Texas Progressives talk this and that

Former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus publicly confirmed the long-rumored last week: Christofascist Tim Dunn indeed did make antisemitic (being directed to the Jewish Straus) and more broadly Christian nationalist comments about government leaders needing to be Christian. Effect it will have on today's Texas GOP? Near zero.

Operation Lone Star has officially backfired with the arrest of a Texas National Guardsman for smuggling. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before, while adding that maybe it has happened and this is just the first time somebody's been caught.

SocraticGadfly, riffing on The Nation, has some critical thoughts about Richard Linklater and Lawrence Wright as squishes, based on Wright's HBO series.

Ball-less Texas House Rethuglicans, vis-a-vis the Smokehouse Fire, apparently don't believe in subpoeanas. (I assume the hearing was being conducted under auspices of the Texas House and thus had subpoena power.)

Off the Kuff sighs and reviews one more whiny sore loser election lawsuit in Harris County.

John Devine: the Clarence Thomas of the Texas Supreme Court. 

Interesting piece on school districts in or near the path of eclipse totality deciding whether or not to cut classes that day. Also interesting is the idea that Kerrville is "tiny." At 25,000, it most certainly is not. A. It's not. B. This is not the first time I've seen this type of rural-urban divide bullshit from the Trib.

Two Denton ISD principals indicted for electioneering. I hope a plea deal means no jail time, but contra the Texas chapter of American Federation of Teachers, they WERE electioneering with school district email. Pure and simple.

TxDOT is a bunch of thugs about I-45 in Houston. (That said, it's my experience that in other states, traffic engineers in general have an arrogant "we know best" attitude.)

Meet the Democrats for Ted Cruz phenomenon.

Why is the Texas Public Policy Foundation getting a tax break not really meant for it and why is weaselshit Comptroller Glenn Hegar not being more forthcoming?

The Fifth Circuit has, very interestingly, sided WITH a state prison inmate who sued TDCJ, stating that 3.5 hours of sleep a night was cruel and unusual punishment. Weirdly and sadly, multiple times in this ruling process, the appellate court has had to override federal district courts who "aren't getting the memo."

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said vote in the HCAD races & demand local elected Democrats, including Dem. Houston City Councilmembers, be part of the fight. 

The Austin Chronicle reports on the change of leadership at Ground Game Texas. 

Adrian Rocha argues that President Biden should pardon all undocumented immigrants who have been arrested on marijuana possession charges.  

The Eyewall summarizes the latest 2024 hurricane season forecast.

 

Texas Progressives talk Cancun Ted, Beto-Bob the politician, Shelley Luther

Off the Kuff presented the primary campaign interviews it has conducted so far.

SocraticGadfly offers some thoughts on Karl Rove, election thuggery and election theft in the wake of Rove's Jan. 6 column.

Shelley Luther is continuing to look for political relevance after getting squashed by Drew Springer a year ago. (With the money and notoriety she has, surprised she didn't take a gander at a state House seat, or even primarying Michael Burgess for the U.S. House with redistricting.) Her latest? Calling for a ban on Chinese university students. That said, yeah, some of them may indeed have CCP connections, and two-party duopolists may not look at the issue with more depth.

Van Taylor is getting bigly primaried for supporting an independent commission to investigate Jan. 6, even though he later opposed the House commission. (Remember, this was one of those ersatz "filibusters" by Senate Rethugs.)

What does "progressive" actually mean in Texas politics, at least in Congressional candidates? The Express-News takes a look.

Gus Bova takes the latest state news sites look at R.F. O'Rourke. He indicated that Beto is at risk of becoming Just.Another.Politician.™ Got news for you, Gus. Beto was long there. Like in 2018. Bova does note that after his "take your guns" screed, he then was part of the Texas Democratic Mafia that cock-blocked Bernie Sanders. So, say that he hit a more thorough version of JAP (a prince, or princess version, I see what I did) in 2020. Meanwhile, at the Dallas Observer, Simone Carter goes full bromance on R.F.

For the unknowing, after actually saying something halfway close to the truth about the Jan. 6 insurrection, Ted Cruz then went on Cucker Tarlson, I mean Socialist Swanson Tucker Carlson, and proceeded to cut his balls off and put them on a plate for Tucker. Per that link, Cancun Ted has actually said things 25 percent of the way to the truth about Jan. 6 for months, even while refusing to admit that his vote not to certify electoral votes contributed to the problem. He should have known Swanson Tucker was going to do just what he did, which means Carlson is wrong about one thing — Havana Ted ain't so smart.

Nature vandalism is getting worse at Big Bend, as at other NPS and general nature sites.

Michael Li explains why the discourse about how Democrats have "won" redistricting misses a lot of the picture.

Glasstire eulogizes Ann Harithas, artist and curator and co-founder of the Art Car Museum.

Rick Casey predicts the future following the ongoing 2020 election fraudit.

National

Just when you think Texas election law is hard for third party ballot access, Georgia says hold my beer.

Michael Lind writes about the strange career of Paul Krugman. (And does so without irony, though possibly with some hypocrisy, given Michael Lind's own peregrinations within a tight box generally focused on left-neoliberalism, as in, yes, left, but still within neoliberalism.) Interestingly, per the next piece, Lind notes that Krugman went on to call Stephen Jay Gould an academic fraud.

Sociobiology, like its successor, ev psych, IS sexist, but it's hard to argue that it's racist. So, I would agree with this guy that calling the late E.O. Wilson racist, AND doing so after his death, AND doing so in a Sokol fashion, was a hit job. Who did that? Per Peter Burns, none other than Scientific American. (OTOH, Burns is wrong in thinking Wilson is Mr. Innocent. Sociobiology, and even more its successor, ev psych, was and is sexist. And, both were/are more pseudoscientific than scientific.) Per the graf above, Gould was one of the first to call out sociobiology.

The Nation has a fatuous mini op-ed on climate change, talking about how expensive it will be but NO actual discussion of the details, Tweeted with an even more fatuous hot take about how this is all Republicans' fault when Status Quo Joe has allowed new gummint drilling leases and Dear Leader publicly pushed his "all of the above." And, that's why, after years of 10 cents on the dollar starter subscription offers for the mag, I've continued to refuse.

Coronavirus week 78B: Odds and ends on vax mandates, firewalls

Texas schools have already had more COVID cases this school year than all of the previous one. That was already the case late last month; the weekly case numbers are declining, but still higher than they were the last week in August and the first week in September.

The state has crossed the 50 percent mark on people fully vaccinated. My wingnut county is approaching the one-third mark. Hispanic vax rates are technically lower than for Whites, but it's only 1 percentage point, and most of the state's counties with the HIGHEST vax rates are in the Valley!

Havana Ted / Cancun Ted is now trying to own the libs by touting his love for antivax NBA players.

