Texas Progressives and the usual stuff

The political hot stove league is heating up for the duopoly and third parties as well, just in time for summer weather.

The Texas Progressives have got you covered on all of it, so dig in.

Texas politics

Off the Kuff analyzes the latest polls of Texas.

Texas Democrats resoundingly lost their lawsuit trying to restore straight ticket voting. Kuff admits he expected the loss in question, but still appears to favor straight ticket voting in his last line.

The Supremes rejected Texas Dems' request to force vote-by-mail-for-all (NOT related to Medicare for All) for the July 14 primary runoffs. The big picture, for the general election, remains open.

Dikeman vs Hughs, the suit over whether third-party nominees should have to pay duopoly party filing fees in Texas, related to HB 2504, went before a Texas appeals court. Here's video of the hearing. Here's the big ticket background.

G. Elliott Morris throws a little bit of cold water on the positive polls for Joe Biden in Texas.

Noah Horwitz shares a term paper he once wrote about Greg Abbott.

Houston

In Houston, DosCentavos is not a fan of the latest attempt at police reform by committee.

Transform Houston outlines their objections to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's task force on police reform.

San Antonio

Mario Bravo calls on elected officials to lead on police reform.

Texana

Doug Swanson's "Cult of Glory," in part because D Magazine ran an excerpt, got the statue of Texas Ranger Jay Banks removed from in front of Love Field. Here's my reviews (five-star!) on Goodreads and Amazon.

In the wake of Tiger King, the Observer looks at the burgeoning world of exotic animal parks in Texas.

National

SocraticGadfly looks at Howie Hawkins clinching the Green Party nomination and the various haters who still don't like it or him.

Election law guru Rick Hasen wants a 28th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. As one wag on Ballot Access News asked rhetorically, "Doesn't the 15th Amendment do that?" As I told him on Twitter, ignoring duopoly-party efforts to suppress third-party ballot access makes his column unacceptable.

Shit. Hickenlooper vs Gardiner. The Colorado Green Party has to be bigger than the Texas one, and you all can't get anybody to run for the Senate? (Pictured at left: The North LoDo-distanced "protest area" at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, when John Hickenlooper was mayor. Part of his hatred of the freedom of assembly clause of the First Amendment, matched only by his love of fracking when Colorado gov. I was there on my last day of a vacation the Sunday before the start of DNC week.)

Egberto Willies thinks pergressuves should line up to vote for Status Quo Joe Biden, then demand single-payer. And, people like him as pundits are why Dems laugh out the Overton Window. It's also why he's back off my blogroll.

Goodbye and farewell to Zionist Eliot Engel.

G. Elliott Morris throws a little bit of cold water on the positive polls for Joe Biden in Texas. I threw more cold water on that nationally last week.

 Josh Berthume worries that the seven hours following the end of voting on the East Coast will be the biggest danger to democracy America has seen.

Paradise in Hell has had it with Mike Pence.

Meet the Black officer who was part of the George Floyd arrest (and is charged) and the adoptive White mom of him and two other Black children.

In what sounds like a sick joke, the Navajo Nation is reportedly buying Remington.

The rich get richer, indeed, in part because the IRS audits them less and less.

Global

Meet DDoS, the group replacing Wikileaks, and between reporting leaks from Russia, refusing to fuel the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, and deliberately avoiding the Cult of Julian, seeming to do a better job than Assange.

Feel different? NAFTA was replaced by NAFTA 2.0, called YMCA or the USMCA or something by Trump, yesterday. DeSmog Blog reports on the oil and gas angle. Remember how Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, was going to be a breath of fresh air as Mexico's new leftist-leaning president? Per DSB, he ain't.

Dario Hunter "went there"

Per a link at Independent Political Report, he's ... I"m going to be blunt, Dario ... he's "played the race card."

Here's the video from Dario. You want to listen about 30 seconds in, about the "I got into this race to break down the walls of exclusion ... especially against people who look like me."



Fuck you, Dario.

The Green Party nominated Cynthia McKinney in 2008. Yes, many people know that the party could do more to attract minorities, but?

Reverse racism is racism.

Especially when Howie's campaign manager, Andrea Merida Cuellar, is a minority herself.

Doubly so when Howie's own Veep nominee, Angeal Walker, is, like Cynthia McKinney, Black.

The Dario-stanners are ignorant of his putting his thumbs on the scale with Ian Schlakman. It wouldn't surprise me if he was one of the organizers of the whispering campaign claims that Howie seeking to run fusion with SPUSA violated Green Party rules. They're also ignorant of him having a hasbara past (and maybe present) and not apologizing for that, either.

Dario has also tried to play both sides of the fence on the trans activists issue. As for fairness otherwise, both Dario and Howie spoke at the 2019 Texas state convention.

