left than that.

2024: I am. Claudia de la Cruz. (SPUSA's Bill Stodden has done almost nothing in terms of ballot access.)

Texas Progressives talk voting and more

Off the Kuff examines Ken Paxton's lawsuits against Bexar and Travis counties for attempting to register voters. 

The Barbed Wire (which so far is doing as much re-reporting with bits of cover as anything in-depth on its own) notes Kenny Boy is suing the feds again, too — this time over a June Health and Human Services Department rule on HIPAA and reproductive care, including abortion, privacy.

SocraticGadfly provided the latest information in a hedge fund's attempt to take control of Southwest.

Obamacare really sucks for the "ghost insurers" still allowed to be listed, a real problem with mental health care. ProPublica has the tragic details.

A statute of Hindu god Hanuman in the Houston area has Christian Religious Rightists pissed off.

Helltown is also the rudest driving city in Tex-ass and 13th nationally.

$81.5 billion: That's the cost to kill property taxes in Tex-ass. No way that can all be done with a sales tax. There's another tax, I am reminded of, but a previous Legislature got voters of the state to agree to box them in.

Former Uvalde ISD police chief Pete Arredondo is asking a judge to quash 10 felony child endangerment charges over the mass shooting.

Proof Colin Allred is a ConservaDem? Little Lizzie Cheney endorsed him.

GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales predicts Republicans will lose control of the U.S. House.

Why DOES a speaker of the Texas House like Dade "Dade" Phelan need a senior advisor? And why DOES Tricky Ricky Perry want this gig?

The people of Boca Chica are fighting back against Elon Musk and Space X. Hell, even TCEQ fined it.

How would a proposed OSHA rule on worker heat safety play out in Texas? The Observer looks.

The Barbed Wire lists five ways that Texas Republicans have made it harder for college students to vote. 

The Texas Signal finds something off about Ted Cruz's Spanish language ads.  

Reform Austin investigates whether delaying the start of the school year could help the electric grid.

The Fort Worth Report brings the story of John Thomas, a Black janitor who is now being memorialized at the church where he had not been allowed to worship.

Finally, the TPA bids farewell and happy trails to Dos Centavos as he takes his talents to Colorado.

What does the AfD/BSW surge mean in Germany?

The Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, won German state elections in Thuringia state and came in second in Saxony. Of additional note, the left's Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) broke 15 percent in Thurungia and hit 11 percent in Saxony.

Maybe nobody will coalition with the AfD. But, that drives the BSW's price higher yet.

For both parties, versus the three-party coalition in Berlin — Social Democrats, Free Democrats and Greens — and also versus the currently outside Christian Democrats, discontent over the Ukraine war, and to some extent, especially with the AfD, discontent over Gaza, too, is the driver. Add in that, in many sectors of traditional heavy industry, Germany stands clueless before China and the problem grows. (Volkswagen said just days ago that it might do the previously unthinkable and close at least one plant. It's way behind the curve on electric cars.)

The next national election in Germany is just a year away. I can't see Chancellor Olaf Scholz staying in power. Worse? A convoluted four-party coalition, of the three in power plus Christian Democrats, is HIGHLY unlikely. The CDU/CSU has never come close to coalitioning with Greens before.

If they got enough numbers, AfD plus BSW, and possibly a resurgent Linkspartei, could at a minimum block any three-party coalition.

=

Update: Part of what it means is the federal government implementing strict border controls for the next six months. Gee, that gets you at least close to the next federal election, doesn't it?

So, what's up with the pseudo-Trots of the Socialist Workers Party supporting Zionist genocide?

And, support it they do, per a long string of comments by unhinged SWP entry-ist Cort Greene on this blog post.

Support it they do, per Wiki's page on the SWP, which notes that from Greens on left, they're basically the only party that supports it. Even their Trot cousins at the Socialist Equality Party, while being Xi Jinping tankies and other nuttery, reject Zionism.

WHY, I don't know. This IS a turning. In the 1970s, the SWP was strongly anti-Zionist. That said, per its SEP foes, by the 1980s, it might have been anti-Zionist, or not, but it was also antisemitic. Jack Barnes, called out by the SEP back then, is STILL head of the SWP, and per his linked Wiki page, has led all of the various expulsions within the SWP within the last 50 years. AND, per Louis Proyect, as of 2017, at least, it was BOTH Zionist AND antisemitic. And also, per Proyect and this piece, Jack Barnes has no more than 1,000 or so acolytes including Cort Greene. Also per that piece, the SWP has been, per Cort Greene calling me a fascist, quasi-fascist supporters of US imperialism for at least 20 years.

Think Stalin's various twists and turns over 25 years, double the length and shrink it down to a political group 1/100, nay, 1,1000, if that, as big as the CPSU. It's no wonder the remaining true believers are paranoiacs, even by the standards of left factionalism.

It might be tempting to tie it back to Zionism's roots, namely its roots in Palestine, not Europe, and especially in Poland, but it's not that. It's Jack Barnes.

That said, the rest of that "strongly antisemitic"? The SEP, a bunch of actually doctrinaire actual Trots, is truly nutters itself.