===

American, Alaska and Jet Blue have joined United in vaccine mandates among major and semi-major airlines. The NYT explains United's reasoning, noting that, as a major international carrier, with pilots and flight attendants, this moved beyond being a US issue. (It would also cover ground personnel outside the US, re international vaccine mandates.) Jet Blue and Alaska say it will be by Dec. 8, which is a Biden Administration deadline for federal contractors, and all the major airlines are just that. American has released no deadline, but obviously, it will be by then. Meanwhile, per the first link, Delta and Southwest are sitting on their asses. Delta is charging unvaccinated employees higher insurance premiums; Southworst, as far as I know, is doing nothing, even though their rash COVID-related flight cancellations one-two months ago nearly fucked up the end of my vacation. Also per that first link, Delta said it's "evaluating Biden's order." Southwest said the same, per NPR. In both cases, pilots unions are pushing back.

But, Southwest now says it too will meet the Dec. 8 deadline.

UPdate on that! On Sunday, Oct. 8, per Twitter, Southworst was having to scrub shitloads of flights the whole weekend. Official PR aside, word on the tarmac from some is a sickout by its pilots protesting the mandate. Southwest has a pilots union separate from most other major airlines, and it's been hardnosed in a variety of often good ways. That said, some Twitterati, especially as rumors of a sympathy strike by air traffic controllers bubbled up, said remember St. Ronald of Reagan and PATCO. That also said, SWAPA says its pilots are NOT doing an official OR unofficial sickout.

OTOH, remember that unions can spout PR bullshit just like corporations.

Per this story, the pilots are claiming that the National Railway Act, which governs union-management issues on airlines as well as railroads, requires negotiations. That cuts BOTH WAYS. Southwest's pilots have shown about zero interest in negotiating. See the NLRB's explainer, first bullet point.

===

Speaking of deltas, the delta variant has broken through New Zealand's firewall. No surprise, really. International supply chains are being affected in part by COVID surges in Vietnam, touted largely by reflexive anti-Americanists as a COVID miracle last fall and this spring.

Ted Cruz, electoral college Pander Bear

Let's be honest, folks: That's the only reason Havana Ted Cruz decided to follow Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley today and officially challenge elector slates from several states.

Hawley has the 2024 presidential bug, and Cruz has not fully shaken his 2016 bout with that bacterium. Wisconsin's Ron Johnson is just an idiot, and I'm not sure about some of the other senators, but Cruz has that bug, and since 2016 it's mutated and swapped genes with Trumpism.

Cruz never really was a "principled conservative," but he's now made that clear.

Whether he can actually get the nomination in 2024 remains unclear. If he does, he has Texas' LBJ law to mean he can run for Senator again as well as president.

Texas progressives talk coronavirus

As I did a couple of weeks ago, because the amount of political news running up to Super Tuesday was so heavy, this corner of the Texas Progressives is splitting the weekly Roundup into two parts this week. Part 2 is here.

(Update: For the March 23 week, the same split is in effect. More coronavirus news here. And ditto for the March 30 week; COVID news here. And for April 7 week, here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6. Here's Week 7, and Week 8.)

Part 1, per the header, is obvious. We're talking what's real, what's over-reacting and what's just  plain stupid. Remember, this is coming from Tex-ass. Sadly, we gots us some Democrat Dum Fuq overreacting as a major player this week.

MAIN POINT: CDC is still, as of yesterday, at 50 on recommendation for maximum public gathering size. But Panicky Don said 10, and hence the overreaction. Plus, the CDC recommendations specifically exempted businesses. (And schools.)

1. Here, the Gadfly offered up four pieces. The first was on how the coronavirus was the biggest puncturing of the eggshell of American exceptionalism since 9/11. The second was about how the coronavirus highlighted the need for science and math literacy, and among public health experts, the need for precise and detailed communication. The third was about what he totally agreed with, partially agreed with, and more disagreed with than agreed with on sports closures. The fourth was about the ugly nationalism and PR lies emanating from Beijing.

2. One of the nuttier parts of the coronavirus panic was/is the run on toilet paper. Folks, this is a flu-like virus, not Montezuma's revenge. (Or Corona-virus, in another world, if you will.)

Besides, we don't need no steenkin toilet paper!

WHAT #toiletpapercrisis or #ToiletPaperApocalypse or #ToiletPaperEmergency?

Here in Tex-ass, I use Dan Patrick's press releases. They're pre-shitted, after all.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

That said, Dan Patrick's paper, like Dan Patrick himself, is pretty coarse.

3. #Schadenfreude is a bitch, and sometimes a bitch-slapper. Mexico wants to close the border because of all the dirty coronavirus infected Yanqui gringos. (Guatemala has already done so.)

4. Speaking of that? John Cornyn, a month behind the curve, made a "Corona" joke that was weak a month ago and is reprehensible now.

Be smart; don’t panic. We will get us through this #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SyvOAWXItK

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 14, 2020

And, even as John Cornyn's pisswater swilling ass was joking and lazing around, the latest Trump clusterfuck? Not having DFW Airport and  others of the 13 airports officially permitted to receive returning US travelers ready for the massive onslaught.

So? I kicked Cornyn's ass:

John Cornyn? .@JohnCornyn

Get off your fucking Corona-swilling ass and get your feudal master Trump to fix the real coronavirus problem at DFW Airport. https://t.co/srE6YJPHPz

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 15, 2020

5. Ted Cruz seemed better when he self-quarantined, responsibly. Unfortunately, he wingnutted from there.

6. Speaking of, if there's a Typhoid Mary in all of this, it may be Trump himself.

7. Also on the more serious side? Not panic, but yes, IMO overreaction, and from the CDC. I think its call to ban gatherings of 50 or more, and for eight weeks, is overkill. Fauci's indication that he would, beyond that, favor a 14-day national shutdown? Ridiculous. China didn't do that. But now, Dum Fuq leaders in Texas are actually doing a local version of this.

8. Gov. Strangeabbott (haven't used that one in a while) proclaimed a state-level state of emergency and talked about drive-through testing in San Antonio. Too bad he didn't mention that one wasn't open to the general public.

That said, as of now, Abbott is less panicky than Harris County and the City of Dallas, both run by Democrats.

Bullshit. Even the CDC's latest recommendation was no crowds bigger than 50. Houston and Dallas are fucking panicking.

AND ... don't even fucking go there. I'm not a Rethuglican of ANY sort.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 17, 2020

And, I will mute or block Dems who can't read.

9. Too bad in 2015 wingnuts in the Lege killed a bill to stockpile emergency medical supplies. Also too bad that nobody brought it back in 2017 or 2019 and that Strangeabbott and Danny Goeb didn't make it a priority.

10. Speaking of wingnuts, Gohmert Pyle remains stupider than Strangeabbott on a daily basis, and on a House coronavirus bill.

11. The closure of more and more rural hospitals (including one 30 or so miles southwest of my current newspaper locale) could make treating coronavirus in Texas even harder. OTOH, in my opinion, this article is an overreaction and we're not going to have 500 cases of coronavirus in Texas counties under 30,000 and west of I-35 (that paramenter excluding most rural folks who went to the Houston Livestock Show cookoff).

