Does ranked choice voting really matter that much?

That's one big takeaway from an AP story a month ago about the general failure on the Nov. 5 ballot to get more states to consider RCV — along with open primaries and/or other electoral reforms.

On RCV, the story says it rarely makes a difference in outcomes.

But, rarely is not never, and the AP admits that in its nut grafs:

The AP analyzed nearly 150 races this fall in 16 jurisdictions where ranked choice voting is authorized, ranging from the Board of Assessors elections in the Village of Arden, Delaware, to the presidential elections in Alaska and Maine. The ranking system was needed in just 30% of those cases, because the rest were won by candidates receiving a majority of the initial votes.

Nationwide, just three candidates who initially trailed in first-place votes ended up winning after ranked vote tabulations — one for Portland City Council and two for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

In San Francisco, two progressive candidates campaigned together, encouraging voters to rank them No. 1 and 2. Initially, they fell behind a moderate candidate who would have won a traditional election. But after six rounds of rankings, one of the progressive candidates emerged the victor when the other was eliminated and his supporters’ votes were redistributed to her.

Supporters of ranked choice voting point to that as a success, because it avoided two similar candidates splitting the vote and both losing.

“It’s kind of like a pressure valve – you don’t always need it, but when you do, you really do,” said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, which advocates for ranked choice voting.

There you are.

Portland's mayoral race went 19 rounds, and one council race went 30 rounds.

That said, would you prefer somebody being elected with a plurality of just 30 percent? Or doing a top-two physical runoff? Not me.

I don't know what — other than continued educational work — is the answer to one-fifth or more of voters not engaging in rankings, or more Black than White voters skipping it. On the former, I suspect races with a dozen or more candidates make it frustrating to rank them all.

But, you don't have to rank them all. You could rank the top four. That said, if your candidate is No. 5 or worse in the first round, out you go.

I also don't know how easy it is to run for mayor or council in Portland. Maybe that needs addressing. Not with a fat filing fee, but with a few more names than current on a petition drive.

But mattering somehow is still more than nothing.

Beyond that, the story is flawed otherwise. It says Save Our States opposes RCV, but it opposes a helluva lot more than that, starting with opposing a national popular vote for president. Weirdly, and again, showing its limitations when it comes to modern political science, Wiki has no page for it.

Help protect monarch butterflies

Author photo: Monarch at Hagerman NWR.

FINALLY, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed an Endangered Species Act listing as "threatened" the monarch butterfly. (I say "finally" because the Center for Biological Diversity was pushing for this a decade ago.)

But, it's just proposed. They're going to need backup, since the likes of Texas Ag Commish Sid Miller are going apeshit over this.

So?

Here's where you comment. In support!

Here's what I said:

Dear USFWS: I appreciate the proposed "threatened" listing. My one quibble is that most of the stronger protections, such as critical habitat areas being designated for protection, apply only to the Western monarch subspecies. (I know that USFWS can't do anything about Mexican overwintering grounds for most monarchs. I would like USFWS to consider critical habitat designation elsewhere. (I'm familiar with USFWS feet-dragging on critical habitat for the dunes sagebrush lizard.)

That said, any exception for pesticides should be extremely limited, and should only be adopted based on statements by lepidopterists etc allowing that limited use of certain pesticides will not be a monarch / milkweed danger.

Beyond the listing itself, USFWS should work with other federal and state agencies, including state transportation departments on roadways, to increase milkweed propagation through sowing, increased use of no-mow / limited-mow areas, etc. Sincerely, /me

Click that link! (Scroll to the bottom for the comment button.)

As for Sid? He's full of it. As noted in my comment, except for the Western subspecies, a fair chunk of whose acreage is on land either of a governmental agency or private conservation organization, there IS NO critical habitat designation. Per what I said about pesticides, FWS may well create a Mack Truck sized loophole.

And, contra Mr. Jeebus Shot? A number of farmers are, at least tentatively in support. Per the Chronicle, that includes one Zippy Duvall, head honcho at the American Farm Bureau.

That said? Per what I said in my comment about Mexico? The Chron notes that many scientists think FWS has the wrong focus:

Many scientists believe monarch butterflies are not endangered, but their migration is. A study released in October by the University of Georgia found the monarch butterfly's breeding population is relatively stable and similar to historical abundances. However, the species' fall migratory population is in serious decline. The study, which suggests the insects are dying off during their fall migration south to Mexico, points to the planting of non-native milkweeds along the migration path resulting in the rise of a parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE), which infects and debilitates monarch butterflies. The release of captive-reared butterflies, which are not as good at migrating, is also a factor.

Andy Davis, assistant research scientist at the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology and lead author of the study, expressed frustration with the USFWS listing decision, opining that it may cause more harm than good. "I think the biggest problem will be that this ruling will further convince people that monarchs need to be saved in their own yards by rearing them in 'protective captivity,'" he wrote on Facebook. "And since this ruling has no real meaningful restrictions on this practice (in fact the USFWS encourages it in their press release), then we will likely see further increases in OE levels across the board, more non-native milkweed being sold, and fewer and fewer monarchs successfully reaching their winter destinations."

Hard to argue with that.

On the other hand, as the Chron also notes, a listing is the only tool in the FWS arsenal:

"Unfortunately, no possibility exists for listing a phenomenon such as a migration as threatened or endangered under the ESA," wrote Monika Maeckle, who tracks the insects and runs the website Texas Butterfly Ranch in San Antonio. "Listing the species itself may be the only recourse for protection."

Hard to argue with that, too. 

America's Ranchers™ also support a listing, well, if any conservation efforts are purely voluntary.

Texas Progessives winter holidays roundup

Texas Progressive Alliance wishes a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate as it brings you this week's roundup. 

Off the Kuff contemplates the Rep. Dustin Burrows situation.  

SocraticGadfly talks about climate crisis tipping points news..  

The Bloggess announces the 15th Annual James Garfield Miracle.

 Evil MoPac names and shames some Christmas songs.

 Texas 2036 reviews the year's top stories in higher education.

Nonsequiteuse is done with the casual sexism of some elected leaders.

Mean Green Cougar Red eulogizes Houston transit advocate Janis Scott.  

Rabbi Levi Greenberg writes about Hanukkah's message that evil can be defeated. Being on vacation, I didn't advance-screen this piece that Kuffner came up with, but reading now? If it's got a picture of Chabad at the top of the column, it's Zionist. (Not to mention the Lubavicher angle.) Also, since Hanukkah was adapted from an already existing Persian winter solstice festival, it's a lie. And, reading between the lines about the celebration of the fall of the House of Assad in Syria, and the silence on something else, it's anti-Palestinian. Shock me that Kuff, who passes by the plight of Palestine and pro-Palestinian protestors in silent contempt, would like something like this. But, with the lateness of Hanukkah this year, I'm leaving this note here, and not deleting the piece, so I can blog even further on Jan. 2, if I remember.

State-level Democrats are environmental hypocrites, too

Yes, I know that Dems control the governor's office and both houses of the Lege in New Mexico, the Land of Disenchantment.

But? Look at the money they rake in from the oil and gas world, per Capital & Main. Yea, the independents and wildcatters still give more to Republicans, but the oil majors? They tilt Democrat because they're paying for "access."

Now, paying a ConservaDem like George Munoz, one of the barons of the New Mexico Senate? Understandable, as is his taking the money.

Paying Nathan Small in the state House? Yeah, understandable if he'll take the money.

