A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments
Texas Green Party's email hit me earlier this week, inviting me to a virtual town hall type event with basic income "guru" Scott Santens and Green Congresscritter candidate Tom Wakely.
I passed. And tweeted that I was passing.
I mentioned that Thursday night when I heard Texas Greens had invited him
to speak with Congresscritter candidate Tom Wakely on a virtual town
hall event.
Here's why:
.@TXGreens
Why would I listen to the Scott Santens who preaches a libertarian
version of #BasicIncome
and gets butthurt when called on it?https://t.co/jyFeeROBd6
The
same Scott Santens is speaking at Movement 4 a People's Party
Sat., which thinks we need a new 3rd
party.
Pass.
— I come to Bari
Weiss, not to praise her 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August
27, 2020
OK, the MPP convo is Sunday, not Saturday, but still. Here's why I say fuck it.
— I come to Bari
Weiss, not to praise her 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August
27, 2020
Again, pass.
Contra state co-chair Laura Palmer, who I have no doubt personally set this up, while basic income is a good idea, Scott Santens' version of it is nowhere near the best version, it's just that he's the guru who's the best known speaker for the idea.
I've discussed before how the TX GP's stsate co-chair, during Dem primaries, was a one-issue tweeter for Dem presidential candidates, despite Yang et al not clearly favoring national health care and despite, overall, if a Green is going to an imitation of Jill Stein, Sanders being the closest to Green ideas, though still distant. I mean, stanning for Tulsi Gabbard when she started grifting harder on the BI angle after Yang withdrew? Sadly laughable.
Nickel version of analysis of Sully's new stupidity about Democrats, Black Lives Matter and other things.
(Update and related: Sully, in an interview with Ben Smith, admits that his pseudoscience on genes and race pushed himself outside the MSM. Rephrasing for the truth, Sully. Also worth noting from Ben: Sully claims he has $500K of suckerdom for his pseudoscience over at Substack. If a Taibbi, even, is getting 15 percent of that, FUCK ALL the "poor journalists" at Substack.)
First, the mayhem started with George Floyd. The shooting of Jacob Blake started the mayhem in Kenosha. Unnecessary use of force. That said, am I saying Blake is an angel? No. But, calling him an alleged rapist while linking to a Reuters fact-check that said "no he aint" without saying that's what Reuters said? Racist enough there.
And, then, not mentioning the kid gloves the Kenosha police used for Kyle Rittenhouse? Total failure.
Then this, channeling his inner Richard Nixon.
If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn’t believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I’ll back a party that does.
What else do you call that, especially when nothing in the piece talks about police brutality, whether race-directed police brutality or police brutality in general?
He goes on to willfully mischaracterize what "defund the police" means. He cites no stats to show how small a percentage of police activity is responding to criminal 911 calls.
Next, he claims Biden and the Democrats are "wedded" to Black Lives Matter and offers other nonsense:
But Biden, let’s face it, is weak and a party man to his core, and has surrendered to the far left at almost every single turn — from abortion to immigration to race.
Biden is a centrist neoliberal squish. And, if Sully really thinks today's abortion rights are far left, what about gay rights? You wanna have today's cops arrest your bearback ass for sodomy?
But, behind all of this?
Sully's loathing for so-called "cancel culture," even if he didn't sign the Harper's letter, discussed by me here, including that anti-BDS Zionists are the real cancel culture.
Remember the pivotal moment earlier this summer when the New York Times caved to its activist staff and fired James Bennet? It’s no accident this was over an op-ed that argued that if New York City would not stop the rioting in the streets, the feds should step in to restore order. For the far left activists who now control that paper, the imposition of order was seen not as an indispensable baseline for restoring democratic debate, but as a potential physical attack on black staffers.
There you go.
If this is a Weimar moment, then Andrew Sullivan has officially joined the non-Nazi rightists.
And, to the degree he has anything correct, or close to it, failure to connect today's Antifa to the old Black Bloc is another failure.
Editor-blogger's note-update, March 6, 2021: Pretty funny how I pegged the grift angle, as well as, apparently, the "they're not really a left party, but a liberal one" angle, at the time I wrote this last summer. A post last month, a roundup of "third parties of the left" news, included plenty of details about the grift and the not-so-left angles both.