12. Alex Jones is hawking nanosilver toothpaste as an alleged coronavirus fighter. NY State's AG has already filed a cease and desist order, and Missouri's AG sued Jim Bakker for similar grifting. Kenny Boy Paxton? AWOL, as usual.

13. On the more serious side? If you actually want some science? Here's how these zoonotic viruses are causing epidemics and pandemics, and why they're more likely to happen in the future. (If the link isn't loading, it's a Nautilus issue, not a bad link or your computer. The gist is population growth, increasing affluence in some parts of the developing world and ultimately, from this and more, an increasingly dense urban-wildland interface. A second Nautilus piece, near the end, also talks about disturbed ecosystems.) After reading the article? I'm surprised that something like the white nose disease among bats here in the USofA hasn't made the "necesssary" mutations to jump. Fortunately, it's fungal, not viral.

14. Terese Odell talked about the effect coronavirus was having on TV production.

15. Paradise in Hell translates Trump's coronavirus speech.

From outsider insurgent to Just.Another.Politician.™? The odyssey of Sema Hernandez for Senate from Texas

Sema Hernandez, the chief Democratic primary challenger to Beto O'Rourke, was the first announced candidate for the 2020 Senate nomination. But, she's been getting very little Texas MSM support so far. And, per the header, I have one eyebrow raised over her actions since losing the primary in 2018.

Make that two, with TruthOut's great Aug. 29 story that explicitly notes how Bob on a Knob's downtown El Paso gentrification push specifically targeted, and hit hard, working-class Mexican-American homeowners. Enough had been blogged about (and linked by Brains) on O'Rourke's real estate grifting during the election that this is definitely (as I have just tweeted) yet another weak spot for Sema in bromancing Bob on a Knob.

On Senate runs, and people like Brains (and once, me) attacking Kuff for not naming her more? Well, as of early July, she still hadn't filed an FEC financial report, even though being officially in the race for months, per her FEC filing statement. In case we have any whataboutism, M.J. Hegar already has done just that, among others. (There is a Sema for Texas committee listed, but no money there, either, per the FEC in early August.)

She also didn't file at all in 2018, which means she didn't get $5K then. But, she's filed WELL in advance of the 2020 primary. As in Dec. 26, 2018. And she's still not at $5K? Well, there's "insurgent," and there's "not getting much money love." Sema, in imitation of presidential candidates, did an official campaign kickoff on June 8, six months after putting herself officially in the race. We'll see how much she draws, as presumably this will boost her over the $5K limit.

And, as of July 20, Open Secrets agrees: still not $5K. And the FEC also doesn't even list an "elect Sema" type committee, unlike with Michael Cooper, who ran for the Lite Guv nomination in 2018 and is also in this year's Senate race. Also, per Kuff, with whom I don't agree on a lot of things, she has an Act Blue donation link and isn't getting love there, either, I guess. So, Brains, Scap, etc.? Don't blame Kuff, or others, for them not talking about her more. Blame her. Announced nearly 7 months ago, kissed Beto's ass hard even before that, has an Act Blue link, and still hasn't raised $5,000? And, not with Nina Turner's endorsement, either?

And, the $5,000 is a threshold for filing. Doesn't mean you can't do an FED financial report with less than $5K. Michael Cooper's only raised $3K, or a bit less, and he's done a filing.

Kuff is right on this. Given that a seeming top tier of West, Bell, Edwards and Hegar are sure to each haul in $1 million by the primary date, not yet having $5,000 has to indicate that Sema isn't a serious candidate. Relying on an appearance two years ago and one-way butt-kissing of Bob the Knob O'Rourke won't help.

Aug. 5: I mentioned all of the above, with a callout of sorts to Sema as part of a five-person Tweet response to a Tweet from a friend. We'll see what she says about the fundraising.

And a name probably won't help either.

SKILL OR NAME?

As for how well she did in 2018? Well ... maybe it was insurgency ... and maybe it was her last name. Whether one likes to hear it or not, Sema's 2018 performance was generally no different than other Hispanic Democrats of the past 25-30 years running for statewide office in a Democratic primary.

"Just saying."

(Ray Madrigal ran for land commissioner 12 years prior and since 2014, has threatened to become a perpetual candidate. Gary Espinosa, AFAIK, ran for nothing either before or after challenging Ann Richards. Rick Noriega has shown that a Hispanic can win a statewide nomination; that said, he was already a state senator. Victor Morales, in his long-ago 1996 upset showed that even a low-spending Hispanic can win a primary, and against Democrats with as much name recognition as O'Rourke, or two of them, to be precise. And Hernandez has gotten lucky that Joaquin Castro is taking a powder. But, there IS a second Hispanic also already declared.)

But ... if you're going to pander to Beto, pander to the Texas Democratic Party poo-bahs, etc., and run a second time for the same race, shouldn't you have raised $5,000 for that run four or five months after filing? Note: None of the other Hispanics mentioned in that Trib piece ran for a statewide office a second time.

And, speaking of Hispanics, we have one other one already in this race, which wasn't the case in 2018, and activists urging on another. We have two African-Americans in Cooper and West. And, we have one other Houstonian besides Hernandez. Penny-ante fundraising won't get you anywhere in campaign competitiveness.

Correct that!

As of Aug. 12, there are now officially THREE Hispanic Democrats who want to replace John Cornyn and TWO of them who are, at least halfway, officially for #MedicareForAll. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez brings not only that but a history of union organizing and more to the race, though she did say she was open to starting with "the public option." (Bell, West, Hegar won't even go that far.) I guess Sema is going to have to stop relying on air-kissing Bob the Knob, bragging about how well she did in 2018 and coasting on her name to get $5,000 in campaign cash and actually have to file an FEC report before primary time. Ramirez also has Sema's "story," being the daughter of immigrants. And, people connected to Bob the Knob have actually not air-kissed but made real contact with her; a lot of them are going to be working her campaign. More at the Chronic.

Further indicating Sema 2018 may have gotten votes on name or heritage as much as anything? African American Kesha Rogers, notorious LaRouche candidate, was second in the 2014 Democratic Senate primary, with 22 percent in the first round and 28 percent in runoff.


SPECIAL UPDATES RELATED TO THE 2018 TEXAS U.S. SENATE RACE

Meanwhile, back to Sema endorsing Beto a year ago and not apologizing for that, pulling primarily from my long “Is Beto a ConservaDem?” post.

As Beto continued to get hammered by David Sirota, Norman Solomon, Elizabeth Breunig, Zaid Jilani and others (with me adding my own tidbits) over his Congressional voting record after his Senate run was done but before he entered the 2020 prez race, taking money from the oil and gas industry for that, taking money from the FIRE sector for that, refusing to walk the walk on marijuana reform laws (I checked; that blog post of mine was before Sema officially endorsed Beto) and more, the following questions arise about her endorsement:

1. Did Sema Hernandez know all that? (She should have; she saw the first version of this ConservaDem piece as it was updated at that time, without the oil and gas info, before her endorsement, if I recall my Twitter timeline correctly.)

