Texas Progressives, Part 2: the rest of the story

For the second time in a month, this corner of the Texas Progressives decided to split the weekly Roundup into two parts.

I wanted to keep coronavirus postings separate from everything else. And so, they're in part 1.

With that, let's jump into the rest of what's happening.


Texas politics

David Bruce Collins reports from precinct-level Green Party conventioning in Houston that Dario Hunter was the presidential favorite. Now in California, eh? Is he carpetbagging? Dunno why he left the Rust Belt. And ... if they were using approval voting, as it sounds? Since DBC says Hunter had 10 approvals of 11 voters? Yes, that is near unanimous. That said, Howie Hawkins' 7 of 11 is a two-thirds.

DBC is still planning to run as the Green nominee for Senate. Thank doorknob I won't have to undervote in a race that would otherwise feature John Cornyn against either one-time Libertarian gun nut MJ Hegar or grifting Legiscritter Royce West.

Texas Observer interviews elections expert Richard Hasen about his new book and how it relates to recent Texas voting problems.

Stephen Young picks the worst candidates to emerge from primaries.

Off the Kuff welcomes our lady judge overlords. (Overladies?)


Texana

Texas is one of the states most at risk of more rural hospital closures.


Oil, etc

The Texas economy is probably fixing to implode, with the oil slump part of it likely to be at least as bad as 2014, if not coming halfway close to the end of the Great Recession in 2009-10. And, once again, the lack of an every-year Lege in the Banana Republic of Texas will exacerbate the problem.

Helltown (as usual) ain't ready for the latest oil bust. That said, Evan Mintz's piece still is in part an attempt to put a lipstick on a pig. He notes oil prices fell nearly by half in 2014. Problem? That was from over $110/bbl to $70. There was room to cut, painful as it was, at that price. There's no room to cut in the $30s. Meanwhile, scratch the surface, and the city looks more dysfunctional than Big D. Some oil companies are still halfway whistling in the dark. Others are going radio silent. And an alleged energy expert at the U wants an oil tariff, ignoring both that that's probably illegal under WTO rules, and that the light-ass half-condensate coming out of the the Permian needs to be mixed with heavier grades for best refining. (Hirs would let in other North American oil, which would surely violate WTO rules. Mexico probably doesn't have enough heavier-grade oil, and Canada's tar sands are a loss leader at $60, let alone $35.) If Annise Parker is right that Houston WILL pass Chicago in population, it likely will be a helluva dysfunctional place, maybe even more so than the Windy City itself.

Meanwhile, Harris County and Houston city government's  possible overreaction on coronavirus is sure to finish pushing the city into recession.


Dallas

In one of his best takedown pieces in a long time, Jim Schutze kicks ass on Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price, for his ultimate role in primary voting problems in Dallas County.

Developers are pocketing city money in TIFs that is supposed to be used to build affordable housing.


National

Socratic Gadfly saw the story about Hobby Lobby's supposed Dead Sea Scrolls being confirmed as fakes, and recognized a name from the past. He talks about his personal academic connection to this story.

The Gadfly offers one thought on the Dem Debate, via Twitter:

This. I thought this back in 2016 as well. The lack of a killer instinct in debates or whatever is a Bernie Sanders problem. https://t.co/wbTCNP1pAi

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 16, 2020

That's part of why Bernie lost 2016's nomination, conspiracy theories about the DNC aside, and it's part of why he'll likely lose again this year.

Well, no, I'll add one other thing. Our Revolution may not technically be a super PAC, per the letter of one Sanders response in the debate. But, it formed a PAC, and whether that's a "super PAC" or not, it takes dark money. Sanders Institute? Let me know if it's moved beyond being a hotbed of nepotism.

Brains said something stupid and so I didn't link to him. (Hey, Brains, if you drop by? Kuff is on my blogroll in part as a rectal irritant to you.)

World

Bibi is out in Israel, or so it seems.