Marxists insist that the temporary strengthening of Zionism is the historical outcome of the catastrophic defeats of the European labor movement that led to the annihilation of six million Jews by the fascists. Without the combined betrayals of Stalinism and Social Democracy which prepared these defeats, the Zionists could never have attained the influence they acquired during the post-World War II period.

That ignores that much of Zionist migration to Mandatory Palestine happened before the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. It often happened LONG before that. Ben-Gurion? 1906. Jabotinsky, the most racist and virulent of old Zionists? Pre-WWI.

To put it bluntly? Today's Socialist Workers Party is the LaRoucheites of alleged leftist groups.

That said, beyond Zionism being a particular virulent and particular virulent form of nationalism, today's Israel is nowhere near socialist. Zibbutzes are more hasbara than reality. And, the Labor Party? A nothingburger, and as much influenced by the "Third Way" in the last thirty years as many other such parties.

Top blogging of August

As is the norm, these were the most-read posts in the last month, but not necessarily written IN the past month. As is usual, older posts will be noted.

Tenth was last week's Texas Progressives Roundup, which included DPS head Steve McCraw's retirement.

At No. 9? Mocking Scott Ritter bragging about eating burgers with Brainworm Bobby, made more "poignant" because this was just before Wasted Space dropped out.

No. 8? I noted that declining Rio Grande reservoir levels aren't all Mexico's fault, and in the process, took state Extension ag law writer Tiffany Dowell to the woodshed for a bit of apparent Texas exceptionalism.

No. 7? "Capitalism for Capitol Reef! Big Pharma for Big Bend!" mocked the (Eli) Lilly Endowment's $100 million donation to the National Park Foundation.

No. 6? To put it bluntly, "Law Dork" Chris Geidner is Law Dum Fuq with his claims no constitutional amendment is needed to clock out Supreme Court justices. I demolished that. Of course, Kuff promoted this. (Worse, Kuff, in his weekend roundup last week, ran another piece bemoaning aging federal judges that can't be moved off the bench. That's a real hobgoblin of a foolish inconsistency, to riff on Emerson.)

It was throwaway, but at No. 5, a third-party news roundup of last week, which trended because a true nutter from the LaRouchie cult within alleged Communist parties, the Socialist Workers Party, kept commenting and commenting.

No. 4? Originally written last November, and updated since then, most recently in July? Jill Stein remains an investments hypocrite.

No. 3? Indeed, the end of cattle-car boarding will be the end of an era for Southwest Airlines next week. I wondered there if "bags fly free" would go out the door next.

Up in second? My kicking the ass of Shepard Fairey and supporting pro-Palestinian protestors at the DNC.

No. 1? The entire clusterfuck around Jill Stein eventually settling on Butch Ware as her Veep has "Green Party," stereotyped, written all over it. It's part of why I'm a non-Green and will continue to be one until the party gets its act together, and I'm not holding my breath.

Another shoe is about to drop at Southwest

I did not say "THE" other, because I don't know what shoe will drop, but am sure some shoe will.

A month ago, I wrote about how Southwest Airlines announced that, as of the first of the year, it would be getting rid of its traditional "cattle car" boarding. As part of that, and noting it was under "activist" shareholder pressure, I wondered if THE other shoe would drop.

THE other shoe? That would be ending "bags fly free."

Again, we don't know what exactly the fallout will be, but Elliott Investment Management, the biggest pusher, and a vulture capitalist hedge fund to boot, has acquired 10 percent of Southwest stock. Per this story and others, that gives it the right to call a shareholder meeting.

Elliott's on record as wanting to can Southwest's CEO Robert Jordan, and chairman of the board, Gary Kelly, the former CEO who followed in the steps of the iconic founder, Herb Kelleher. It's proposed a slate of 10 new board candidates. Jones already said he won't resign.

Other than turning over two-thirds of the 15-member board, Elliott hasn't mentioned details, but this is surely part of it.

Other hints, though, per this public Facebook post? Guy notes that Elliott's trustees include a shitload of people from budget airlines. 

Seriously, Southwest Frontier? Southwest Spirit? Oh, it's worse, per WFAA. JetBlue and Ryanair? Fuck that shit, especially if my bags don't fly free. I'm looking on Travelocity first at legacy airlines. American isn't charging me for the air I breathe, at least.

Add in that Elliott's head is a shit-stirrer — a REAL shit-stirrer — and the Sept. 9 meeting will be a headbanger.

Adding to this? Southwest adopted a poison pill defense this summer. It's triggered if any single shareholder hits 12.5 percent, not far away from Elliott's 10 percent. It would give all other shareholders the right to buy stocks at a discount. Specifically:

(A)ll other Southwest shareholders would have the opportunity to buy additional shares equal to their current stake at a 50% discount.

So, "additional" shares, it sounds like, as in a split to water down Elliott's holdings. The poison pill is good for one year.

Elliott is a corporate raider, pure and simple. That said, I don't know how much of a deterrent Southwest's stock-split poison pill might or might not be. We'll soon find out, won't we?

Southwest ain't perfect. A lot of people knew about its pilot scheduling computer system problems long before the Christmas week strandings. It's improved. It still has problems at times, though, and still isn't perfect on flight delays.