But, on his side? As Capital & Main notes, he's also an organizer withe New Mexico Wild. Let's read his touts there:

Nathan first joined New Mexico Wild in in 2004, after graduating with dual degrees in Philosophy and English from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. Nathan is a third generation New Mexican who comes from a family of ranchers and educators. Nathan was a key team member working to secure and then safeguard National Monument protection for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and continues to work on additional landscape scale protections in Southern New Mexico.. Now there are 10 new wilderness areas in the OMDP.

Big environmentalist, right?

Back to Capital & Main.

First, his rake:

Not bad, eh?

Rep. Small received $16,100 from the industry in the 2022 election. For his 2024 election, that rose to $87,451 (of just over $385,000 in total donations), making him No. 3 in the state among Democratic recipients of such funds, after House Speaker Javier Martinez and Senate Finance Chairman George Muñoz. Between 2020 and 2024 he was promoted to chair the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, which also made him vice chair of the overarching Legislative Finance Committee, two of the most powerful positions in New Mexico’s Legislature. And he is one of the few top money recipients to have a contested race this year, which he won by 544 votes out of 14,244 cast in his race.

His babbling aside:

Does the combination of conservation work and oil and gas money make him uncomfortable? “No,” he said. “I want to have an open door and a large table for folks who see challenges and want to propose and bring solutions to those challenges.” Does he solicit campaign donations from oil and gas companies? “I engage with stakeholders, and certainly will, in appropriate ways, during campaigns, ask for support from a wide range of stakeholders for campaign efforts,” he said.

“At the state level, over the past five years, and particularly in the past three or four years, [we] have significantly increased enforcement of our common sense [oil and gas] rules,” Small said. “That’s resulted in significantly more fines for folks who are doing the wrong thing.”

He's a fricking hypocrite. He knows the oil and gas world causes climate change, has been in denial about that, and today is in the land of pretending to do something about that. That's even as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touts environmentally dirty blue hydrogen for hydrogen-powered cars because it's based on natural gas.

And, he's married to former ConservaDem Congresscritter Xochitl Torres Small. (Read some of the links at her Wiki page for her being a sellout to the awl bidness. Here's one to get started.) The piece didn't mention that, but it should have, that they're married.

Wouldn't it be cool to see Betelgeuse go supernova?

Scientists know, in a general way, that that event is not incredibly far away — that is, not incredibly far away on Betelgeuse's specific timeline within the normal interstellar timeline for a red supergiant. But, no more than that. 

And, they know fairly well how powerful of a Type IIa supernova this would be.

It's all here.

Picture a Betelgeuse first becoming as bright as the crescent moon, in the last pre-supernova throes, per that picture.

Then, picturing a massive resurgence at supernova itself, to where it becomes brighter than the full moon. Wouldn't that light up the midwinter sky?

Now, one question? That 640 light years isn't that that far away on other issues. How much supernova radiation bombards our planet?

First, we read Jessica Pishko skeptically

Having now read her book, "The Highest Law in the Land," this is a riff on my old blog piece about the book, which riffed on Shakespeare in saying, "First, we get rid of all the sheriffs."

The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by Jessica Pishko
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

For me thinking of other reviewers, on Goodreads, it was really right at 2.5, but I'm bumping down, albeit reserving the right to come back and bump back up. For me as me, it's at 2 stars flat and period

First, Pishko is preaching to the converted, overall, per the non-nutter 2-star reviewer besides me. That said, that's with an asterisk which I'll get to at the end.

Second, without claiming to know every detail of every movement within the constitutional sheriffs' world, I've long known the big picture, so nothing new here. In addition, I'd read two reviews of the book already, one at Capital and Main and the other at the Texas Observer, per my original piece. With that said?

I'm not converted on her "ergo" — the elimination of sheriffs. Not at all convinced. I have the advantage, per other lower-star reviewers, of living in a semi-rural county and knowing enough about sheriff's offices and sheriffs that run them — the good, the bad and the ugly.

Getting rid of ELECTING sheriffs? Hellz yes and I've said that for more than a decade, and in newspaper columns. We don't elect city police chiefs, we don't elect state directors of public safety, and we don't elect the head of the FBI, ATF, etc. Why should we elect sheriffs today? (That said, I know why, and with generally good reason, sheriffs were elected a century and more ago, and you won't find that in Pishko's book.) I've also said that, here in Tex-ass, we ought to get rid of the office of constable in every county and transfer constabular functions to that county's sheriff's office.

But, we need sheriff's-level policing. State directors of public safety, especially in plains and Western states with large counties, don't want to take that over, either. Patrolling county roads and knowing signs to look for is different than highway patrol. And, first-order investigative work is different from second order work that a state bureau of investigtion does.

So keep sheriffs. Just don't elect them. (And, beyond the constitutional sheriffs movement, there's plenty of other reason to remove politics from sheriff's offices, and, as a newspaper editor, I've seen and heard some of that personally.)

For other reasons, I disagree on abolishing jails. I agree on abolishing private prison contractors. I agree with making it easier for many people who have been arrested, mainly non-violent detainees, to bond out more easily. I agree with spending more money on jailer pay and total jailers, and also having somebody besides the sheriff run them. But, not every detainee should bond out easily. And, jails are also needed for more severe non-felony convictions. (I am talking specifically about jails, not prisons.)

And now, that asterisk. It comes from the conclusion, where Pishko goes off on mass incarceration, sheriffs and immigration and even Roe.

She makes clear she's a Democrat.

I'm a non-duopoly leftist, so I'm going to speak from her left.

Clinton, Obama and Biden, all in their first two years in office, had the opportunity of doing something in terms of federal protection for abortion, beyond EMTALA, which we've seen how post-Dobbs courts treat. They didn't. And, in any case, that has ZERO to do with sheriff's offices.

Mass incarceration? It is a problem. And national and state Democrats as well as Republicans, have largely supported the War on Drugs that is a primary fueler of it. Presidents of both parties have supported militarization of city police, county sheriffs and state departments of public safety all alike, as discussed in a book like Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop." (Balko has his own problems as an extreme libertarian, like wanting to entirely get rid of DWI laws; that's part of why I said "a book like.")

As for getting rid of policing in general, as proposed by Alex Vitale, who blurbs this book and with whom Pishko seems to half agree or more? No, policing doesn't have roots in colonialism, slavery and the rise of industrialization. I addressed that in refuting policing myths of libertarians and the New Left, noting that "the Shah's eyes and ears" of the Achaemenid Empire were cops. (Balko, unsurprisingly, is among those who gets this totally wrong.) Likewise, in writing about what I already knew about the book a month or so ago, I said Plato's archons were cops, or at least halfway so.

Immigration? Dear Leader (that would be Barack Obama) practiced family separation at the border before Trump did. Biden continued Trump's Article 42 by other means, namely tech-neoliberal ones.

Related? Presidents of both parties have continued government deals with private prison contractors on housing detained immigrants.

View all my reviews

YES on the judges killing the Kroger-Albertson's merger

Living in an area where both companies operate, I am glad to see this was killed.

Both stores, and Albertson's in particular, have gotten more and more sucky on price jacks starting with COVID and going beyond. In addition, Albertson's often seems to have a problem with items in a weekly sales flier being out of stock. My local Tom Thumb nameplate has gotten better, but in 2022-23 was kind of bad.

In addition, the reduction of jobs would have been an issue, and prices would only have gone hire. In addition, would the merged company, since Albertson's is non-union at best, antiunion at worst, gone into union-busting? In addition, the idea that a third-party grocery distribution company and PigglyWiggly remnants owner could have taken over the 500-plus stores the two had proposed to shed — and which wasn't enough — was laughable.