Back to the original.
Seen via IPR, here's a presser about the latest news in their plans for an Aug. 30 convention, which plans to discuss the possibility of a new third party running in races in 2022 and beyond.
My thought?
Fuck em. If Movement for a People's Party wants to truly be a party of the left, we've already got semi-left Greens and other parties further left than that. Per Mimi Soltysik, we don't need yet more factionalism, and we also CERTAINLY don't need vanity projects. Nor do we need grifting off connections within foundations, etc., connected to one former Democratic presidential candidate. (Ahem.)
And, on their about page? No case is made for why a new third party rather than reforming, etc., the Green Party and going from there. NOR is a case presented that the GP is beyond fixing.
COULD such argument be made? Hell, yes. I've mentioned things here in these pages that have me close to moving beyond.
Fuck em for some specific reasons, too, starting with the main speakers and organizers, and moving on, as in these, as much as the worst within the Green Party, are people I don't want to associate with.
Mike Gravel? Conspiracy theorist and Tulsi-stanner. Marianne Williamson? Present New Age Kumbayaer, antivaxxer of long standing, past history of anti-unionism at her own company. (And, Dec. 6, now that MPP has filed the paperwork in their first state, Maine, to become an official political party, with perfect timing, Encyclopedia of American Loons profiles her.)
Nina Turner? Butt-hurt Berner.
Ryan Knight? DSA Rosey. And, Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid swallower. You're surely less of a socialist than I am.
Since the DNC didn’t honor its tradition of inviting every presidential candidate who earned delegates to speak, we’d be honored to have you speak on August 30th at the https://t.co/MH2EuPtw1P.
We’re building a new progressive populist party for 2022 & 2024.
Apparently the post-Bernie Berners and DSA Roseys even don't like Tulsi, or else she's afraid of being challenged, as I see she's not on your speakers' list.
— I come to Bari Weiss, not to praise her 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 27, 2020
Still the case today.
That said? If the MPP is a separate party, doesn't it need an icon that's not the DSA rose?
Cornel West? Knows there's a third party called the Greens, per Black Agenda Report.
Chris Hedges (new addition). Even more than Cornel West, knows the Greens exist, as he was going to run as one earlier this year until seeing that meant he'd have to quit RT.
Jimmy Dore? Multiple conspiracy theorist, including Seth Rich conspiracy theorist. (And, I've now learned, a Jungian-type New Ager as well.)
Scott Santens? Also surely knows third parties exist. May be butthurt at Greens for not giving basic income in general, and his libertarian version in particular (it is, Scott, and you get butthurt when people correctly call it that) enough airtime. I told Texas Greens (and Laura Palmer in particular, indirectly) exactly that.
The full list of people on the "movement" webpage?
This:
The larger listing of ppl on the Movement for a People's Party? Lots o butthurt Berners. Sprinkling of vanity politics ppl. Sprinkling of conspiracy theorists. All refusing to work with the Greens or other already existing semi-left or left 3rd parties. https://t.co/Yqnfz13w7M
— I come to Bari Weiss, not to praise her 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 20, 2020
That's the reality.
That includes founder Nick Brana. Let's note that pre-Berner, he worked for Clintonite Terry McAuliffe. More to the point, let's note that he started MPP in 2017, presumably based on the idea that Bernie would NOT run again in 2020. Going back older? Two internships for John Kerry. Enough money and/or connections to attend London School of Economics. In other words, "connected." If not part of the 1 percent, then part of the 10 percent.
Fernando at IPR has a liveblog of the meeting if you're interested. I'm just doing further sharpshooting based on it. He notes somebody from Move to Amend was from the Green Party. "Thanks." Another speaker? Mike Gamms-connected Ron Placone. "Thanks."
David Bruce Collins has an extensive eight-part liveblog. As I commented on his part 5, he seems to be ... kind of a sucker almost? Lauded Santens, for example, and I told him the truth about what I thought about Santens' libertarian ideas of BI, just updated later this week. Sucker for Cornel West, who was a sucker for Obama and so DIDN'T know the score.
He also confirms that half-Libertarian, full grifter, Trump supporter and antivaxxer Jesse Ventura spoke. Fuck you even more. (That said, the first link reminds me of why I have a lesser fuck you for the Green Party right now and haven't given Howie any money this year. So fucking sue me.)