The Saudis have oil supply 100 percent backward

As various general news media and oil-watch outlets heat up over Saudi Arabia's attempt to get an oil production freeze from OPEC members and, it hopes, from Russia as well, looking back in hindsight, maybe Ali Al-Naimi should have gone back to old Saudi ways rather than venture into a brave new production world from which his successor, current Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih, is trying to pick up the pieces.

That said, it wasn't all his fault. His predecessor, Ali al-Naimi, recently noted that, in late 2014, as an oil oversupply already loomed, fellow OPEC members refused to tighten the taps. Al-Naimi started the decision to keep oil flowing without taking all the hits on cuts itself, and even pumping more.

Al-Naimi led the Saudi oil desk for 20 years, and in previous world, or OPEC, gluts, as the biggest producer, and for his whole time, the so called "swing producer" for the world, would tighten its own taps only. But, largely to smack down US shale oil, he said no.

I think he got it totally wrong.

He should not just have done previous Saudi-style cutting, but even more.

One of the elements of American shale oil is that its success is somewhat a will-o'-the-wisp and certainly short term. Yes, fracking shale formations will produce more oil than conventional drilling, and in tight formations will produce oil where it couldn't be gotten with a conventional process.

However, it doesn't produce that much more oil in wider shale formations, let alone in fracking to improve on non-shale drilling. It does produce some more, but not an incredible amount.

Rather, part of its dazzling effect is simply to increase the flow rate of oil in production. That's it.

If the Saudis had been smart, they would have whacked their production twice as much as in the past, let the price hit $100/bbl, and let many of America's newly-fracked oil wells pump themselves halfway dry in half a dozen years, if that long.

KSA then swoops in to pick up the pieces.

That's IF a "little" new shale oil find in the Permian doesn't totally upset oil production applecarts.

#EndlessWar is still about oil in the end

NPR graphic; numbers as of 2012.

President Obama, who's kept troops in Iraq, bombed Yemen, bombed and CIA-ed Libya, and other things to expand Bush's War on Terra, has proven that more than once.

The biggest proof just came down the pike today, though, with his threat to veto a bill that would let 9/11 victims and their families sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

Despite both the Bush and Obama White Houses doing all they could and can to stonewall looking into, and making public, Riyadh's connections to 9/11, it's clear that dots are out there waiting to be connected by legal action.

As for BushCo, Sen. Bob Graham has long claimed that Shrub shit-canned any attempt to bring the Saudi connection to light. He just reiterated that on Saturday.

Now, a couple of points.

First, both House and Senate passed the bill by voice vote. How many Congressional cockroaches will scurry for daylight when forced to stand on a record vote remains to be seen.

Second, what will the Saudis do if it becomes law? While the "shale revolution" has helped decrease the percentage of oil we import, we still import a lot. Just not all of it from the Saudis.

If the Saudis did try an embargo, it's likely both Iran and Iraq would do all they could to fill the gap. U.S. producers would step to the plate. And tar sands in Canada would ramp up. I can't see the U.S. having a major hurt, at least in the short term. And, after commodities futures markets got done with their rumor-mongering, I think the per-barrel price would settle at around $65.

Don't expect much more change in #oilprices

Yes, the oil market can be volatile at times, with commodities traders and their hoarding against future shifts adding to the mix.

But, OPEC's strategy, or more specifically, the strategy of Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf core members of OPEC, to play Whack-a-Mole with US shale production, seems to have worked, and the June 3 OPEC meeting is expected to say the course. That's even as OPEC members are currently pumping 1 million barrels a day above targets. And, as US oil production hit a 43-year high, indicating Whack-a-Mole may come back up, especially if it's true that many of the idled/capped wells were already in decline, which of course is a big issue with shale wells, the narrowness and steepness of their production curves.

Yes, the US has plenty of fracked-and-capped wells ready to restart production, but the forced cuts in shale production have had their effect. And, while Western oil companies may squeeze a little more efficiency out of future well drilling, more of that's likely to come in the pricier offshore exploration.

Through the rest of the summer, I'd venture West Texas Intermediate trades in a band of roughly $59-$66.

Indeed, once OPEC's lesson-making sinks back in again, oil prices might even fall.