As for who the competition is? Aldi's is limited, especially on produce. That's how Winco is so much better, plus it has a more robust house brand line than does Aldi. Trader Joe's? Mainly specialty stuff. Not a competitor. Dollar General? Probably not. That said, Wally is. It's more than a grocery store, yes. But, Wallys that have groceries usually have a full lineup, not Dollar General stuff.

The thing is, both stores, and especially Kroger, have a number of things priced more cheaply than Wally. But, they're bad at marketing that!

The Winco in my area is not.

It will load a basket of groceries, then load a comparison basket and list prices on both, with, "$12 cheaper at Winco" on the signs. (They do that with Kroger and Albertson's too, albeit not always with the same items. But that's how marketing works!)

Albertson's has sucked for a decade-plus. They long had a history, whether their name or Tom Thumb, for jacking prices before applying digital coupons, for example.

So, the bottom-line issue is NOT that Walmart is cheaper. It's often not. It's that Kroger and Albertson's have gotten lazy.

I also don't get their CEO suing Kroger rather than fighting to keep the merger. Albertson's proposed dumping just as few of stores as Kroger, for one thing.

Looking behind Luigi Mangione and armchair psychology

I don't know who this Bev Potter is, but, this piece by her claiming Mangione in the header that Mangione "Didn't Have 'Political Motivations,'" for whatever reason "Political Motivations" is in square quotes, is wrong unless read in the most narrow sense. In other words, Mangione didn't kill Brian Thompson because he heard Thompson had joined Trump's Cabinet.

In the broader sense? Oh, he did.  I've read his "manifesto" at Klippenstein, and he states his motivation, and to the degree neither political party has addressed this issue, it's political motivations. Not conspiracy-theory political motivations, but in a broad sense, political motivations.

Beyond that, it's grossly wrong for its author to say they're sure Mangione is a paranoid schizophrenic.

I’m not a doctor, but Luigi Mangione is clearly paranoid schizophrenic.

You admit you're not a doctor. You don't admit you've never seen him in person.

This is almost as irresponsible as the conspiracy theory chuds she calls out.

It is POSSIBLE, per the Baltimore Sun editorial you cited?

A gradual personality change, signs of delusional, disordered thinking, a recent withdrawal from family and friends, all raise the possibility that the man caught Monday morning at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, was not entirely of sound mind. Mental health professionals tell us these are the common symptoms of schizophrenia and the mid-20s are the peak years for onset and diagnosis.

Yes. No more than that. Especially since Bev Potter cut off the last one third of that paragraph, which says:

Did Luigi Mangione suffer from it? That’s highly speculative but that possibility haunts the case — and at least offers some rational explanation of so much irrational behavior.

So, POSSIBLE. Not sure.

AND? IF he has a diagnosable mental illness, maybe it's not schizophrenia, whether of paranoid or non-paranoid type. As for him "dropping out," including from his family? Others have done similar. The just-reunited (we think?) Hannah Kobayashi is an immediate example. It's no proof of mental illness, and if it is seen as a hint of possible mental illness, that doesn't necessarily mean schizophrenia. In fact, the snarling anger at his first post-arrest hearing would contra-indicate schizophrenia. Flattened effect is one of the more common symptoms of schizophrenia.

The fact that he read and favorably reviewed Ted Kaczynski's manifesto also does not make him a paranoid schizophrenic.

Back to that manifesto. As many people have noted, it's nothing like Ted Kaczynski's. There's no conspiracy thinking there, for one thing.

And, it WAS wrong.

We in Merikkka aren't 42nd in life expectancy. We're 55th, behind fucking Albania.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi got a hip replacement after her fall in Luxembourg. And, she got a medevac from there to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for the procedure. Shit, United Healthcare wouldn't even give the average Joe a hip replacement rather than some sort of fusion surgery, and sure as hell wouldn't medevac you to the surgery. And, especially since Pelosi has no official Congressional leadership position, even if not technically, it smacks like an abuse of resources. No wonder people hate Congress about as much as health insurance companies.

Texas Progressives talk failing states and more

Off the Kuff interviewed Sandie Haverlah of the Texas Consumer Alliance about all things CenterPoint.

SocraticGadfly, in what will be the first of a series of occasional pieces after his introductory article earlier this month, talks about the US as a failing state, with this article looking at the US Constitution.

Ken Paxton is suing a New York doctor over prescribing abortion medications to a Collin County woman. New York State promises a robust defense. Per Chris Geidner, this lawsuit was being teed up in October, while Kenny Boy looked for the right test case and decided to wait until after Election Day.

Corpus Christi's planned desalinization plant could be an environmental disaster.

Of course it would be S.C. Gwynne who writes a backhanded paean to Elmo's Cybertruck at the Monthly. His craptacularness as an author, evident in his books, travels everywhere. It's also a good example of Peter principle.

The Observer looks further at TEA's exoneration of Mike Miles.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project spoke at Houston City Council public comment time about King Whitmire & his imperious ways. 

The Fort Worth Report lets us know that the city of Arlington, where AT&T Stadium is located and where the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals will be played, is not happy about the plan for it to be called "Dallas Stadium".  

Law Dork applauded the Montana court decision that blocked that state's ban on gender affirming care for minors.  

Inside Climate News reports on the failure of local tax breaks for LNG plants to stimulate growth.  

Texas 2036 gives you its 2024 wrapup. 

 The Texas Signal celebrates Krampus. 

The Current calls out Nextdoor for being the paranoia-inducing cesspool it is.

Greg Casar elected head of the Pergressuve Cucks; And?

That's what I call the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and with good reason.

Casar, a freshman Congresscritter from right here in Tex-ass, has been elected head of the group.

The only way he can make the org better is to boot about half its members, one of the things I said at that top link that's a problem with it.

Unfortunately, per the Trib story, he likely won't:

He would rather build coalitions than pass ideological purity tests that have pushed voters away from the left. He espouses a more working class message, steering away from the culture wars and back to economic concerns that dominated voters’ minds this year.

Business as usual. Oh, sure, in various places in various stories, he condemns the Joe Manchins of the world, but says it wasn't that Yachtsman Joe wasn't too liberal or too conservative, but that they didn't offer enough progress. It's statements like this that lead me to use the word "pergressuve."

Current head Pramila Jayapal, one of the worst cucks, didn't run again, because she was term-limited.

That said? 

Nobody else wanted it.

Indeed, per this piece, Casar was unopposed.

Also meanwhile, what if anything will the Cucks as a caucus say about Ukraine, the issue in my top link that got them the name "Pergressuve Cucks." Or Israel and Gaza, where the Cucks' cave-in got Jayapal designated as "one of the worst cucks." I mean, St. Bernard of Sanders follows the left hand of the duopoly party line on foreign policy, slight noises on Israel aside.

Well, actually, we know Casar is a cuck on this issue. He willingly conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism, supports full support for Israel, opposes BDS etc. And, Greg? The two-state solution is as dead as a fucking doorknob because Israel killed it. He opposes "offensive" military aid for Israel, but who knows what that is? None of this is different from St. Bernard. The Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America unendorsed him, in fact in this year's general election to his second term.

Let's get back to this "unopposed," though.

OK, the Cucks tout having about 100 members. And, NOBODY besides Casar — a freshman, I remind you — wanted this? Shit, that's a caucus that has clearly decided to File 13 itself. Seriously. It's like saying, "We're OK with being semi-irrelevant."