Look, if you all want to be a paragroup to/within the GP, or the SPUSA, like the DSA Roseys are to Democrats, fine. But, unless the Green Party finishes falling apart and needs to be abandoned, AND you offer a better option for a third party of the left than the SPUSA? Not fine. I'll fight you. After all, I first wrote in depth about the Roseys, and the vacuousness of many of them on foreign policy, and related matters, almost two years ago, at the 2018 midterms.
Update, Sept. 9: Fake Greens, like Democrat in lurking William Boartfield in Louisiana, are now trying to make state GPs, at least into this one case, into a state MPP branch.
To put it another way? I see the MPP as being like the Sunrise Movement, the kiddie pool wing of the Sierra Club, which lurked on Twitter for four years, saw AOC, swooped in, used her as a willing tool, plagiarized the Green Party's original Green New Deal, then passed off its lite version as the real deal.
I'll also fight you if, like Never Trumpers of the Lincoln Project, part of this is political grifting. And, yes, I suspect it is. Lots of "Our Revolution" people on that list, who may have learned the fine art of pergressuve political grifting from Mrs. Bernie, Jane O'Meara Sanders. Both Our Revolution, on grifting (and dark money) and the Sanders Institute, on nepotism, show that there's nothing new politically under the Bernie son.
Update, Dec. 5: So, they've filed the official paperwork to be a state party in Maine. I've Tweeted to the MPP account and Ryan Knight's, asking what it offers, either organizationally (anything might be better than the GP) or politics that the GP doesn't.
As I've said before, if I get an answer, and it's a good one, hey, sign me up as a backer. If not? I remain an independent leftist, and will remain critical of it, even as my criticism of the Green Party increases as a critical independent leftist.
Texas has gotten approved for the $300 in supplemental unemployment bennies. Note that it, like most states, is not doing the state's own $100 kicker. Also note that even Dan Patrick is silent about people gaming the system, making more money unemployed than working, etc. In addition, although Texas data isn't available to me yet, nationally, average weekly pay for those who are employed has continued to drop from April on. And, that's average as in "mean." The median probably looks worse.
Turns out more than Jim Schutze can smack down Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall. Grits has the goods on her getting lambasted by the Dallas City Council here.
Pro Publica/Texas Trib talk about the Texas ties of We Build the Wall and its indicted Brian Kolfage and Steve Bannon.
Kenny Boy Paxton's latest attempt to stall out his criminal proceedings has failed.
DPS' hardcore criminal pursuit of protestors at the Capitol is so overblown prosecutors have rejected one case already. At the same time, it should be noted that, as elsewhere, many true criminal justice activists are seeing many white so-called "antifa" old Black Bloc renewed behavior as just using police brutality as an excuse for anarchism. I agree, and it's part of why I'm leery of anarcho-Greens. None of this justifies police brutality or ongoing police overreach. But, that doesn't justify random anarchy, either. Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby.
Reform Austin notes that gun seizures are up at Texas airports despite travel being down.
The newly-renamed San Antonio Report checks in on a pro-Post Office rally.
The Texas Signal reports on state Republicans putting a quiet end to public redistricting hearings.
National
A state-national mix here. The prosecutors who got Steve Bannon indicted want to seize the assets of his nonprofit, Citizens of the American Republic.
Joe Biden supports austerity measures if he's elected president. In other words, per Dick Cheney, deficits don't matter if you're a Rethuglican, but they do if you're a virtue-signaling Democrat.
Environmental justice for the poor, often minorities, doesn't just involve things like petrochemicals or mining waste. Grist looks at the archaic practice of sugarcane burning in Florida.
Bernie isn't endorsing anybody in the increasingly heated Massachusetts Dem primary for US Senate and many Bros are getting disappointed. Bros? Bernie is, as he showed with his nice-guy to Biden months ago, about the politics of the personal, and beyond that, he's self-sunsetting. You can join the Our Revolution grifters over at Movement for a People's Party, you can become Greens and try to better it without any "Bernie is god" thoughts, or you can lump it in the current Dem party.
Tennessee joins Louisiana and other states (in Pelican-land, it started over anti-oil protesting) to felony-criminalize at least some protesting.