2. Why did she make that endorsement, other than moving into Just.Another.Politician.™ territory?

3. Will she own up to being, in any way, Just.Another.Politician.™?

4. Will she, if worried about fellow Roses or about the Our Revolution folks in Houston and DFW and elsewhere who refused to endorse Beto, try to rescind her endorsement?

Answers:

1. Yes, as noted.

2. For that reason, as noted.

3. No, because that would undercut 1 and 2, IMO.

4. Call me back in about 12 months.

These are all issues that hold true whether or not Beto allegedly gave an explicit promise to back single-payer (not the "universal health care" fudge) after she endorsed him. (BTW, based on his actual 2018 history with Sanders' bill, I don't believe such an explicit promise was made. I already told you that, Scap.) Beyond THAT, both Sema and Scap know that "universal health care" 10 seconds past the cue-in spot of a Beto interview that Scap claimed refudiated me is a fudge.

Heck, it's arguable that Sema gave herself an early start on drinking that Beto2020 Kool-Aid that I recently blogged about. And that's despite other reasons for her not to have guzzled.

As a first-generation Mexican-American, she might at least be concerned about his gentrification pushing on the El Paso City Council. I mean, I am voting strongly on single-payer, but, I'm aware of other stuff, some of which is semi-litmus-test level itself.

And, now that she's attacking Cornyn for talking fossil fuel money, will she repudiate her endorsement of Beto since he did the same?

Nope. In fact, she doubled down on the suck-up after O'Rourke announced his Prez run.

I wish you good luck, @BetoORourke.
While you run for President, I'll take on Sen. John Cornyn.
Thanks for your kind words of support for our 2020 grassroots U.S. Senate campaign.

Let's turn Texas Blue ➡ https://t.co/jrd4l4rgbR ⬅#Sema2020 #TXSen#BetoORourke @Sema4Texas

— Sema 🌹 (@_SemaHernandez_) March 14, 2019

Shock me.

And, what actually were those kind words of support? Were they anything beyond pro forma stuff?

Also "shock me" that as of March 14, 2019, Beto is STILL SCHWAFFLING on supporting single payer, per a transcript of a radio interview in Iowa.

And yes, Point No. 4 is true. Our Revolution's Harris County branch refused to endorse Beto, as David Bruce Collins noted. Remember, Sema lives in Houston, and she surely knows about this non-endorsement, which makes her look more conservative than at least some other Texas Dems. The state Our Revolution also did not endorse Beto, if I read between the lines of its website putting an asterisk with his endorsement that stresses this was straight from national. That would seem to be confirmed by the North Texas chapter also NOT endorsing Beto.

And, B-and-E as recently as mid-March gave Sema a pass on her Just.Another.Politician.™ endorsement of R.F. O'Rourke last fall.

I also see that Sema is taking a Kool Kids of Politics social media page from Beto and upping the ante by now creating an Instagram account. (And, no, I'm not linking. I'm just asking that we don't get video of Sema going to the dentist.)

See, too me, that's a wrong move politically.

If you really want to be cool, AND smart as a politician? Snapchat. No electronic paper trail remains after those snaps dissolve, right? Can't be quoted on what you say there unless somebody does a screengrab.

If Sema wants to boost her chance of getting my support in the 2020 primary, per my Beto Kool-Aid piece, she could start by repudiating her endorsement of him last year, since he never did unequivocally back single-payer and since he had other problems as well.

Is Sema totally Just.Another.Politician.™? No, not totally. But, IMO, she has one foot clearly there, and as with some AOC stuff, having one foot there is also an "eyeballs" problem, given the nature of her 2018 Senate primary run.

MY 2020 CHOICES?

So far, with Drew Springer getting Greens back on the ballot while also opening the state of Texas to being sued (and, HB 2504 WAS a "wedge," Drew), any Green who's not a yellow dog or a blue dog is my first choice.

Then, we go to Democrats.

Michael Cooper is my No. 1 as of right now. Hernandez is a fairly distant No. 2 and remains there until she apologizes for her putting one foot, at least, into the Just.Another.Politician.™ world. And, I'm not holding my breath right now about that.

Amanda Edwards might be No. 3?

Hegar? Yet more distant No. 4 as a military ConservaDem who as of now has nothing on policy on her website. Shades of Wendy Davis, but Hegar's been in the race a couple of months.

West No. 5?

Minor candidates more minor than Sema? No. 6.

Chris Bell will remain in last, and so much in last that if the Greens don't run anybody, rather than undervote him as I did Beto in 2018 I might vote Libertarian as a message.

Texas Progressives wonder about Jim Schutze, Julian Castro, Royce West, Ken Paxton, Jay Inslee, Mount Vernon

An interesting people-centered week here in the Roundup. Several people engaging in questionable thought processes or actions all at the same time in the last week. And, that's not to mention ongoing nuttery over the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

With that, dive in and see what I'm talking about in this week's issue.

Dallas

Jim Schutze says the city of Dallas is probably going to lose another battle over Jim’s Car Wash in South Dallas.

Unfortunately, Schutze also continues to be a personal PR agency for Amber Guyger, apparently willfully ignoring her family social media photos, as when he claims there’s nothing to connect her fatal shooting of Botham Jean to race. I like about 90 percent of what Big Jim says, but when he’s wrong, he’s WAY wrong. And I'm pretty sure he's seen those pix before. He also doesn't discuss that courts have refused changes of venue on more serious, more legitimate grounds (whether true or not). This is not to say that Guyger's act necessarily was racial, it is to say Schutze's wrong when he makes his blanket statement that it was not.

Robot baggage handlers are getting a trial at DFW Airport.


Houston

Dos Centavos is keeping an eye on what local Houston officials are saying about the ICE raids.

Juanita recognizes Rep. Gene Wu for his words and actions on the ICE raids.

Texas politics

Kenny Boy Paxton and Gov. Strangeabbott can lose state as well as federal lawsuits. A state district judge has dismissed most the lawsuit they filed against San Antonio's sanctuary city stance. If that holds on appeal, we'll have all sorts of fallout.

As Royce West continues to play Hamlet / get fellated by Gromer Jeffers and Kuff, Latin@ activists, apparently ignoring or not caring about Sema Hernandez (I'm going to have an update on her soon) want Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez to run for Senate. Patrick Svitek, like Gromer Jeffers, and the mainly NOT Latin@s Svitek's story cites, apparently willfully can't find the name of Sema Hernandez with both hands. And she's not the only Hispanic who's already officially filed. Rather, if some of these people have serious ties to Bob O'Rourke, they're more fauxgressives than progressives.