Will the Texas Rethuglicans really censure anybody?

The Trib looks at the possibility of the Texas Republican Party censuring anybody who does not vote for David Cook, choice of the House GOP Caucus, for Speaker. It also looks at the possibility, nay probability, of legal action by the censurees.

Sadly, it does not look at the possibility of a post-Gilberto Hinojosa Texas Democratic Party shifting its Overton window right and recruiting any censurees.

Censures were enacted against the likes of McDade Phelan in 2023. But, the 2024 state convention said the party can block a censuree from the next primary ballot, as a major change.

The Trib talks lawsuits.

“It's very unusual for a group of unelected party members to essentially say that they are going to deny duly elected officials the ability to run under the party's name,” said Joshua Blank, research director at University of Texas-Austin’s Texas Politics Project. “I think the one thing that's guaranteed here is that this will lead to a lawsuit if it's applied.”

The Trib cites state and federal court opinions in similar cases. On the other hand, some of those other cases were about restricting voting and not valid parallels, and others were decisions about individual candidates based on their backgrounds, such as "honorary" ex-Klansman.

The party censure's fallout is a different kettle of fish.  A censured candidate MIGHT win a primary ballot access lawsuit, but I'd by no means guarantee that.

==

Meanwhile, Dustin Burrows still claims he has the votes to be Speaker. Will this soften his support further, which started eroding the day after the House GOP Caucus meet? Per this Trib update, he now stands publicly at 71.

And will Strangeabbott and his paid political consultants, whether working on his behalf or not, continue to try to play both sides against the middle?

==

Chris Hooks weighs in at the Monthly, noting that whomever succeeds McDade will be the fourth Speaker in six Lege sessions, comparing them to the wives of Henry VIII. He sets out the background terms of these struggles in a nut graf:

For two decades, two Republican factions have struggled for control of the lower chamber. You could describe these sects as “far right” and “centrist,” but those terms obscure as much as they clarify. Whatever differences exist between the two cohorts on most policy issues are narrow. It is perhaps more accurate to say that this is a fight between what you could call institutionalists, who cling to a Burkean idea that the House should have sovereign authority over itself, and populists, who believe the body should function as an appendage of the party’s right-wing base and, though they prefer to de-emphasize it, its billionaire funders.

I think that gets it right.

Next, we get a petard-hoist side note:

Burrows helped institute the principle that the Speaker should be elected by the caucus, and command the support of its members, before any vote by the full House.

There you are!

Hooks speculates about the possibility of a third GOP candidate. Per my "started eroding" link, I said House Dems leader Gene Wu should have been actively encouraging that at the time of the GOP Caucus meet, even if he had been elected Dem head just a day earlier.

Climate crisis news: Tipping point in the Arctic, Atlantic circulation, drying planet

Climate scientists, especially those who worry more than climate change Obamiacs like Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe, talk regularly about "tipping points."

And, in the past year, per the headline, we may have hit one of those.

The Arctic last year became a net carbon emitter. Remember that "carbon" in these discussions includes other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide. In this case, of course, it includes methane releases from a warming tundra.

This probably is NOT a one-off. I'm sure the climate science world will be giving this more scrutiny over the next year or so. 

The study notes that increased Arctic wildfires are removing more and more cover from tundra areas, helping accelerate the methane release.

==

Second?

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a hot-cold deepwater conveyor belt, is showing definite if modest signs of weakening, as more glacier melt from Greenland screws with the northern end of the deep waters beneath the Gulf Stream.

Per a follow-up piece at Yale Climate, how much of a worry is this? More than you might think, unless you know a fair amount about what all is involved, including that this will affect global ocean currents, not just the North Atlantic. And, yes, that includes a tipping point on moving from weakening to collapse. Per links inside the piece? It could be just 30 years or so, a bit past midcentury. It may be longer. (Bob Henson and Jeff Masters, authors of both pieces, say early next century.) But, per the early possible date? It could be in OUR lifetimes, not the stereotypical children's or grandchildren's.

Northern Europe will bear the brunt of the problem. But, per some modeling, and what I said about "global"? It will affect everybody:

By the time the collapse was done, the impacts included Arctic sea ice spreading far into the North Atlantic and wet and dry seasons trading places in the Amazon. The average February temperature plummeted by a bone-chilling 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit) in London and by around 3°C (5°F) across the mid-Mississippi Valley of the United States.

There you go. Worse than the Little Ice Age in northwestern Europe. Pre-Industrial Revolution, or late Little Ice Age, in the heartland of the US.

==

Already, other large scale climate effects have made three-quarters of the planet's land area drier. Yale Climate noted that an AMOC collapse would flip wet and dry seasons in Brazil. It's also one of the worst places for increasing dryness, and the ongoing deforestation doesn't help.

America as failing state: Once again, it starts with the US Constitution

Having read Daniel Lazare's "The Frozen Republic" when it came out many moons ago, with bits of my Goodreads review excerpted below, I've long known that in many ways, the US Constitution is broken. The electoral college and its modern winner-take-all aspects mean its broken for third parties, too. 

And, speaking of, per this NYT book review, it's nice that Erwin Chemerinsky thinks so, too. Given today's United States, no, I don't want an Article V Convention, unlike him. I'm afraid it would send us back to the Stone Age, hijacked by the remnants of the Koch empire, winger tech dudebros and more. Today, the people who want a "Convention of States" are the types of people who want to get rid of the 17th and 19th Amendments, so that state legislatures even more easily bought than Congress can be bought off to elect US Senators, and so that women know their place of being barefoot, pregnant and voiceless.

Secession? Interesting. Rare indeed that a "blue state" person will be open about that. As someone who lives in a "red state," what would I do if that happened, especially if, to pun away, such a secession succeeded? I mean, would the remnant US honor Social Security payments to people in Chemerinsky's "Pacifica"? If not, it would laugh at lawsuits to compel payment, even if that affected "the full faith and credit" in various ways.

That said? Chemerinsky is 20 years behind the Lazare curve:

The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy by Daniel Lazare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A must-read laundry list of how anachronistic the US Constitution really is, and why, with Lazare making a strong argument for junking the whole thing (not counting the amendments that give us our rights) and starting over ... with an eye to a non checks-and-balances gridlock parliamentary government instead of our current nonsense.

This is a book I have re-read more than once.

And, in what is arguably a bit of serendipitous timing, Lazare starts the book with a threat of secession by the state of California, in conjunction with the 2020 election.

Beyond this, readers should look for other books about the realities of the Constitutional Convention. Sheldon Wolin is one good one.

View all my reviews

The piece at top links to a 2023 column by Ryan Dorfler and Samuel Moyn, the latter of whom I've read elsewhere. Let's start with their thesis:

The real need is not to reclaim the Constitution, as many would have it, but instead to reclaim America from constitutionalism.

The idea of constitutionalism is that there needs to be some higher law that is more difficult to change than the rest of the legal order. Having a constitution is about setting more sacrosanct rules than the ones the legislature can pass day to day.

Simple and basic enough.

Here are excerpts from how they think that should play out:

It is a breath of fresh air to witness progressives offering bold new proposals to reform courts and shift power to elected officials. But even such proposals raise the question: Why justify our politics by the Constitution or by calls for some renovated constitutional tradition? It has exacted a terrible price in distortion and distraction to transform our national life into a contest over reinterpreting our founding charter consistently with what majorities believe now.