Funny how James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, for all their talk about liberty, don't like it when a state law protecting privacy rights blocks another of their scams.
Here's what we know about Jacob Blake and Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, so far.
To me, it's long been a toss-up over which allegedly librul big state mosts wastes its gubernatorial and senatorial offices, California or New York.
Overall, though, as Silicon Valley gets more monstrous than Wall Street, I think it's more California. (That would be the Silicon Valley that is not as monolithic as Rethugs claim, either. The prosecution calls Peter Thiel to the stand.)
Anyway, per the first half of the header, as started Monday night at, and in conjunction with, the Republican National Convention, you and I are hearing a drumbeat of "failed state" stories about California.
It's not failed, but it does have problems. Just different problems than lying-by-omission Rethugs are telling you.
Those lightning strikes? The ones in the dry thunderstorm?
That dry thunderstorm and its intensity are believed to be at least partially connected to climate change. So say such experts as Michael Mann as quoted by the folks at Yale Climate Connections. Won't hear the GOP mention that. Sadly, you're not hearing a lot of mainstream media mention that either, per Heated. That lets the wingnuts get away with this unchecked. CJR's Jon Allsop adds that this was also true in 2018 and 2019.
The bad Paradise Fire of a couple of years ago? Officially knows as the Camp Fire? Bad electric wires caused by the cheap-ass capitalist utility PG and E, for which it corporately pled guilty. That's the same PG and E of San Bruno gas line explosion infamy. That would be the PG and E that is owned by a holding company.
Pro Publica now reports that bribery of PG and E employees, in the form of a house in the Bay Area, appears to be tied to that fire.
So, that's one set of lies right there. It is aging infrastructure, not increased use of renewable energy, that has caused capitalist PG and E to fall down on the job. (And, in this sense, with 33 percent renewables, PG and E actually IS following the market as well as state goals. Wind is not only cheaper than coal, it's at least as cheap as natural gas.)
As for Cal leadership? Arnold Schwarzenegger was gov during the gas line explosion, but Newsom was during the fire.
Back to that representation.
In the governor's office in Sacto, the state's been ill-served for some time. You had Gov. Moonbeam Jerry Brown, arguably the first modern neoliberal in a statehouse, from 1975-1983. He, of course, followed St. Ronald of Reagan. Next was Duke Deukmejian, who tried to straddle the sane conservatives vs wingnuts divide in the state GOP. Pete Wilson was the same. Then came Gray Davis, who lived up to his name before being recalled, and then replaced not by a wingnut, but by the Terminator, who eventually fully repudiated the wingnut wing. Then came Jerry 2.0, even more neoliberal than before (and not as environmentalist as he would have us believe) and now, Gov. Pothole, Gavin Newsom. Childhood and business friend of J. Paul Getty scion Gordon Getty. Your average everyday plutocrat. Also known as the former Mr. Kimberly Guilfoyle.
California's infamous Proposition 13 was approved by voters during Moonbeam's first tour of duty. Why he didn't look at a state like here in Tex-ass and propose a seniors' exemption plus caps on property for taxation, and head Prop 13 off at the pass, I don't know. Of course, this is the man who, before the NY primary in 1992, said he'd choose Jesse Jackson as his Veep. Political smarts aren't always there.
Anyway, Prop 13 has not quite gutted Cal government, but it dinged it and twisted it into pretzels, since property taxes and valuations can take "normal" hikes when property is sold. I don't know how much property sales fraud happens in the Golden State, but I'm sure it's plenty.
Rich folks of both parties have moved further into the urban-wildland interface area with their McMansions, following up on previously locating in mudslide zones.
That said, both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of the Interior have not done enough to move the U.S. Forest Service away from bad fire management and dead tree management practices. (California does not have as much of a climate change related dead tree problem as the Rockies, but it does have some.) On the Dem side, I'm thinking of oil-friendly Kenny Boy Salazar in particular.
OK, the bread crumb trail starts with SD 30 state Sen. Pat Fallon, per the Trib's story. See update below.
(Additional, Sept. 10: Read about the candidate forum for GOPers running to replace Fallon.)