At the Texas Observer, Michael Barajas calls out Julián Castro for turd polishing his record as San Antonio mayor, especially on housting. Schutze's done the same on his record as HUD secretary.

Off the Kuff wrote about the Obamacare hearing at the Fifth Circuit.

Christopher Hooks notes the egregious hypocrisy of Chip Roy and Ted Cruz when it comes to executive authority and the rule of law.

Better Texas Blog has the crazy idea that our state should treat asylum-seeking migrant families with respect and dignity.

Better Texas Blog has the crazy idea that our state should treat asylum-seeking migrant families with respect and dignity.

Texana

The newly football-recrazed folks of Mount Vernon, Texas, are lying to themselves first, and the general public second, if they really believe that their new Old Ball Coach, Baylor’s sexual abuse enabling Art Briles, was “clearly wronged.” What's clear is that former D(r)unca(ke)nville High and KU hoops star Greg Ostertag is politician enough about it to be mayor of Mount Vernon.

The Rivard Report commemorates 80 years of Planned Parenthood in San Antonio.

White supremacists are stepping up college recruiting, says Silas Allen at the Dallas Observer.

RIP to the talented but troubled Rip Torn.

My own RIP to the interesting but hypocritical and nutty Ross Perot.

National

SocraticGadfly says the most egregiously wrong ruling of this Supreme Court term was not the gerrymandering case but seven justices, including two liberals, hating First Amendment religious freedoms.

Speaking of, Gadfly also says RIP John Paul Stevens, a "librul" only by Rehnquist and Roberts Court modern SCOTUS standards.

Border Patrol agents speaking candidly tell Pro Publica that the inhumanity in the detention camps has become ever more accepted. One military veteran says its growing acceptance "is kind of like torture in the army."

Brains updates his Dems 2020 with kind words about Nate's Liver, I mean Nate Silver.

Beto-mania vanishes as more people learn the truth about Bob the Knob. (He's too downtrending to qualify for the header this week, even.)

Egberto Willies wonders if Jay Inslee and/or his staff have some racial issues. Note: Sea-Tac is definitely white majority, and even the core, King County, is white majority by several percentage points against all other minorities combined, with blacks behind both Asians and Hispanics. And, outstate Washington, outside of Hispanics concentrated in farm areas, is highly white.

Jeff St. Clair of Counterpunch gets it right on left-wingnut hawking of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.:

"I think Julian Assange's lowest moment was his inculcation of the Seth Rich conspiracy in some of the more credulous precincts of the Left. The strangest part of the affair is that if the preposterous Rich conspiracy had proved true, it meant that Assange would have outed his source."

Couldn't have said it better myself, Jeff, even as I'm on a Twitter thread debate about Rich.

In addition to driving while black and cooking while black, we now have policing while black.

Paradise in Hell muses about Vice Presidents.

God and Man at Liberty and First Baptist Dallas

To riff on Bill Buckley’s book, we know that President 2 Corinthians, President Cracker, scored a coup when he got Jerry Falwell Jr. to endorse him and not Ted Cruz in the GOP primaries. No matter that Junior, unlike Daddy, is not a minister. How did it happen?

Hustle by Michael Cohen, aided by a gay-friendly hostel Junior helped launch and further aided, allegedly, by some possibly risqué photos of Junior and wifey. In the background? Junior lying to Lyin Ted about why he couldn’t endorse him.

Ken Silverstein has more, noting other news outlets had part of the story a while back but couldn't nail everything down, and also presuming that Cohen wasn't acting on his own on this.

So, this led me to Stephen Young’s piece in the Dallas Observer about how blatantly screwed up the Trump fellating by Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, has been.

And, is there a reason for that? Given the timeline of how early Jeffress did his deep dive, it makes one wonder, doesn’t it?

And it makes you wonder what it is?

Jeffress showing cellphone pix of "Lil Bobby" to his wife? Or another woman? Or another man?

C'mon, Bob, you can tell us.

Texas early voting surge: A quick hot take

According to the Secretary of State's office, in just the top 30 counties in Texas, which contain about 75 percent of the state's registered voters, a little more than 2.4 million people had engaged in early voting last week.

Let's note just how much a surge this is.

In the last midterm, in 2014, a little over 4.7 million people voted in the governor's race, the top ticket with no incumbent in the race, versus Cornyn for re-election to the Senate.

So, already, we've had people in just the top 30 counties, three-quarters of the state, cast ballots at a rate of more than 50 percent of ALL voting, both early and election day, in ALL 254 counties, of 2014.

Some of this may be cannibalizing election day voting, sure. Most of it, though, probably not.

My guesstimate is somewhere around 5.7 million total ballots will be cast. Even offsetting population growth, that will be up a solid 20 percent from 2014.

So, what's driving this?

Here's my guesstimate on breakout percentages.

I'd say this:

• 40 percent due to Beto-mania (he'll cut the White Album after the election)
• 30 percent to Trump Train drive, even with teeth gritted
•      (Note: I don't see a Beto-like surge being driven by any individual Republican on a statewide race, and the Racist Anarchist in Chief isn't on the ballot, as he'll surely remind people starting Nov. 7)
• 20 percent non-Beto general #Resistance surging
• 10 percent undifferentiated.

Take the 20 percent away from the 30 percent, and then take that remaining 10 percent away from the 40 percent. That leaves 30 percent of the surge, on net, for Beto.

That's a net difference of 300,000 voters right there. Cruz won in 2012 by 1.2 million, though, so we are not close.

Let's say that 30 percent translates to the whole 5.7 million. That's 1.7 million.

Beto's not going to beat Ted by 500,000. I'll eat my hat, Beto's skateboard and Havana Ted's White Castles empty boxes if it does.

Split the difference, then, giving Beto the big bump on the surge and a lesser bump on overall turnout and you're at 1 million.

Can Beto get an extra 200,000 votes beyond my hot take guess? Stand by.

And, Ted was running in a presidential year. So, cut his 1.2 million down to, say, 800,000. Take the 300,000 from the new voters alone, and we're at 500,000.

That means Beto has to flip just over 10 percent of the "old" voters. Possible? Sure.

Our Racist Anarchist in Chief has made this election yet more volatile. Richard Linklater is surely taking video from the Trump rally and cutting in words from Trump's incitements to violence, if he has half a brain.

Can Beto O'Rourke take down Ted Cruz?

Probably not, but it's not impossible.

Brains has a "cold hard reality" piece for Texas Dems in general, not just Beto, but it's a good starting point.

The key link is to this Texas Politics piece.

Now, I'm planning on undervoting that race, but I can offer a sunnier scenario for Beto than it does.

Let's go back to 2010, and a GOP vote edge of just 630,000. Then, let's take the rest of Texas Politics' math straight up. IF Beto can flip 15 percent of GOP votes plus boost Donkey turnout 20 percent, it says that adds up to 800,000 votes. And he's up 170K by that math.