No matter how openly political it may purport to be, reclaiming the Constitution remains a kind of antipolitics. ...

It’s difficult to find a constitutional basis for abortion or labor unions in a document written by largely affluent men more than two centuries ago. It would be far better if liberal legislators could simply make a case for abortion and labor rights on their own merits without having to bother with the Constitution.

By leaving democracy hostage to constraints that are harder to change than the rest of the legal order, constitutionalism of any sort demands extraordinary consensus for meaningful progress. It conditions democracy in which majority rule always must matter most on surviving vetoes from powerful minorities that invoke the constitutional past to obstruct a new future.

Doable? Probably not. Not by liberals. Maybe by leftists. The idea, for example, that Congress itself would vote to make the U.S. Senate even partially like the Canadian Senate is ... laughable.

Within present limits, the best options are for a leftist president to govern by executive order and getting a Supreme Court that, contra Ted Cruz, knows the most overlooked amendment is the Ninth not the Tenth and makes all sorts of "people power" constitutionality rulings.

Finally, a friendly reminder that this leftist, contra librulz, does NOT "venerate" the Constitution or anything similar.

Strangeabbott: Support Cook, not Burrows, or else — else WHAT? more grifting?

Now that McDade Phelan has bailed from the Texas House Speaker's race, and the buttoned-up two-thirds wingnut David Cook faces an alleged challenge to succeed him from the blathering Dustin Burrows, our state's beloved Gov. Strangeabbott has weighed in, a slight bit more directly than Dannie Goeb did from the state Senate and Lite Guv's house.

There on Shitter, Strange referenced the number of House Republicans that he primaried over caucuses:

Let me be clear:

I worked this entire year to elect conservative candidates who will pass conservative laws, including school choice.

To achieve that goal we need a Texas House Speaker chosen by a majority of Republicans in accordance with the Republican Caucus Rules.

Seems straightforward.

Contra the Trib's piece building off that, this won't "dash" Burrows' hopes. Burrows did that to his own self within the first 24 hours of his claim that he had the votes. Even if he's not lost eight or more Rethugs, or more than one Democrap, he's still got uphill sledding in a shitstorm of his own making.

That said, also on Shitter, Scott Braddock points out that either Strangeabbott himself or his paid political flunkies are doing grifting while trying to play both sides of the street. More of that rabbit hole is here.

This looks like the normal Jesuitical-type parsing, flunkies' apparent grifting or not, for which the likes of Chris Hooks has long called him out.

Left vs Left on Syria — major US-Israel meddling or not?

A sort of faceoff on this issue between Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada, on his Substack, and Joseph Daher, billed as a Swiss Syrian socialist, at The Tempest (seen by me on Counterpunch).

The Tempest did an interview with Daher that starts with this intro:

Some on the Left have claimed without foundation that their rebellion was orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel. Others have uncritically romanticized these rebel forces as rekindling the original popular revolution that nearly overthrew Assad’s regime in 2011. Neither captures the complex dynamics unfolding in Syria today.

And, this is why I see the "faceoff." Winstanley is the type of person being called out, but is it more by The Tempest or more by Daher personally?

That said, the differences start with something else. Daher, while saying that the main rebel force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, while not a walk in the park, has evolved since repudiating ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 and focusing on Syrian nationalist issues. He notes it has promised to protect Druze and Ismailis. (That said, NPR yesterday talked about how many of the latter are already fleeing Syria.) He also said that since that 2016 separation, it has repressed people of al-Qaida and ISIS backgrounds.

Winstanley looks at such claims with a more gimlet eye, noting their current name is a "rebranding" since separating from al-Qaida, talking about pre-2016 atrocities in a post-2016 Syria:

Nor did such abuses stop with the rebranding to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Human Rights Watch says it has documented severe abuses by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the Idlib enclave it has controlled in recent years.

Sounds a bit different than Daher.

Winstanley adds that HTS leader al-Julani "has never been held to account."

Now, to the header. It's true that neither the US nor Israel has explicitly backed Turkey's actions in northern Syria. But, everybody who knows Turkish President Reççip Tayyip Erdogan knows he plays under-the-table footsie with Bibi Netanyahu. The US knows the basics of this and has chosen not to intervene. Otherwise, Daher appears to take statements by both Israeli and US political leaders at face value.

Winstanley does not. Here's the background he provides:

That's the US reality.

Over the last 13 years, the various armed groups working together to overthrow the Syrian government have been backed by the US, Gulf states, Turkey and Israel itself.

In a rare moment of honesty – one he later had to apologize for – then US Vice President Joe Biden admitted in 2014 that the surge of funding had aided groups the US considers extremists.

Biden said that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and others “were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war … [that] they poured hundreds of millions of dollars, tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.”

This is the Israeli reality from years past, per Winstanley.

The last time al-Qaida and other insurgent groups were present in the Golan Heights, Israel established warm relations with them, treating their fighters in a specially constructed field hospital and even arming them.

Netanyahu on Sunday signaled the revival of that policy. He said that Israel would pursue “the same approach we maintained when we set up a field hospital here that treated thousands of Syrians injured during the civil war. Hundreds of Syrian children were born here in Israel.”

There's more on both at his piece, with links. That includes Bibi trying to take credit for the downfall of Damascus.

Daher has a number of good things to say about the Palestinian issue, and as a socialist, trying to delink it from nation-state issues and to boost Palestinian class issues. That still doesn't mean that me isn't wrong on the nation-state issues in Syria. That's especially as Winstanley noted that some Syrian insurgents appear to have already been in contact with Israelis.

This is even as, at Jacobin, on these other issues, Daher said that it's Israel, not Hezbullah or Iran, that wants a wider war. Agreed. So, what gives with his take on Syria? Turkish control of northern Syria severs its direct connection with Iran, which, in turn, affects Hezbullah.

==

Update: Mitchell Plitnick weighs in at Mondoweiss. He notes the Israeli invasion was "opportunistic," but that, it still seems to have been scenario-planned, or so I read him.

Texas Progressives talk Speaker drama and more

SocraticGadfly talks about Dade Phelan and Dustin Burrows.

Whoever the new Speaker is, whether Burrows, GOP caucus guy David Cook, or some better never-Patrick GOP alternative to Burrows, the sense of Legiscritters, or at least ones that blathered to the Tribune along with various lobbying types, is that vouchers will be a done deal. (It appears nobody from TASB was at the event.)

Gene Wu replaced Trey Martinez Fisher as leader of Texas House Dems. So far, he's been less than perfect, though not godawful, on the GOP side of the Speaker battle.

Off the Kuff shared a couple of thoughts about where to go from here.

Dannie Goeb wants to ban THC products and it's high on his priorities list.

This one is nothing new to me — I wrote back in 2006 about Rick Perry's "economic miracle" and noted that it was based on two things: oil and Ill Eagles. The state had data about the economic benefits of illegal immigrants then and hasn't updated it — because Strangeabbott et al know they can't refudiate it.

Biden did an el foldo to Paxton on confidentiality for teen birth control meds.

Blocking social media accounts on school district WiFi, as is generally already done? Good thing. Blocking minors from starting accounts in the first place, even if they have parental consent? Unconstitutional as I see it. Shock me that Rethuglicans are pushing it here in Tex-ass. It has parallels to blocking medications for transgender and / or transsexual minors even if they have parental consent.

The Observer gets the real names behind four neo-Nazi accounts on Shitter. 

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy: Nick Fuentes arrested on battery charge.

Reform Austin leans into their discontent.