And, read the comments at the video link. From here in Texas, Kat Gruene calls his ass out all OVER the place. Once is in response to Dario, who was responding to someone else calling him out for "going there." Said person noted what I did above, plus that Ajamu Baraka was Jill Stein's Veep in 2016 and other things.

Let's start with Dario's response to that:

This video doesn’t actually address racism in the Green Party. (?) It does reference the general political disenfranchisement of people who look like me, something every candidate should have in mind and take into account. But if you’d like me to do a video about racism in Green Party leadership, I certainly could. I’d have plenty of material. 

I responded that he was trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Kat just lit into him over that.

Dario Hunter and i could do one on the use of identity politics and how incapable people get elected to leadership in the gp alllll the time because of their non cis white male identity - electing tech incompetent older women for national committee for example - an almost 98% tech required position - in TX back in the day if you were not white or a woman you could get elected just because of that even if you were at your first green meeting - it became a running joke 

BOOM! And true, as I noted, in response to her.

Baraka noted this problem with GP identity politics "slots" and incapable people. The late Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report noted this in spades, time and time and time again.

Here's my blogging about Dixon's take on the "90 day wonders" in 2018. Here's more, from a longer, more convoluted hot take on the GP annual meeting in 2017.

Dario is just a poster child for that, now.

Finally, Dario's lies about state Green Party exclusion and more are all exposed here.

Oh, on my calling Dario out? Per Doug Henwood, being a leftist means not having white liberal guilt, so anybody trying to call ME out? Fail.

This is all just a ramping up of the Howie hatred, but now it's gotten ugly. David Bruce Collins tries to find a more nuanced take, but still doesn't like it. And, I'm inclined to be disinclined to his nuance, as we disagree somewhat on Howie and Russia, and that same "more" link above, disagree STRONGLY about Caitlin Johnstone (and, I suspect, other conspiracy theorizing between points Russia and Caity, though DBC is nowhere near Brains on this, or many other Greens).

I'm still not sure about voting Green in 2020. Howie could screw the pooch on one item at the convention, among other things. And, if he's personally involved, I won't vote for him on the SPUSA ballot line either. (His campaign treasurer, Travis Christal, had one comment on the video; I left him a comment in return, more explicit about that issue.)

RIP Mimi Soltysik

RIP 2016 SPUSA presidential candidate Mimi Soltysik. I had known he was sick, badly, and that it was a struggle, but didn't know it was liver cancer. Note: His Veep pick, Angela Walker, is Howie Hawkins Veep pick this year. Read this interview for more on his background. He's right about the sectarianism on the left. I've seen enough of that within the Green Party, and plenty of people who I wouldn't even consider leftist or that close to it. That's YOU, Jesse-stanners.

I have no idea why the Party for Socialism and Liberation separately exists, other than the sectarianism that led it to fracture off another communist party which was itself part of a fracture. Socialist Alternative? It's just a somewhat more left version of the Democratic Socialists of America, sometimes working inside the Dem party. I do know why it exists separately and I just told you. I've written about it before, and the hypocrisy of Kshama Sawant, specifically about its and her attempt to work inside the Dem Party as Berners. (Per Wiki, it claims to be Trots, but "Trots for Bernie"? Really?)

Yes, I'm armchair-quarterbacking, but I would never vote for an alleged or actual Marxist party. Non-Marxist socialists? Yes. I almost voted Soltysik instead of Jill Stein in 2016.

On Mimi's personal background, reading between the lines and knowing he had liver cancer? It sounds like he became an IV drug addict, but eventually got clean. It could have been dirty tattoo needles, too, I suppose, but the story sounds more than that. Or, for that matter, it could have been "good old" booze.

What's going to happen to McClatchy?

McClatchy is about the largest newspaper chain in America not either in the hands of vulture capitalists nor race-to-the-bottom grifters like Craphouse. (That's my name for Gatehouse, which is the tail that wags the dog in its merger with Gannett in what is publicly called the "new Gannett.")

That said, it had to file Chapter 11 earlier this year, and as part of that, today is the deadline for bids on what is currently much more than a "carcass."

Yesterday, Ken Doctor offered his take on what might happen. He listed four categories of potential buyers, either for the entire body or for individual newspapers. 

Let’s categorize the likeliest bidders:

• The Insider 
• The Savior 
• The Financial Engineer 
• The Roller-Upper

He then takes a look at each.

"Insider" is Chatham Asset Management, the vulture capitalist who owns a slice, but no more than a slice.

"Savior" would be primarily nonprofit ownership. Ken says he's heard rumors that interested buyers would be interested in applying the nonprofit model to the entire beast. I'm skeptical, and will get to that more in a minute.