Is this realistic, even at the long tail of one end of a bell curve? Or is it too much?

We have three background issues at play.

One, is 2010 or 2014 a better assessment of Texas Republican vs Democrat midterm strength? In 2010, Tricky Ricky Perry was a multi-term incumbent governor. Plus side? Plenty of name recognition. Minus side? People were tired of him — on top of the tiredness that led to the four-person race in 2006, some of which he had overcome by 2010, tea partier types were even more tired than they were four years earlier. Abbott in 2014 was a fresh face and conservative darling. And, I don't think Bill White was that much better a Democratic candidate in 2010 than Wendy Davis in 2014.

Two, speaking of gov candidates, how much of a boat anchor will Lupe Valdez be? Two polls in the past week show her at 10 points or less of Abbott. How she does in her debate Friday could be key. She had better be heavily coached up, yet without making her "plastic."

Three, there was no Senate race in 2010. How that affected the midterm party gap vs. 2014 (Cornyn against a weak challenger) I don't know.

Bobby Kennedy and Rafa the Dominionist have two more debates set. The Sept. 30 town-hall style could give Beto a pitch or two right in the wheelhouse. That was scrubbed due to Kavanaugh fallout with no definite replacement time set. That makes the Oct. 16 debate, complete with two full weeks of run-up, must-see TV.

I still remain skeptical of Beto's ability to turn out Hispanic voters, given that he refuses to play old-time retail politics in the Valley, as I have noted before. Given Zodiac Ted's unpopularity, I think flipping 15 percent of GOP votes is more likely than boosting Dem turnout 20 percent. At the same time, though, if 2010's gap is the real one, not 2014's, O'Rourke just needs 210K more Doinks if he can steal 15 percent of Rethugs, or a little under 12 percent.

Update: I was asked on Twitter Monday night if I thought this could actually happen. My take on the numbers is that Beto is likely to fall short. I expect Cruz to win by somewhere between 5 and 10 percentage points. That would give Beto a moral victory of enough stature to perhaps put him into the Doinks' 2020 Prez discussion per Jonathan Tilove's thoughts and possible wet dreams. Since 1988 and Lloyd Bentsen being the last Dem elected to the Senate, the "flip" in Texas politics has been a hard one — no Senate race since then has been within 10 percentage points. By a fraction of a percentage point, Tricky Ricky Perry's four-way race for re-election as governor was within 10 percentage points and his 1998 lite guv race was far closer. And that's been it in Texas politics.

As of Sept. 28, Five Thirty Eight, with da mayor Nate Silver himself writing, had Beto within 5 percentage points. He said that non-polling info actually tilted Beto's way more than Ted's. I'm still not convinced it will be that close, let alone that Beto will win, but who knows?

And, getting his moment of limelight from the Snooze, there's the question about what Libertarian Neal Dikeman will do to this race. The Texas Libertarian Party is, from my low-level knowledge of the LP across the nation, moderately robust but not tremendously so. I don't expect Dikeman to get above 2.5 percent and even breaking 2.0 percent would be on the high side.

Translating my expected gap into odds? I give Beto a 10-20 percent shot. Again, if you're not familiar with Texas politics of the last ... geez, 25-plus years now, that is a "realistic" campaign within the current parameters.

TX Progressives recent thoughts

Yours truly has been on vacation, including during the first Cruz-O'Rourke debate, which had the post-debate spin I expected when the debates over debates started. Brains offers a roundup of debate hot takes, while noting, as I have, that he's still undervoting.

Anyway, here's Brains' roundup of this week's debate-focused wrangle, and below selected takes from the week before.

SocraticGadfly wonders why states' rights wingnuts like Ted Cruz can't talk more about the truly overlooked Ninth Amendment and less about the un-overlooked Tenth Amendment, especially in judicial confirmation hearings. And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs. BeyondBones catalogs what the devastating fire at the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro means to the world. Kevin Curtin says goodbye to the iconic Threadgill's World Headquarters in Austin. Raise Your Hand Texas reads between the lines of the Texas Education Agency's budget request. Mean Green Cougar Red and Eric Berger look back at Hurricane Ike ten years after. Sanford Nowlin takes measure of Beto O'Rourke. See Brains for more from last week, too. Note also his hot take on Beto's chances.

TX Progressives look at Beto heating up

The Texas Progressive Alliance looks at how the Beto O’Rourke campaign is heating up to almost Hotter ‘n Hell One Hundred temps — hot enough to get his first "longform" national political puff piece, analyzed here — to lead off this week’s Roundup, while yet wondering if he is playing debate chicken games.

Off the Kuff considers some secondary goals for the Beto O'Rourke campaign.

Brains and Eggs revises upward his estimation of Beto’s chances.

The Dallas Snooze looks at downballot Dems drafting off the Beto boom at his campaign rallies.

The Week notes that Beto is being boosted by dislike of Havana Ted Cruz.

At the Dallas Observer, Stephen Young notes the seven steps to getting to Cruz begging Donald Trump for help.

SocraticGadfly has some fun introducing Loopy Lupe Valdez (and her gun) to Aerosmith. (Yours truly will have a couple of Beto pieces in next week's roundup.)

Jim Schutze wonders if Walt Humann or friends of his are trying to gut the city of Dallas deal (which Monte Anderson — I know him — calls very good) to privatize Fair Park operations.

The Chronicle does some analysis on Nancy Pelosi’s Houston visit.

In Part 4 of its nine-part series on borderland waters and climate change, the Texas Observer looks at shared aquifers, an important issue in general given Texas’ differentiated treatment of surface vs underground waters.

The Lunch Tray takes issue with a partnership between Houston ISD and Domino's Pizza.

BeyondBones warns of the Bananapocalypse.

Better Texas Blog can't understand the arguments against paid sick days.

Grits for Breakfast flags another scam charity that claims to benefit police families.

Paradise in Hell laughs at a dumb Trump quote.

The TSTA Blog sees through Dan Patrick's phony concern about teachers' health insurance premiums.

A Houston ISD school gets black marks for using a quote by the Mayflower Madam to shame girls.

O'Rourke is pushing his debate games luck with Cruz

As of this morning, it's been three full weeks since Ted Cruz proposed a five-event broad-ranging set of debates with Beto O'Rourke. It's been about a week since Ted's camp pushed for nailing down just the first debate in that set, for Aug. 31 in Dallas.

And, Beto's refused to sign off on either, in what's looking like deliberate strategery.

Now, Beto may think that Ted needs to be "fairer," especially about the Friday night times.

(Update, Sept. 14: They've agreed to a three-debate set. Ted gets two of the three to be moderated format vs one town hall, so he wins that compromise. Beto gets two moved off Friday, and the one that is Friday is a 6 p.m. start, so he wins that. Per a poll I have on Twitter, I'd call it a split decision.)

Tosh.

First, when has a Republican ever been fair in today's world?

Second, and more seriously, that's not how things work in politics in general.