The Eyewall reviews the 2024 hurricane forecasts. 

Law Dork looks to the trans representation at the SCOTUS hearing on gender affirming care.

Uranium mining is heating back up in south Texas. I never knew it was much of a deal there.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted on the Houston Planning Commission stalling the silly & selfish revision process of Houston’s sidewalk ordinance.

Texas statewide media news sites get more incestuous. The Monthly ran the Trib's piece about Phelan bailing out. And now, the Barbed Wire, the new kid, is running stuff from Steven Monacelli, who normally is at the Observer.

FDA could abolish Red Dye No. 3

Good if this happens!

First, the petition to make this happen does NOT appear to be related to Brainworm Bobby's nomination by Trump to head Health and Human Services.

Second, there are good reasons for this to happen.

Like this:

“With the holiday season in full swing where sweet treats are abundant, it is frightening that this chemical remains hidden in these foods that we and our children are eating,” US Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), a ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote in a letter to the FDA.

“While food companies must ensure that the food they market is safe, they are also only required to ensure that their products meet FDA’s standards. This means that thousands of products that contain this chemical can remain on the market.”

He argued that there is “no reason” for the additive to be in food “except to entice and mislead customers” to make products appear “more appealing.

And this:

Thomas Galligan, who works at the Center for Science in the Public Interest as a principal scientist for food additives and supplements, echoed a similar sentiment.

“These food dyes only serve one function in food, to make them look pretty so you and I want to buy it, it’s a marketing tool,” he told NBC.

"Make it so."

As the piece notes, it was banned from cosmetics in 1990. It's banned in California in foods right now.

Trump schwaffles on tariffs and more

The AP offers a summary of his Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.

On tariffs, he won't guarantee that they won't lead to price hikes. Nor will he offer any consumer consolation if they do.

His comments on immigration and families of both legal and Ill Eagle people sounds incredibly stupid even for him:

But Trump also said he does not “want to be breaking up families” of mixed legal status, “so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Whoever cut him off at the pass on tariffs presumably failed to do so here.

This all has little meaning if he strokes out before his term ends.

Texas House committee to subpoena Roberson again

It's supposed to happen today, unless Kenny Boy Paxton stops blocking access to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee having Robert Roberson talk to them in person about the state's junk science law, how it apparently has not been followed in his case and more.

The committee worries Paxton is stalling them out until a new year, a new Lege and a new committee.

Given that Kenny Boy went from saying "do a video" to "can't see him," of course we know he's stalling. And, re a new committee, we don't know how presumed new Speaker David Cook (not you, Dustin) will handle this, or what his take is on the junk science law. We do know that current chair Joe Moody is a Democrat.

We also, per the story of the committee's original subpoena and its legal playout, don't know how the three new members of the CCA stand on this issue.

Dustin Burrows claims he can be Texas Speaker of the House

OK, even for Tex-ass politics, things are getting weird. 

Current Speaker McDade "Dade" Phelan bailed out of seeking re-election yesterday. As part of that, I noted that Dustin Burrows of Dennis Bonnen/Mucus tape fame had filed for the spot, as well as David Cook, the unified Republican challenger to Phelan.

I also noted my thoughts that, because of that and his "Death Star" bill in 2023, Burrows probably couldn't get more than two-thirds of House Dems to support him.

I also said new House Dem caucus leader Gene Wu should have canvassed his members and dropped Burrows some numbers before the GOP caucus meeting earlier today. He probably didn't.

It probably wouldn't have mattered.

After previous rounds of voting today, most of Burrows supporters bailed, leaving Cook with a 48-14 advantage in the GOP caucus.

Now, the Trib piece gets something half-wrong if not full wrong. The "binding" nature of the GOP caucus vote is only if one candidate breaks 60 percent, and 48 is not 60 percent of 88. Or, will Cook's supporters claim that 48 is well more than 60 percent of 62? That said, shock me that Jasper Scherer is one of the three-headed beast reporting this for the Trib. Both he and Barragán have gotten shit wrong before. See here and here for examples of Scherer's previous craptacularness.

Now, it gets weirder. After the "bolting," this:

“The speaker's race is over,” he said in a news conference that lasted less than two minutes. “I have secured enough to be speaker of the House for the next session.”

Yeah, right. Sure.

No, he has now said "sure," and has counted to 76 with a public list of names. 

(Update: Per this and this by Scott Braddock, that may be 67 not 76; as many as, but not guaranteed at that number, as many as 8 Rethugs, and one Democrap for sure, have asked Burrows to pull their names. Burrows didn't help himself by including names already on Cook's list.)

Interesting, we know for sure two House Dems have already repudiated you. In addition, per Braddock, he has promised no vouchers and no end to taxpayer funded "lobbying" (TML etc), but has said no Dem chairs for committees. Given the no lobbying would be a big flip-flop per the Mucus tape, why would they trust you? Apparently you found enough to do so for now, at least. And, Gene Wu failed to promote a third option. Maybe he couldn't have. But, did he even try?

That said, a new follower on Shitter did my count for me. There's just 38 Dems on that list, or 37 with the Braddock update. That's less than 2/3, as I predicted yesterday.

Second — was it necessary for these Democrats to publicly commit, rather than per Tricky Dick Nixon with Clarence Kelley, letting Burrows "twist slowly" for a while?

Third — it seems like Gene Wu doesn't have much control over House Dems yet, if he couldn't persuade more of them not to publicly commit to Burrows for strategery reasons and to be more skeptical in general. (That said, we'll see if more ask to have their names removed.)

Fourth — where does this leave Ana-María Ramos? Well, per an updated version of the Trib story (the "leaving Cook" link up top), and this also ties to point three, some House Dems tried to line up an official endorsement but failed, and Wu released everybody to say whatever. Ramos fired away at the 30-something suckers:

"Supporting a speaker who is not backed by his own party's majority and and who seeks to appeal to Democrats by defending indefensible policies- policies that have allowed children to be slaughtered in schools, women to die without access to healthcare and public schools to close - repeats 25 years of submission to a leadership that has completely failed Texas families," Ramos told The Texas Tribune.

Frankly, yeah, Texas Dems are better living in the wilderness for two years, probably. That said? How many are comfortable if that two years becomes six? Or 12?

Fifth — where does this leave Burrows, per the Braddock updates? I joked on Twitter that he either had numerical dyslexia in confusing 67 and 76, or else told another whopper. And, as a political leader? Nobody wants a Speaker who either can't count or lies about a count.

Sixth — as for claims Burrows and other dissenters can be censured, or even kept off a ballot? If I'm reading correctly, today's vote approving censures happened after the last ballot and the dissenters left. While the state constitution doesn't apply, it it nonetheless in the general sense an ex post facto resolution. As for keeping anybody off a primary ballot? The Republican Party of Texas can do that; the House GOP caucus can't. And, the house GOP caucus' post-vote resolution? "Censurable" is used once; "censure" not at all. The former is used only for House Republicans pushing for a secret ballot for the Speaker's election, contra a MAGAts-type liar on Reddit. (Without going to check, I'm sure other bullshit is coming from the Luke Maciases of the world.)

Seventh — Wes Virdell is claiming that all 88 GOP caucus members agreed at the start to support whoever got a majority. But, given he's a rep-elect, not a rep, his comment should probably be discounted right there.

And, that's not the only possible lying that may be coming from the non-Burrows side. Per an updated version of the Trib piece at top:

Burrows’ camp then requested a break to discuss their strategy before the third round. They said they were denied and abruptly left the meeting, throwing the proceedings into a scramble. However, Cook’s side said Burrows’ group left before the caucus had finished deciding whether to pause the action.