"Financial Engineer" is a vulture capitalist, but Ken says it's likely NOT one of the companies already bigfooting the newspaper landscape.

"Roller-Upper"? Either CrapHouse or vulture capitalist Alden and head boy Heath Freeman.

Here's a string of Tweets I had on all of this.

McClatchy is a newspaper chain still worth saving from the vulture capitalists. Boy, it would be nice if Ken Doctor's sources are right and some "savior" bought it. 1/x https://t.co/cg1Erys0jo

— Fuck Jesse Ventura and fuck Primo Nutbar 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 30, 2020

That's the lead-in to all of this, of course. And it WOULD be nice. McC has had solid reporting, has a good DC bureau, and there, it often thinks slightly outside the bipartisan foreign policy establishment box.

OK, next?

Nonprofit newspapers aren't ideal, re McClatchy. Here in Texas, the Texas Tribune has pulled punches on issues of importance to some of its sponsors, like when environmentalism runs into O-I-L. (It will deny that, but I've got receipts.)  2/x

— Fuck Jesse Ventura and fuck Primo Nutbar 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 30, 2020

And related:

And, COVID has punched a hole in event money (which has ethics issues and has been abandoned by most profit-based papers and mags), so the idea of ramping up events across a chain like McClatchy certainly wouldn't fly. 3/x

— Fuck Jesse Ventura and fuck Primo Nutbar 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 30, 2020

That's why, contra Ken's sources, (Jon Allsop of CJR also discusses the issue) I really don't see a single buyer for the whole company as a nonprofit organization shop. (I'm not sure I see a single buyer for the whole schmeer, or at least a single non-flipping buyer, but that's another story.)

What I do see as a possible, part 1:

Because of all of that, I think it's unlikely a buyer would emerge to take the entire McClatchy chain nonprofit. I could see its whole set of Cal papers going that way .@mediagazer and .@kdoctor. Too bad it sold Monterey and San Jose. 4/x

— Fuck Jesse Ventura and fuck Primo Nutbar 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 30, 2020

And part 2:

As for the non-Cal McClatchy papers? Miami Herald and the Spanish-language paper could get a community buyer for sure. The rest? Would an Alden finance a Craphouse/New Gannett buy of them just to get a foot in that door? 5/x

— Fuck Jesse Ventura and fuck Primo Nutbar 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 30, 2020

So, there you go.

On the whole group of Cal papers, it's possible that maybe a nonprofit reaches a deal with Alden, as it via Dead Fucking Media is now the owner of Monterey and San Jose. It could be another current newspaper group which could then try making the Cal papers a nonprofit org as a subsidiary of some sort.

We shall see.

That said, per Ken, the old Knight-Ridder execs' pension lawsuit could slow everything down a bit. Update: Federal judge has delayed ruling on whether their suit can proceed until he sees the bids. That story, reflecting typically good and honest internal self-reporting, notes that a winner is supposed to be unveiled July 15, IF the company crossed a July 14 threshold allowing a "distressed termination" of its pension plans, not just limited to the old KR execs' pensions.

Robert Mueller had no balls, Jeff Toobin confirms

Jeff Toobin partially confirms this in an excerpt from his new book.

He claims it's more an issue of Rosenstein taking them away, although he acknowledges that Mueller was comfortable with Rosenstein putting narrow reins on the investigation.

I beg to differ, not so much with this as being wrong as being incomplete.

As I tweeted to Toobin, I think Mueller was pretty willing to swallow his own balls. I don't care if neither I nor a Bill Weld knew about the conversation between the two men, Weld was and is still right in that Mueller should not have felt constrained by the old internal DOJ memo claiming presidents can't be indicted. They can. Weld called Mueller out and rightfully so.

I elsewhere said, and legal scholars agree, that such an idea is constitutionally nugatory.

So, no, Jeff, unless you have "Mueller swallowed his own balls" more explicitly listed, you do NOT have the top two failures.

Update: I'm now three-quarters through the long piece, and Toobin says that Mueller aide Aaron Zebley told Giuiliani that "Battlin Bob" (NOT La Follette, an actual battler) confirmed that Mueller was going to swallow his nuts on this.

And no, Jeff, I don't believe this was all because of Rosenstein.

Ever since Senate Democrats decided not to impeach Reagan over Iran-Contra, both duopoly parties, in incarnations of both elected officials and appointed alleged solons, have pulled their punches over the renewed imperial presidency.

As for Mueller himself? Negotiating with John Dowd and Jay Sekulow? The "hard charging Marine" was anything but.

That said, there's other laughs in the piece. Like calling Sekulow a "constitutional law scholar" without the word "alleged" somewhere in the sentence. Lemme help you out.

The one other exculpatory issue I might accept is hinted at by Toobin: Mueller's age. He was 74 by the time new AG Bill Barr met with him upon taking office. And apparently worn out.