Cruz is the incumbent, and you, O'Rourke, are the challenger. Unless the offer is blatantly bogus, you take one-quarter of a loaf instead of none. (And, this is a one-quarter loaf, at least; it's not blatantly bogus.)

If you really think playing the "fairness" card instead of accepting the deal will work? Wrong.

Ted's gonna play the chicken card, ace through 10, for a chicken royal flush on you.

As for the Friday nights issue? Maybe Ted's thinking he can not only bury the debates in general but that more women, more Democratic-leaning women already in your camp, will watch then. I don't know.

I DO KNOW, though, that there is this thing called the "Internet." Whichever teevee station or stations hosts each debate, it will surely be on that station's website soon enough afterward. Commercial teevee folks will want the clicks and retweets for ad dollars.

It will be available to be retweeted and Facebooked and Instagrammed with spin attached and spread all over, on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Beyond that, the Friday Night Lights issue is kind of overrated. Here's why.

Typical small, but not tiny, town? About 10 percent of the adult population of the town not directly associated with the high school turns out for the game. Maybe 15 percent. No more than that. For instance, in a town of 5,000, you've got almost 4,000 adults. Subtract teachers, administrators, support staff and spouses. You're at around 3,500 adults. Somewhere between 350 and 500 of them will be at a typical game. Half or a little more of the high school and connectees will, for another 250. That gets you to 750. Majority of your students will be there. That gets you to around the 1,000 people that show up for a game in a town of 5,000. Even in more enthusiastic towns, it's no more than 20 percent of the non-connected population and no more than 60 percent or so of the high-school connected population.

As for the polls that might indicate Beto is on firm ground in pushing his luck? People who have been in Texas any length of time and have political savvy know that polls here regularly overestimate likely Democratic turnout. And, that could be extra problematic, per C.D. Hooks, if Beto's field strategy, and dealing with some core constituencies and regions of Dem support, backfires.

Related to that, from Anne Helen Peterson of Buzzfeed, Beto now has his first nationally written political puff piece. Maybe he's helping its 8,000 words help. Certainly, Peterson drinking his Kool-Aid, as I note here, helps.

That said, this shouldn't be surprising to people who look critically at some of Beto's campaign positions. I'm thinking particularly of single payer, Medicare for All, national health care. Specifically, I'm thinking of how ConservaDem Beto not only refused to back John Conyers' HB 676 in the House, on semi-specious but not totally specious grounds, but also refused to support Bernie Sanders' Senate bill on explicitly neoliberal grounds, namely that it didn't require people to pay enough out of their own pockets.

You read that right.

And, Peterson is NOT one of those people who looked critically at Beto's positions. She three times mentions him talking about "universal health care" without apparently looking at his actual stances.

As for Beto's enthusiastic Millennial volunteers?

Hey, kiddie pool waders, at some point, your ignorance of Beto's stance on this issue passes from accidental to willful. Maybe it already has.

About those Beto-Texas polls

In an update to my post last week about the proposed series of Beto O'Rourke-Ted Cruz debates, I noted some new polls that were in the hopper.

A new Lyceum poll shows a statistical dead heat, which is going to up the ante for these debates. Cruz staff is trashing it. That said, it seems in some ways to stand up to my eyeballs, with both voters and likely voters, and with Abbott leading Valdez by 20 percentage points. However, There are other areas where it's an eyebrow-raiser.

Nine percent of Texans are atheist or agnostic? Well, maybe not. And, Beto-Bob is within 2 percentage points on likely as well as regular voters? Plus, counting 22 percent as either unaligned or third party, Lyceum claimed respondents were otherwise split, 39 percent each on Doinks and Rethugs. That's an eyebrow raiser there. This is all why the likes of Kuff are wrong in relying on registered voter, not likely voter, feedback.

At the same time, even among college-educated whites, it shows that Beto's unknown factor is two-thirds that of Valdez. Interestingly, by percentage points, the gap is almost as big with Hispanics as with whites; it's closest with black voters, tho Lyceum has Beto-Bob within two points on BOTH. Anyway, the lack of identification issue also seems to run true.

That said, on things like atheism-agnosticism, politicos often rate their voters as more conservative than reality, and while not every atheist or agnostic bats left, nonetheless ....

Moving on, a Quinnipiac poll Aug. 2 shows Havana Ted with a 6-point advantage. PPP then splits the diff at 4 points. Public Policy Polling, which is Democratic-tied and has been wrong before due to that comes close to push polling. And it frames things Beto's way by talking about how he doesn't take PAC money while not noting the various asterisks that come with that, like that nobody running for Congress can take money from corporate or union PACs.

On the other hand, Havana Ted is now worried enough to ask Trump to campaign for him.

TX Progressives talk state debates, or lack thereof

The Texas Progressive Alliance invites fans of Frasier Crane to read and picture how a Clinton-counseling Frasier reboot episode would sound while presenting this week’s blog roundup.

SocraticGadfly gives his snarky lowdown on the proposed Cruz-O'Rourke debates.

Brains and Eggs offers his own excellent snarkery on the proposed Cruz-O'Rourke debates.

At the Texas Observer, Justin Miller describes in detail why Lite Guv Dan Patrick is dodging the debates bullet with challenger Mike Collier — too risky. That’s as AG Kenny Boy Paxton and Ag Commish “Come to Jesus Shot” Sid Miller, along with other top state GOP politicos outside of Gov. Greg Abbott are all doing the same.

Speaking of Kenny Boy, how much more money will he (typical of Austin GOP fiscal fake conservatives) waste to try to keep AC out of state prisons, Grits for Breakfast wonders?

And speaking of Jesus Shotter, his Dem opponent, Kim Olson, has an iffy end-of-career military service background. The LA Times offered the original story a decade ago, here.

Neil at You Must Act Right Now took part in a protest at the home of an owner of the location of the proposed baby jail in Houston.  

Off the Kuff provided a more in depth look at Congressional fundraising for this decade.

Jim Schutze wonders why Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway is sucking up to pro-Confederate statues people.

Somewhat related, Cary Clack implores Greg Abbott to do the right thing and remove that dishonest Confederate plaque from the Capitol.

  

Raj Mankad draws lessons in urban design from Brays Bayou.

The Texas Living Waters Project frets about the decline of the alligator gar.

The TSTA Blog is unsurprised by Dan Patrick's intransigence on making schools safer.

Reyna Torres Mendivil wants us to remember that Texas has a family relationship with Mexico.

Juanita has a Steve Stockman update.

Texas Living Waters bemoans the alligator gar’s decline. (Texas Parks and Wildlife has started a program that may help.)

Quorum Report notes Texas Retirement System has upped its liabilities.

Meet the Quorum Report notes pre-Clovis Texans.