This is going to get nasty. If Cook gets the speakership, will he become a junior Dannie Goeb?

Eighth — back to Tex-ass Dems. Did the 37 (is that correct? who knows?) who said yes to Burrows do so without checking his list of names on the GOP side?

Dade Phelan bails out on Texas House speaker battle

Incumbent Speaker of the Texas House Dade "Dade" Phelan has officially bailed out (not "bowed out," but "bailed out") on seeking a return to the spot.

“Out of deep respect for this institution and its members, and after careful consideration and private consultation with colleagues, I have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the race for Speaker of the Texas House," he said in a statement. "By stepping aside, I believe we create the best opportunity for our members to rally around a new candidate who will uphold the principles that make our House one of the most exceptional, deliberative legislative bodies in the country—a place where honor, integrity, and the right of every member to vote their district takes utmost precedent."

Clearly he thought he not only was going to not only finish behind challenger David Cook, but not be able to keep Cook below the 60 percent mark in the House GOP caucus meeting tomorrow. Per its rules, at least on paper, if one candidate gets more than 60 percent, the entire caucus is bound to support them.

The Trib adds that Phelan, unlike Cook, had not released a public list of supporters, despite some pressure to do so.

For that reason alone, it's not surprising. But, the man's whole character also makes it unsurprising to me.

It also has where the math stood at before Phelan jumped out:

Heading into this week, Cook had touted 47 supporters, including two unnamed backers. He picked up support from state Reps. David Spiller of Jacksboro and Trent Ashby of Lufkin this week, putting him four votes shy of the 60% threshold.

Ahh, Spiller, my legiscritter, and flip-flopper on school vouchers, jumping on the Strangeabbott bus on the last special session of 2023.

Dustin Burrows is clearly the man with Phelan out, for the non-wingnut, or non-totally-wingnut, Republicans to rally behind.

Will House Dems do so?

Here's what the Trib has:

After Phelan announced his withdrawal, the House Democratic Caucus issued a statement saying that “[f]or any Speaker candidate interested in serving the House, the Democratic Caucus is available to listen, and hear their plans to finally give Texans a legislative session that puts people over politics."

It was unclear if House Democrats would unite behind Burrows. On Thursday evening as Burrows was courting Democratic support, state Rep. Ana-María Ramos — a Richardson Democrat who chairs the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus and is running for speaker herself — made clear she opposed Burrows’ bid for the gavel. She cited his role as the lead author of a sweeping new law aimed at sapping the power of local governments, particularly in Texas’ bluer urban areas.

“Working Texans deserve a leader in the House who will stand up for them, and not do the bidding of corporate donors,” Ramos posted on social media, along with a video of her sparring with Burrows on the House floor over his measure, dubbed by opponents as the “Death Star bill.”

IMO, if they can reach a deal with Burrows, House Dems will throw Ramos in the ditch.

But, can they?

What if Cook breaks 60 percent in the GOP caucus? Will Burrows officially withdraw? Will some other not-totally-wingnut Republican risk censure, or even party expulsion, to cut a deal with Dems, at least if they agree to give a unanimous vote from every member not named Ramos?

That said, it's not just Ramos. Senfronia Thompson also has little love lost for Burrows, per this piece.

Would Burrows step aside for a not-totally-wingnut Republican if Cook doesn't clear the 60 percent GOP caucus threshold but he can't get traction enough with Dems to cross the big 76 finish line?

That second link also notes Burrows' past connection to Mucus shivving Dennis Bonnen; it also makes clear that, aside from intra-GOP political stances, the not-totally-wingnut Republicans want a more collegial leadership style than Burrows had. It's possible another contender does jump out at the GOP caucus, even on late numbers. More on that here; the "Death Star" bill is related to the 10 House Republicans that Bonnen, and Burrows as the then leader of the GOP caucus, were willing to throw off a cliff. It was the bill that would have made folks like the Texas Municipal League "lobbyists" who couldn't represent local governments. Joe Straus had previously 86'ed it. Also of note? Ramos was on the "Mucus tape" that led to Bonnen blowing himself up.

Meanwhile, House Dems have their own change. Gene Wu has defeated incumbent Trey Martinez Fisher to run the Democratic caucus. Wu appears ready to fight Republicans more than TMF was, which will add to the complexity of negotiations with Burrows or whomever.

My guess is that Burrows won't be able to get more than 2/3 of House Democrats.

So, my bottom line? To riff on this r/Texas subreddit piece? Yes, Texas Democrats, you're cooked unless somebody else besides Burrows enters the list to challenge Cook. Frankly, I'm pretty sure Burrows knew, before he filed his paperwork, that lots of Dems wouldn't support him. And, no, I don't think he can outpoll Cook in the GOP caucus.

He looks almost like a bell cow of controlled semi-opposition.

Update, Dec. 7: Burrows also either, jokingly, has numerical dyslexia changing 67 into 76, or he thought he could create a stampede with easily refuted claims. If he was trying to bum's-rush wavering House Rethugs, it's blowing up in his face. If he just told lies, or semi-lies or something, it's blowing up in his face.

==

Addendum: Wu should right now be contacting the entire House Democratic caucus for a yea/nay so he has some numbers to present to Dustin Burrows in particular and to opponents of David Cook in general, as to how many members of his caucus will not support Burrows. No names, of course, but to give Burrows some sense of the House Democrats. You're the leader, Gene.

I don't owe Sam Husseini COVID apologies after all, because he's kind of a nutter

Let's go back three-plus years, to September 2021. I wrote about Husseini's take on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and his apparent willingness to equate gain of function research to bioweaponization of the COVID-19 virus. To say I was skeptical puts it mildly.

Move forward not quite two years, to June 2023, when I said I might owe him an apology. That said, in a comment to the piece six months later, I said that I had become more skeptical again, and that bioengineering is not bioweaponization.

The kind of a nutter? Being a full-on Zionist conspiracy theorist about the assassinations of both John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy over Zionism issues. That includes uncritically citing Whitney Webb and linking to pieces like this.

I jokingly said a year ago, on the JFK assassination 60th anniversary, that Mossad whacked Jack over Dimona. Note the word "jokingly."

I seriously said earlier this year, building on previous writing, that Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby because he was a Zionist.

As for his take that Karen Silkwood was whacked by Mossad because she discovered that high-grade plutonium was being smuggled out of Kerr-McGee's plant by the CIA to Israel, who was then reshipping cuts of it to Shah-era Iran? Also laughable, IMO.

First, Rolling Stone notes the difficulty of smuggling 100 pounds of plutonium out of Hanford. Could it have been intercepted in transit to Kerr-McGee's plant? Yes.

More likely, per that, and per this piece from a researcher in Silkwood's case is that, given the massive management and safety clusterfucks at Kerr-McGee, this plutonium was indeed "lost" in some way. Also per that piece, it was 40 pounds, not 89 claimed by Husseini, that was originally missing, and half of it was discovered soon thereafter. The remaining 20 pounds? Enough for two Nagasaki bombs. Something, but NOT "all that."

The reality? French help in building Dimona included a reprocessing plant. India got the material for its first bomb that way.

This isn't quite antisemitism, but it's a type of conspiratorial anti-Zionism that gets very close to that.

Looking at the LA Times butt-hurt opinion world once again

Harry Litman, a legal columnist for the LA Times, announced he was resigning from its op-ed board over the paper's non-endorsement in the presidential election and related matters.