Finally, although I've distanced myself from the alleged outside-the-box stenos, I still cannot accept one statement by Toobin:

Barr neglected to mention, in these fawning remarks, that the Mueller investigation had taken place because the Russian government had engaged in a systematic attempt to help Trump win the election—an attempt that the candidate and his staff encouraged. 

Flat wrong.

As shown in things such as the indictment of the IRA 12, Russia engaged in a systematic meddling in the U.S. election. Trump wanted systematic help. I still see nothing that shows such systematic help was given. I have covered this issue, in specific relation to the then-called Internet Research Agency, here and here.

The reason I started this out so harsh? Not just in recent talks to Congress, but in other books, Toobin is an intellectual who can be a wavering compass and not just on narrow political grounds. For example, see my review of his Patty Hearst book.

Texas progressives bring back coronavirus news, Week 14

Another fun week in the world of politics, Texana, rising Texas coronavirus cases and more.

Ahh, yes ... coronavirus.

With that, after thinking I was over with a separate Texas Progressives pullout for coronavirus, it turns out that Greg Abbott's refusal to listen to precautionary, prudent medical advice, plus his "legal loopholes overriding of local governments' mask rules authority, has led us to a point of a COVID surge, which is largely demonstrated in other "red" states as well.

Coronavirus Texas

#Schadenfreude is a #coronavirus bitch. Two months ago, Texas and other states were quarantining travelers from the greater New York City area. Now, the three states of the Tri-State are alarmed enough to quarantine Texans (and denizens of several other, generally "red," states.)

On top of that? The EU is likely to ban travel from the US, period.

Meanwhile, as Texas coronavirus cases swell and Abbott has blood on his hands, Trump has pushed through with cutting federal money and aid for testing nationwide, including several sites in Texas. Strangebbott, despite bipartisan pleading with Trump across the state, said Texas would be OK.

And as of last Friday, Strangeabbott has officially backtracked on Reopen Texas. Bars closed, restaurants back to 50 percent capacity. And banned outdoor gatherings of more than 100 unless explicitly approved by government officials.

Hindsight, like schadenfreude, is a bitch. And, given that many medical experts and local government leaders were shouting in Abbott's ears a month ago, his "hindsight" is what I'd call "poor me."

Schadenfreude is a bitch indeed even within the Texas GOP. The Monthly notes the death from COVID of Kaufman County GOP official Peter Baker throws into stark relief the GOP's still-insistent plans on having an in-person state convention in Houston. (As of last Saturday, that is still on!) Adding to the schadenfreude angle? Baker was a COVID wingnut, pooh-poohing its severity — like many other Texas Republicans.

In light of all of this, Trump's HHS caved and will keep open five of the seven federal-funded test sights it had planned to close.

Shock me that Gohmert Pyle continues to be an idiot on this issue.


Coronavirus national

Could we, instead of having a check-mark, but not V, recovery, have an inverse check mark further downturn? Annie Lowery at the Atlantic says we might not have an inverse check mark, but that a regular checkmark might be so slow in growing we have something halfway like a second Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office says that we could have a full lost decade ahead. Wunderbar. Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden has anything to offer to deal with this. Libertarianism doesn't. And, the Green Party still has a lot of people inside the party hating its nominee. Beyond the conspiracy theory hatred, a lot of Greens hate anything that comes close to ecosocialism even as it's clear capitalism won't save us. One of the links within the piece explains how this is increasing income inequality, which is then in turn contributing to the problem. Again, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and a sizeable chunk within the GP have nothing to deal with this.

Toady Fauci was a little less toadyish when speaking to the House last week, partially blowing the whistle on what lead to details on why Trump killed a coronavirus research grant.

Team Trump is getting more panicky. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said "the window is closing" on the attempt to control COVID.At the same time, he pushed back on the idea that too many states had reopened too quickly, despite good medical evidence he's wrong.

"Reopen" protestor schadenfreude continues to happen. And the schad-infected, at least in this case, continue to be selfish dicks.

As tens of thousands of people in the country continue to struggle with this respiratory virus, the Fed is "doing its part," buying up stock of Big Tobacco and Big Oil as part of its "stimulus" or whatever.

In Week 11 of the coronavirus roundup, I noted churches as a high-risk area. Politico reports now on the issue of "super-spreader churches." Trump nationally, and Abbott in Tex-ass, continue to pander to the Religious Right on this issue.

Earlier this week, I noted that summer weather doesn't have appeared to tamped down COVID, and wondered if it was lurking in air conditioning.


Coronavirus global

South Korea was one of the best countries in the world at controlling COVID infections. But local and national leaders admit that, sociologically, the new normal cannot be the old normal.