Fallon, known as a venue-hopping ladder climber (surprised he didn't interject himself into the CD13 primary to replace Mac Throneberry) got himself nominated to replace John Ratcliffe as the GOP nominee for the 4th Congressional District after Ratcliffe got himself named Trump's head snoop. (Sidebar two: What's Ratcliffe gonna do if he's out of a job with a Trump loss? Lobbyist for a private sector portion of the Deep State!)
CD 4 is as safely GOP as Fallon's SD 30. So, Fallon's gonna resign his state Senate seat, right?
Not so fast.
Fallon dithered for two weeks, and then decided on a Dale Hanson verson of a Solomonic decision.
Here's Dale on that:
OK, so Patsy said he was resigning on Aug. 22. But, his resignation isn't effective until Jan. 4.
No matter. The Jesuitical Greg Abbott, per C.D. Hooks' take on him, essentially said, "He said he's resigning now, so I can call a special election now" is doing so for Sept. 29. And, calling it for now, rather than the Nov. 3 regular ballot? Wasted money by county clerks, and no, you lying sack of shit Abbott, there's no coronavirus-related reason to necessitate this date. (As if you really cared THAT much about coronavirus-related public safety issues, as we know you don't.)
It's only your fear of a deadlocked House at 75-75 temporarily being undeadlocked if a Springer ran for a special election held AFTER Nov. 3 and Fallon officially winning his Congresscritter race.
Drew Springer, best buds with Fallon, and in some ways even MORE ethically challenged, as noted by the Observer in 2017 as a tax law grifter, but just like Fallon as a quasi-Opus Dei type Catholic equivalent of a fundamentalist Protestant bigot, and state Rep. for HD 68, announced he was running within a day of Abbott's call. He announced that all other state legiscritters whose districts are at least partially within SD 30, as well as some solons outside the bounds, like Phil King, were all in his corner. Per the first link above, Springer has already said he hopes that being in the Senate will let him eliminate Maintenance and Operations property tax.
Being your Senator means you have a better chance of eliminating M and O property tax, a bill I filed in the Texas House but didn't even receive a vote by the House Chamber.
And replace it with what? Nothing? Untrustworthy state funding?
Smells to high heaven. Smells like something two lawyers and a big biz grifter would cook up on a hot stove well in advance of going public with anything.
Abbott could have of course saved money (never stopped him before) with a Nov. 3 special election, but then Little Boy Drew couldn't have run, unless he wanted to risk being neither a state representative or a state senator. Drew (and Fallon) are Abbott type wingnuts. Nice, polite wingnuts who aren't Dan Patrick butt-kissers.
(And, yes, these concerns are real. A Dem-oriented poll has Dems outpolling Rethugs in what are listed as "competitive" state House seats. See page 3 of PDF.)
And, there's someone who's NOT part of the GOP Capitol world, AND nuttier than Fallon, who might just raise a stink about it as part of her campaign.
I am of course talking about known criminal Shelley Luther, who also jumped in the race immediately. Wingnut media was pushing her as soon as Fallon got the Congressional tip. Big wingnut media like Luke Macias and Mark Davis.
Your prognosticator says that, unless another unelected populist wingnut enters the race, Luther takes a plurality in the first round for sure, and an outright majority wouldn't surprise me.
==
Update from the Trib, Aug. 29; Denton Mayor Chris Watts has entered on the GOP side, along with two lesser Republicans and the first Democrat. I don't know if Jacob Minter can make it to the likely runoff or not; with the additional Republicans, I would give him a slim chance rather than none. Neither Nocona small biz owner Craig Carter nor Decatur engineer and 2018 Fallon challenger Andy Hopper is likely to figure heavily in the race. The district certainly is very Republican, but not quite as much so as Springer's House seat.
Watts is certainly going to take some of Springer's votes. To the degree there's, if not "moderate" Republicans in the area, then at least non-wingnut conservatives, Watts is their man. He describes himself as a "fiscal conservative," which is good coding for what he omits: He runs neither Trump nor the Religious Right up the flagpole for a salute.
Minter is from Anna, and with northern Collin County continuing to grow, and all of it and Denton County becoming more Dem-friendly, it's possible, but again, not likely, he cracks the runoff.
