TX Progressives critique bullet trains, wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, Ross is Boss

The Texas Progressives hope no readers blew off fingers or other things last week, while helping George Washington fight The Battle of Dulles Airport.

Now that special Fourth of July political mayhem is over, we return you to regular political mayhem, of which Donald Trump still delivers.

State politics

ConservaDem Chris Bell is officially running for the Democratic nomination to challenge John Cornyn for the Senate. I think he brings little to the table, especially after his Bill King endorsement in the last Houston mayoral election. Kuff gushes over him, even though a week later he points out the latest Helltown craptaculartude of said Bill King, starting with the unwarranted assumption that the Democratic primary, up to this point, looked uncompetitive, and moving from there to the point that with Bell in, it’s now competitive. Of course, Kuff is aided in his gushing by the dean of Dallas political conventional wisdom, Gromer Jeffers (now that Robert Garrett is retired) ignoring the name of Sema Hernandez, as well as that of Michael Cooper and other announced and semi-serious to serious candidates. (Note to Kuff and Gromer: In mid-May, when the Bell speculation started, there were four declared candidates.)


Dallas

Jim Schutze talks the future of South Dallas, especially vis-a-vis the bullet train, which in Dallas he says will be a land deal first, transportation deal second.


Houston

David Bruce Collins discusses getting the Houston Green Party going, and working to avoid pitfalls that plagued Harris County Greens.


Dallas-Houston

Homelessness is up in Big D but down in Helltown. The Trib explains why.


Texana

RIP Ross Perot.

While everybody focuses on Ill Eagles, plus their sickening concentration camp confinement under Trump (which also happened, albeit less severely, under Dear Leader), legal immigrants on guest visas continue to get exploited in agricultural work in Texas and elsewhere.

A woman licking a pint of Blue Bell in a Lufkin WallyWorld could get 20 years in the Texas slammer, but as a juvenile, may not be prosecuted as an adult. OTOH, this is surely no more unsanitary than the multiple rounds of listeria Blue Bell willingly inflicted on nearly all 50 of our states. Gov. Strangeabbott has since weightlessly weighed in.

Grits hands out his summer reading list.

Utah recently lowered its blood-alcohol content level to determine DWI from 0.08 to 0.05. Could Texas follow suit?


National, with Texas twists

Brains has his weekly update on Democratic candidates.

Ten of those Dems came to Houston; Bob O'Rourke and Julián Castro played reasonably nice in English and none of them said anything bigly new.

Dos Centavos was impressed by Julian Castro's Houston appearance.

Progress Texas picks out its top ten moments from the two Democratic Presidential debates.

Off the Kuff tells of the off-again, on-again Census citizenship question litigation.

Stephen Young lists Texas' biggest presidential flameouts.


National

Socratic Gadfly says that, regarding some actions of the so-called "antifa," violence is not the answer.

Russia's foreign intelligence service was reportedly behind Seth Rich conspiracy theory mongering all along, according to Michael Isikoff. See all my major Seth Rich reporting at this tag.

Think Progress is up for sale. The New Republic semi-connected to think tank Center for American Progress is almost certainly not worth whatever asking price Neera Tanden will spew out.

Therese Odell catches up on the E. Jean Carroll accusation.

RIP Mad Magazine; here's a good take.

Transgriot rewrites Frederick Douglass' speech about the meaning of the Fourth of July for trans people.

Leah Binkovitz follows the numbers on cyclist and pedestrian deaths around the country.

World

Per Trump and Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador cutting a deal on Central American immigrants, the "remain in Mexico" is raising tensions and problems there. More on the issues here.

A forced patriotic mandate ... only the GOP

It is a funded mandate, but Constitution Day is a forced mandate, Kent Greenfield notes. Shock me that the GOPers in Congress got that done, and use the once-to-have-been-abolished Department of Education to do so:

Since 2005, by Congressional mandate, all educational institutions receiving federal funds — from preschools to universities, whether public or private — are required to provide relevant educational programming to observe the occasion.

 So, does that make it unconstitutional? Greenfield says that's at least arguable.

Ironically, Constitution Day is probably unconstitutional. One liberty the Constitution protects is the right of individuals and institutions not to applaud it. The laudable message that Congress wanted to send — our Constitution should be celebrated — is muddled by its method of mandatory commemoration. The mandate violates the academic freedom of the targeted institutions.

As for the option of turning down federal funds, Greenfield notes most schools can't afford to do that.

Beyond that, there's all the other issues. Riffing on the Pledge of Allegiance, Greenfield says:

(M)andatory patriotism is corrosive even if accomplished bit by bit. ... Rote patriotism is made even worse when citizens of other countries are also socialized to believe in the exceptionalism of their own nations.

Well put, well put. That said, conservatives have never met a version of coercive patriotism they don't like. Red Scare? Check? War on Terror? Check. Using a cheesed-up acronym to call a spy bill the Patriot Act? Check.

That all said, I'm surprised Grover Norquist hasn't pushed for this "stick" to be used to make Ronald Reagan Day a national holiday. Or that Rudy Giulani wasn't trotted out to do the same for "9/11 Day."

‘Ten-cent patriotism’ part of political silly season

Ten-cent patriotism? Why do I use that phrase?

My newspaper column for this week explains, as I tackle flag lapel pins and “Obama is a Muslim” rumors.

Here’s why I call flag lapel pins “ten-cent patriotism.” (“Dime-store patriotism” is an acceptable alternative!)

Pull those flag pins off the GOP lapels, look at the back side of them, and over and over, you'll see the same phrase:

“Made in China.” (Blogger Bugsoup helps me out with this illustration of ten-cent patriotism.)

Considering the lapel pins probably actually cost about 10 cents to make, I think “10-cent patriotism” is the perfect phrase for such chintzy, surface-level veneration of America. (Oh, and if you were waving an 8-inch or foot-long plastic flag at a Fourth of July event, it wasn't “Made in the U.S.” either.)

As for the “Obama is a Muslim” rumors, I suggest he should take a stronger stance against them. I suggest a hypothetical statement I wish he would make:

“I'm not a Muslim, but so what if I am? Did we have this same whispering campaign eight years ago against our first Jewish vice-presidential candidate? No. I implore Americans of all political stances to reject outright such political bigotry, especially as directed against our nation's second-largest organized religion.”

(Yes, reputable surveys, with reasonable allowance for non-reporting, indicate Muslims outnumber Jews. No, I’m not getting into the issues of whether Mormonism is its own religion, not a Christian sect. Nor am I getting into the issue of secular humanism being a religion or not.)

Political silly season also means political pander season, though, so Obama won’t make such a statement.

In the column, I also get into the FISA bill and third-party voting.

This Bud is for all you naïve hyperpatriotic suckers

Otherwise known as “For a Few Dollars More, St. Louis Version.”

After trotting out every patriotic flag in the book, and getting Missouri’s Congressional and Senatorial delegations to follow suit, Anheuser-Busch decided it was hunky-dory. with a takeover by InBev, for a few dollars more of $70 a share rather than the original offer of $65.

You flag-waving hyperpatriotic types got a well-deserved hypocrisy smackup.