Beto O'Rourke-Ted Cruz real debate preview

Per the Texas Trib, Sen. Havana Ted McCarthy Cruz (R-Canada) and his challenger, Rep. Robert Francis Beto Kennedy O'Rourke (D-Hyannisport) may be near a set of debates. To save you and many Texas non-voters the worry about sitting through a five-debate scrimmage, I've giving you a preview of the after-event event happening.

I mean, why sit through all that trouble? Especially when these debates, as currently scheduled, will interfere with the fun of Friday Night Lights?

Update, Sept. 14: They've agreed to a three-debate set. Ted gets two of the three to be moderated format vs one town hall, so he wins that compromise. Beto gets two moved off Friday, and the one that is Friday is a 6 p.m. start, so he wins that.

(Update, Aug. 1: A new Lyceum poll shows a statistical dead heat, which is going to up the ante for these debates. Cruz staff is already trashing it, but it stands up to my eyeballs, with both voters and likely voters, and with Abbott leading Valdez by 20 percentage points. However, a Quinnipiac poll Aug. 2 shows Havana Ted with a 6-point advantage.  PPP then splits the diff at 4 points. And, even among college-educated whites, it shows that Beto's unknown factor is two-thirds that of Valdez. Interestingly, by percentage points, the gap is almost as big with Hispanics as with whites; it's closest with black voters. Plus, counting 22 percent as either unaligned or third party, Lyceum claimed respondents were otherwise split, 39 percent each on Doinks and Rethugs. That's an eyebrow raiser there. This is all why the likes of Kuff are wrong in relying on registered voter, not likely voter, feedback, tho Lyceum has Beto-Bob within two points on BOTH.)

Unfortunately, Twitter still doesn't embed each individual Tweet in a moment, nor will it embed the whole set of Tweets in a thread, just the one parent immediately above each, so we have to do it this way.

The first Tweet in the thread introduced the Trib's story, with link, so we'll start with No. 2.

2/ "Jobs/Taxes/Federal Regulations/National Economy" Beto O'Rourke will halfway or more agree with Ted Cruz on regulations stuff and probably spout some entrepreneuralism BS, being born with a silver shopping mall in his mouth, to amp up a line from .@PDiddie

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

3/ "Immigration/Border Security/Criminal Justice/Supreme Court" Beto O'Rourke will talk about marijuana legalization, though that's generally a state-level issue. Kavanaugh will come up, assuming he'll be nowhere near being confirmed yet. Ted Cruz will defend him as "mainstream"

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

4/ "Foreign Policy/National Security" Beto O'Rourke will play the #PutinDidIt and #Russiophobia cards. Ted Cruz will counter with Benghazi. Both will sound like warmongers as the members of the #duopoly usually do. Both will pretend the US has never done what we scold Putin for

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

5/ "Energy/Trade/Texas Economy" Beto O'Rourke will presumably hit Ted Cruz over the head with Trump's presumably still in-place tariffs. Beto will say something weak on #ClimateChange, like backing the toothless Paris Agreements & refuse to talk #CarbonTax https://t.co/cScWSlQlZN

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

6/ "Healthcare/Obamacare" Ted Cruz will have this easy. Beto O'Rourke will defend Obamacare while refusing to call for #singlepayer because Beto ultimately doesn't like #MedicareForAll, being a kind of #ConservaDem https://t.co/2mNpQVNy5M

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

7/ So, backers of Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz? .@BetoORourke, .@TedCruz, .@TexasGOP and .@texasdemocrats? I've saved all of you all and Texas non-voters the worry about snoozing through five debates between Havana Ted McCarthy Cruz and Robert Francis Beto Kennedy O'Rourke

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 25, 2018

The "born with a silver shopping mall in his mouth" is my riff on a line from this blog post by Brains, which is why I tagged him. Wasn't sure I had enough room in the Tweet for the URL.

Tweet No. 6 kind of connects with Tweet No. 3. Beto opposed both Conyers' HB 646 in the House, and Bernie's Senate bill. I kind of get Beto on Conyers; I've said myself that nonprofit hospitals aren't necessarily better than for-profit ones.

But, he screwed the pooch on saying why he didn't like Bernie's bill either — it didn't make Americans (beyond any needed tax increases) pay enough. Spoken like a true neoliberal who believes in Obama-Sunstein "nudges."

Let's also tie that back to Tweet 2. As part of the late-stage capitalism rentier class, I'm sure Beto knows that many businesses don't want single payer even if it saves money because they'd rather keep their employees serfs to "benefits."

Tweet No. 3? Outside of marijuana, and, on House voting records from the past, since federal marijuana decrim or legalization has never been a Congressional bill, Beto IS a ConservaDem. Sorry, Team Beto staff and volunteers, but it's out there in black and white.

Tweet 5? Paris IS toothless, and both President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinpeng wanted it that way. Climate-neoliberal Democrats like O'Rourke who bash Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Accords won't admit that.

Tweet 4? If you want to know why I'm not part of the duopoly, remember that foreign policy counts on my national votes and start there.

The names? To expand on the Kennedyesque (looks and ConservaDem-ness both) of Beto, I did that myself. Lots of people call Cruz "Havana Ted," of course; I figured the "McCarthy" (Joe, not Gene) rounded it out.

And, Brains weighed in yesterday, incorporating my Twitter thread. Per his piece, we need to see where tariffs are at when the debates start, on Tweet 5, to see how much traction Beto gets. Snark aside, rather than Russiophobia, O'Rourke attacks Cruz on cotton, sorghum, steel, gas and petroleum getting kicked, if the kicking is still happening.

Since Havana Ted still has the presidential bug, and doesn't want to risk offending the MAGA-heads, pinning him to Trump on this is O'Rourke's one chance, as I see it.

Yes, as a leftist for America, I targeted Beto the ConservaDem more than Havana Ted in my Tweets. But, I smacked Ted enough.

As for debate style, etc.? I've already called Havana Ted a "smarmy ... schoolmarm lecturer" and a "junior high teacher's pet." Nothing's changed there. Robert Francis O'Rourke will be earnest and bipartisan throughout. That said, beyond pinning the tariffs on Ted, personality — sad as it is in modern American politics — will probably be O'Rourke's one other hope to get significant traction.

Brans reminds me of one other thing.

These are all on Friday nights — and this is Tex-ass, where football is god and god is honored if he does't conflict too much with football mindsets. Aug. 31 is Week Zero of the high school season, so teams will be playing.

It's arguable this helps Havana Ted in non-voting Texas. OTOH, since older people are generally more likely to vote, it gives Beto a shot with improving his numbers with them. (Havana Ted is refusing to come off the Friday schedule, though he has agreed to move one debate site to El Paso.)

With that, partially contra Brains, I don't think Cruz "blinked." He certainly didn't "cave." He "softened." Now, if Beto pushes for Saturday dates, and Ted agrees, THEN he "blinked."

===

Beyond all this, you and I have at least one option (hat tip Brains) on the write-in ballot. Yeah, a Trot is pretty much out there, but ... better than Beto the Sheepdog.