Among the five, and three main, GOP candidates, Watts' entry in the race surely ensures none of them gets a majority. Per my original post, I think Luther as a true Trumpist type draws support from people who think neither Springer nor Watts is hardcore enough. BUT! Special elections like this have short timetables. Her name recognition is surely higher in the Metroplex its than in Metroplex-edge Denton, northern Collin and the more rural areas, and she doesn't have a lot of time to boost that, if she needs to. And, if Drew tries to go further right to fend off Luther, that leaves the door open for Watts to scoop up all non-wingnut GOP voters. Watts has resigned as mayor of Denton to run.
Two other points, which could determine who gets to the runoff, and then, what happens from there.
One is how many more knowledgable Democrats decide that Minter isn't going to make the runoff anyway and do strategic voting for Watts from the start? Some people are expecting Minter to advance but I wouldn't hold my breath.
The second is: If it's a Watts-Luther runoff, does Springer officially endorse anybody?
===
Update from CD Hooks at the Monthly, Sept. 11: He notes that Strangebbott's hokey "Back the Blue" push, with no Dems of note biting, is bullshit, hypocrisy, and probably unconstitutional. He also thinks that while it may be of marginal to modest effect in state House races, it wil be no more than that.
The University of Washington agrees with former FDA head Scott Gottlieb and others — there's a good chance the coronavirus death toll in the US hits 300,000 by the end of the year. More masking and social distancing could reduce that. Easing up on the current leaky gas pedal, to mix metaphors, could make it even higher. Note that the assumes include NO VACCINE. Speaking of???
SocraticGadfly tells anybody wanting a coronavirus vaccine, whether the highly optimistic expecting one this year, or the somewhat more realistic eyeing 2021 not to bet on it, unless you want a Trumpian-type vaccine free of normal FDA testing rules, and thus to stay serious, or get more serious, about the disease.
Trump's mix of bashing the FDA on COVID treatments and bypassing it on tests is scary. (We're not going to have a vaccine before next year, if then, so, if he's not in the White House, he can't bypass it on vaccines.)
A number of California hospitals are treating employees, namely nurses, crappily. So far, Gov. Pothole, Gavin Newsom, hasn't done a lot to crack down on the hospitals. This in the wake of it turning out that his promise to take a voluntary salary cut was a lie. As the story notes, the same happened in New York State this spring under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, linking the two govs as failed blue heroes.
Speaking of Gov. Pothole, it's generally good that COVID has curtailed California's inmate firefighting program. On the other hand, inmates did get early parole. On the third hand, they should get other benefits from doing this work as well, as one inmate noted.
Packages, whose number has increased during COVID, as well as first-class mail, has seen more and more late deliveries under current Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. How much is specifically his fault is still open.
In Texas, 20 percent of the unemployed don't qualify for Trump's extra $300 per week.
Kuff gloats over Texas Dems booting three Greens for refusal to pay the new, and sued-over, HB 2504 filing fees. He does note RG Ratcliffe calls it "chickenshit," but Kuff doesn't say WHY he does. Kuff also doesn't discuss the federal suit background, nor the part that it won't actually be heard until next year. Nor does he mention the Dikeman et al state lawsuit, the more specific immediate ground for not paying, nor state Dems' specious claim that because the original injunction issued in that case is on appeal (and what's taking the appellate court so long, Dems?) that it's inoperative.
Here's details of the ruling:
The 14-day temporary restraining order was granted after Democratic Senate candidate MJ Hegar, joined by two national Democratic organizations, argued that her Green Party opponent and a Green candidate opposing Democrat Wendy Davis should not be placed on the ballot because they failed to pay a candidate filing fee as required by a new state law.
State District Judge Jan Soifer’s order blocked the Texas secretary of state’s office from certifying David Collins, the Green candidate for U.S. Senate, and Tom Wakely, running for the 21st Congressional District, to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. …
The Green Party acknowledges that its candidates – Collins, Wakely and Katija Gruene for railroad commissioner – did not pay the filing fee or collect the needed number of petition signatures to avoid the fee. …
A lawsuit by the Libertarian Party and several of its candidates succeeded in winning a temporary injunction blocking the fee in December, but that case is on appeal. Democrats argue that the appeal voided the injunction until a ruling is made.
