Texas Progressives are eyeballing the election run-up

With early voting now more than halfway done, it's time to take stock of election issues in Texas and beyond as well as other things happening in the area.

So, with that, the Texas Progressives digs in to this week's roundup.

Houston regional

Schaefer Edwards looks at a Houston plan to fight flooding and climate change by planting a ton of trees.

Jen Rice categorizes Harris County drive-through voting locations by their fast food counterpart.

Texana

The Texas Observer is trumping the Texas Tribune in helping out Texas newspapers. It's starting an Indigenous Affairs desk, edited by nationally known American Indian journalist Tristan Ahtone. The helping local newspapers part? Its stories will be available for free to Texas papers.

Somebody call Greg Abbott. Texas is No. 1 and not Californicated — in medium and large city residents lacking health insurance. Somebody call Joebamacare Biden, too.

Texas politics

Via David Bruce Collins, the Dallas Snooze actually gets third parties and candidates basically right! Interviewing an actual third party candidate helped a lot.

ConservaDem Lulu Seikaly (she IS, Texas Observer, per your own story) hopes to flip CD4 in Collin County from smiley-faced wingnut Van Taylor. Sadly, she might win where Lorie Burch didn't win 2 years ago, and become another Colin Allred.

Off the Kuff interviewed Rep. Lizzie Fletcher about her action-packed first term in office.

Speaking of Colin Allred? Shock me that his opponent this year, Genevieve Collins, is as semi-clueless as Daddy Dick Collins, with whose Park Cities silver spoon she was born with in her mouth.

Chris Hooks looks at some Texas House races that are key to Dems' hopes to flipping it.

Ed Espinoza shows how Texas added nearly two million registered voters since 2016.

John Cornyn claims he disagreed with Trump "in private." That drew much laughter on Twitter, including my evocation of his old Corona comments:

.@JohnCornyn Did you and best bud Trump have a Corona together so "you'd all get through it together" even as he told Bob Woodward he kept his real worries on #Coronavirus private? John Cornyn, when you're a bigger lying sack of shit than Havana Ted Cruz, it's pretty bad. https://t.co/OmABTkYt2r

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 18, 2020

In reality, he's far from alone. GOP Senate candidates are scurrying to flee the Trump Deck as the ship looks more and more likely to go under. That includes Mitch McConnell's ship as well as Trump's, as pundits currently offer odds-on chances of the Dems making McConnell minority leader again. Speaking of ...

National, political

Dems will need to flip three of those Senate seats if Biden wins — four if Alabama's Doug Jones loses as expected. Here's the likely ones, with my personal take. Collins? Toast. McSally? Toast. Gardner? Likely toast. Tillis? Possible toast.  Ernst? Bread is in the toaster slots. Graham? Likely to stay on. Both Georgia races could go to runoffs. Even without either one of them, Dems have two definite pickups and a likely. Surely one of the possibles will be the fourth they need.

Meanwhile, Biden has more and more money to spend on national teevee. How long will his coattails be in some states?

But, who really cares? My Twitter take on Sunday:

We have current prez lying abt everything as Senate lackeys pander to QAnon while ...
Dem half of duopoly has Biden lying abt national health care, and now this #BidenBelieves hashtag despite the Constitution explicitly noting "NO RELIGIOUS TEST."
Worst election in a century

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 18, 2020

And, for a variety of reasons, I chose not to register to vote at my current address, so, per Timothy Leary, I have "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out," that last being hinted at by me four weeks ago. That includes you, Howie Hawkins, as a variety of micro- and mesoaggressions or whatever coming a bit from him, but more, his campaign and advisors and GP national have just left me uninterested. Sorry to David Bruce Collins and Kat Gruene, the other two statewide GP candidates, but if Ruth Hughs and SOS career staff hadn't screwed the pooch, you wouldn't be on the ballot anyway, and reading between the lines on the state Supremes, if you won, it might be all in vain anyway. (It is true I could have written in Gloria la Riva among alternatives. That said, I don't know the details of her stances vis a vis China, either, but I can take a guess.)

Otherwise, Democrats? I mean it all on that tweet. And, while Biden is targeting older voters, how many younger "Nones" will this new #BidenBelieves finish turning off if they were already kind of cold?

Michael Arceneaux explores the visceral loathing that older Black folks have for Donald Trump.

Paradise in Hell once again channels Donald Trump.

National, non-political

MUST READ: Andrew Cockburn details the decades of accumulation of presidential emergency powers, and the winks and nods Congress has engaged in since the 1970s to enable their continued expansion. No wonder Nixon said, "It's not illegal if the president does it." In many cases, already then, he was technically correct.

Is the surge in gender self-identification really driven by capitalism at end? This piece argues yes, and I'll have a breakout on it later. (Short version: I generally agree, though with some nuances versus the story. And, per my support of the Georgia Green Party, while I'm not "gender critical," I am "gender skeptical," and note that sex is not gender. Period.

What happens when you try calling most the people in Jeffrey Epstein's not-so-little black book? This.

Global

Don't look now, but for better or (more likely) for worse, Evo Morales is back, at least in the background.