My comment?

Lemme see. If I recall correctly, Dr. Soon-Shiong admitted that, per his daughter, the non-endorsement in this year's presidential election was in part over Gaza. What's YOUR take on genocide, Harry Litman? (My one problem was that Doctor Daddy didn't nudge the editorial board into considering third-party candidates)

Followed by a link to my previous look at reality at the LAT and the non-endorsement. (That comment drew one quick comment from "Andy in Burbank":

Endorsing democracy with Harris/Walz should've precedence over not endorsing anyone, which helped electing Herr Drumpf, who's taking sides with Israel.

To which I replied:

You either didn't read or ignored the sentence in parentheses in my comment. And, as a third-party voter who's seen plenty of Democratic Pary ballot suppression efforts, don't try to make the "protecting democracy" claim that way, either.

And, that's that.

With that? Who's Harry Litman? Per Wiki, someone who's a definite Democratic Party apparatchik, which is not disclosed in the piece.

That includes:

• Deputy AG under Janet Reno in the Clinton administration.
• USDA for the Western District of Pennsylvania under Clinton.
• Legal counsel in 2004 in Pennsylvania for the Kerry campaign in 2004 and Obama in 2008.

Other op-ed board members there and at other papers have GOP backgrounds, of course. That said, this should be mentioned. He has motive for protesting the non-endorsement.

Now, the biggie? This video episode of his podcast, and various comments like this on Shitter make clear he's some sort of Zionist. How deep-fried of one, I don't know. But, some level? Yes. Read the comments on the YouTube for basic background.

Now, that said, I'm not in agreement with owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's most recent actions. His wanting advance screening on op-ed headlines is ridiculous micro-meddling. His "bias meter" idea will have its own bias — toward the duopoly more than toward Trump per se.

Beyond the above? Hanging out with the likes of Tim Snyder on Shitter, plus apparently indicating he's going to the blue skies of Blue Sky?

Third-party news roundup

The Green Party's Jill Stein and Party for Socialism and Liberation's Claudia de la Cruz will be among individual leaders in an ANSWER-connected National Day of Action Jan. 20. That should give genocide-backing Cort Greene a coronary and set off his blather-meter. Dood? Do you hunt down every third-party commenter?

==

The Liberal Party, the libertarians who broke from the Libertarian Party — the fourth-place Libertarian Party that imploded this election — when they could no longer tolerate the Mises Mice, have announced details of their planned initial convention this weekend. Former Illinois Congresscritter (presumably former on the GOP as well) will be keynote speaker. (I still say that in states where they had a friendly state Libertarian Party, or an independent group planning on joining the new org, they should have run their own presidential line this year, but they didn't. Not being officially organized yet may have been one reason.) And, interesting is that former Liberertarian National Committee Chairman Whitney Bilyeu will be on one panel. Will the Mice get indignant, even trash-talking indignant, or will they try to ignore this?

==

On the "imploded" issue, neither IPR nor Richard Winger's Ballot Access News has yet to discuss it in depth. Will it come up at that Liberal Party confab? 

==

Meanwhile, per Independent Political Report (where the main links for the first two came from) the Mice continue to have a hard-on for Brainworm Bobby, even as he lies about "always" being a libertarian. Dood, there was nothing libertarian about your old stance on environmentalism.

==

Also per IPR, Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware has confirmed he plans to run for governor on the VP line in 2026.

==

I'm with the Colorado GP: Why IS Colorado's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, sporting a hard-on for Brainworm Bobby to run Health and Human Services? The hard-on is weird in its particulars, too.

Polis not only supports Brainworm Bobby as an antivaxxer, he thinks Trump will actually do something about RFK's call for drug pricing parity when Trump said nothing about it in his first term. Ditto, on FDA doing more to regulate kids' meds or whatever Brainworm is proposing.

Texas Progressives think hard to work off the turkey

Will the Lege follow the warnings of voting security activists left and right who said that pushes for ballot transparency, legislation to that end and a Kenny Boy Paxton advisory made it worse? Or will some wingnuts use this as an excuse to get even more wingnutted? The Trib takes a look.

The Fifth Circuit has said (for now, preliminary injunction) that the feds can't tear down the razor wire at Eagle Pass. This is a stall-out until Jan. 20 with the Trump administration likely to, but not guaranteed to, drop the case.

The original death penalty warrant judge in Robert Roberson's case has recused herself. Good.

Portia Ngumezi became the third Texas woman to die over mistreatment for a miscarriage or similar issues. This will get worse if Texas follows Louisiana and makes mifepristone a controlled substance.

SocraticGadfly talks about his personal experiences with censorship at Facebook.

The Monthly looks at why Uvalde broke Trump.

The Trib profiles David Cook, the man looking to replace Dade Phelan. It also looks as to whether or not Phelan has as secure a claim on Democrats as he thinks.

Off the Kuff doesn't like using percentages of percentages when making comparisons.

City of Yes wants us to get back to real philanthropy.

Therese Odell does her best to be thankful.

The Texas Signal reminds us that not everyone targeted by Texas' discriminatory laws can just leave the state.

Evil MoPac has some strong opinions about certain Thanksgiving foods. And, yours truly has strong opinions about a paywalled Substack over Thanksgiving foods. Won't see something like this in my edited version of a future Roundup.

Reform Austin warns of future water shortages.

Frank Strong is already tracking a number of anti-book bills in the Lege.

Top blogging for November 2024

These are the 10 most-viewed posts in the past month. Not all of them were necessarily written IN the last month, though; those that were not will be noted.

And with that, the usual drumroll ..... and we start at the bottom with ...

No. 10? This was about climate change cheating in Paris, ie, the "overshoot" that nations and corporations of the world could let global temperatures increase more than 1.5°C while finding (usually tech-neoliberal) angles to then pull us back below that mark. I wrote it in mid-November in run-up to COP29, which, like Paris, did shit.

No. 9? Nothing simpler than "The enshittification of Shitter gets worse." That said, the particular issue I was complaining about was ended (for now?) just a day or two after I wrote. Hold on to that "for now."

No. 8? I put out my version of a Texas Progressives Roundup the week after election day, since Charles Kuffner was too foxhole-crushed to do one.

No. 7? Bob Marley-themed snark (which Facebook/Fuckbook/Hucksterman) kept trying to censor, on the 61st anniversary of Nov. 22, 1963: "I shot the JFK, but I did not shoot the LBJ."

No. 6 was more snark, and election-related: "Librul guilt over Palestine." And yes, "librul" is the way you spell it.

No. 5? Yes MOAR snark. MAGA-sized snark! Riffing on Ken Klippenstein's running the Iran-hacked JD Vance "vetting" research, I posted what was allegedly Trump's "hiring interview" with Vance.

No. 4? Krystal Ball and Kyle Kulinski were full of shit with their left-BlueAnon "Bernie would have won" piece, and I had no problem calling them out.

No. 3? Also serious election-related. It's my election wrap, focused on third parties, and taking a look at the Libertarian Party's presidential implosion, something that the likes of Independent Political Report and Ballot-Access News so far refuse (that's the word) to od.

No.2? My look at the Arab-American and Muslim-American "break point" in this election.

No. 1? Actually made the last weekend in October, it's my presidential election prediction. And yes, I got it wrong. And, I added a post-mortem, that included a call-out of Brains, who still basically denies that ethical mutual funds are the ethical thing to do if you're a third-party presidential candidate.