The Green Party decided to let the secretary of state’s office determine if the injunction remained valid and its candidates could be certified, Palmer said.
Kat Gruene was separately ballot-blocked. She's the Green Candidate for Railroad Commissioner.
DBC weighs in from his blog. Interestingly, he claims no personal animus at MJ Hegar. Sorry, but if I were running for the Senate as a Green, and not just a Dem, but a former Libertarian and Republican gun nut ConservaDem, hijacked my race, I'd have personal animus.
Kuff doesn't mention the Greens' stance on the issue, either, as noted in the last graf of the pull quote.
Nor does he mention the timing. Last Friday was the last day for ballot challenges. The Monday before that was the last day to file write-in, per this story. They've been sitting on this since select Greens decided not to pay the fees.
As for the races involved?
Chuckles the Kuffner? Had Greens nominated nobody in the Senate race, I was likely going to undervote that anyway. Beyond what DBC says about her lack of foreign policy comments, elsewhere, she makes clear that some degree of Zionism gets a blank check from her. Beyond the Intercept piece linked above, Hegar's styling herself as "MJ" rather than "Mary" or "Mary Jennings" is something vaguely offputting to me. Not sure why, but I know that it is. I might have voted Castañeda in the RRC race had Kat Gruene not been running from the start, as she doesn't seem too bad. But now? If Dems succeed in cock-blocking, I'll undervote this race too.
Kuff also has never addressed why Dems have such fear of Greens and Republicans, not just in Texas but nationally, have never had the same degree of fear-mongering about Libertarians, even though they draw even more voters.
I put you on my blogroll in part to cheese Brains. You'll probably go back off soon.
We know Trump was an even bigger idiot, and racist, over Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
And, it's possible you ain't seen nothing yet.
Riffing on Katrina, it's possible that Louisiana, later this week, will get hit back-to-back, within 72 hours or less, by two separate hurricanes. Marco is already a hurricane, and Laura is expected to move up there from its current tropical storm status.
Yale Climate Connections, in its Sunday prognostications, first raised the possibility of both hitting Louisiana. That's Marco at upper left and Laura at lower right.
Weather Underground is still saying it expects Marco to come further west and hit Texas. We'll see. But, even its predictions allow for the possibility of heavy rain and surf on the Louisiana coast. Basically, it's expecting a Harvey in reverse, scraping the Gulf coast from east to west and starting further east.
Whatever the track of the two storms, as with coronavirus, you can expect Trump to hugely mishandle this. Meanwhile, if Weather Underground is right on Marco? That's bad news for a Houston that has many poorer neighborhoods still not fully recovered from Harvey.
Yale Climate is leaning more on UKMET's forecast track, while Weather Underground is following more on NHC. And this raises a sidebar issue about Weather Underground.
A month or two ago, I complained about the "shadow" text on its map graphics. Didn't realize, or think, until yesterday, that that is probably part of something bigger.
And, that "bigger" is its parent, IBM, shuttering the "Category 6" weather blog, whose top two staff ... are now at Yale Climate. The related maps issue is that Weather Underground used to show ALL of the top five-six different world meteorological forecasting agencies tracking projections. Yale Climate still often does this, and has them for Marco on the link above, and also, on a previous post, as a look at overall accuracy, when it said that the NHC is generally better but UKMET has consistently been tops on Marco. That "migration" is part why I added Yale Climate to my blogroll.
Anyway, the "dance" starts today. And, in case you're wondering, yes, NOLA is supposed to flood. Beyond the possibility of Marco doing a reverse Harvey, I wonder if it could, not with a Fujiwara effect, but in some other way cause Laura to stall out after landfall, adding to South Louisiana flooding. And, adding further to the shitstorm, the big levee at Grand Isle was damaged two months ago, and the Corps of Engineers and the state have been wrangling on who should pay to fix it and other things. More here on video of the state taking over work, which will only be Band-aided.
(Update: Louisiana and Trump's idiocy both got lucky, per Yale CC. Marco is now a TS as of Tuesday afternoon and may only be a TD at landfall. Laura is still looking to intensify, but the Bermuda high now has it hitting Texas, most likely somewhere not really far from Houston.)
But ... "climate change is just a myth," or "climate change is a socialist plot," right, Rethuglicans?
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