TX Progressives look at local, state, national elections

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone stays safe in the snow as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff interviewed Harris County Sheriff candidates Ed Gonzalez and Jeff Stauber.

SocraticGadfly questions the mainstream media narrative that the GOP presidential race is down to a Trump-Cruz two person event with this analysis and has a follow-up skewering of the Trump-Palin fun coming.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, state Rep. Garnet Coleman, three current and one former Houston city councilmen all want to take the place of the recently-departed Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee on the November ballot.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the latest on the most highly contested 2016 race that you won't be eligible to vote for.

Of course the frackers are big GOP donors.  CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows that the Texas Republicans don't work for you.  They work for their rich buddies.

Neil at All People Have Value took a Martin Luther King Day picture of two different types of birds sharing space in peace. We could learn from these birds.   APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Nonsequiteuse takes a look at Houston ISD's possible unnaming schools with names of Confederate heroes.

Texas Vox notes the EPA has a teleconference planned on fracking issues.

Texas Sharon has a roundup of other environmental news.



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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Keep Austin Wonky interviews Texas House candidate Huey Rey Fischer.

The Current advertises a movie screening to raise money for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the FEC against Ted Cruz for his failure to report those Goldman Sachs and Citibank loans from 2012.

Anastasia Hansen tells you things you may not have known about Houston's bus system.

Progress Texas documents four decades of Texas abortion laws.

Prairie Weather discusses the meaning of the word "progressive."

Tyler Clevinger is appealing the slap on the hand of federal Judge Walter B. Smith Jr.

How's that hopey changey stuff, Sarah and Donald?

Does Sarah Palin endorsing The Real Donald really help him, or hurt Ted Cruz, that much?

Some of the punditocracy, like Matthew Dowd, thinks this is a boost:

Regardless of your opinion of her, palin endorsing @realDonaldTrump at this moment against Cruz is a big help to trump. hurts Cruz badly.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) January 19, 2016

Does it really hurt Cruz badly?

I don't think it does. And neither do a lot of other Twitter respondents.

Ted Cruz's camp thinks it hurts Palin worse, hurting her standing with the Religious Right per Trump's past stance on some social issues as noted above.

Matthew Dowd seems about as clueless on the Religious Right as does Donald Trump. And so does Phyllis Schlafly, with her endorsement of him, which led to me joking that the 91-year-old, if not clueless, must be senile.

First, when is the last time you heard Sarah Palin's name get regular news mention before this?

....

(Crickets.)

Exactly.

If she really meant anything in that world, you'd have heard her name mentioned.

Instead, Faux News sidelined her long ago (it was more than 7 months ago, and that's "long ago" in her me-first media world), and she's barely within yelling distance of the likes of a Mike Huckabee on Religious Right media candlepower, and that's not saying much.

But, like Matthew Dowd, Donald Trump probably thought she had a "name," thinking so wrongly. And, she, probably knowing that Trump was looking for a boost with the Religious Right, and knowing that she herself was looking for a boost period, started dropping hints with Trump.

And he was clueless enough to sign on.

And, that's that.

They deserve each other, any way, since Trump IS Palin 2.0.



And, Saturday Night Live nailed that this week.

Reality is, this endorsement means little.

As for hurting Ted Cruz? Tosh, Matthew.

Any fallout he has from undisclosed 2012 campaign loans will hurt more.

Back to the Whore of Wasilla, though.

Maybe she's angling to leave the former First Dude of Alaska, after all their rumored sexual dalliances away from home. And, if so, does Glen Rice become part of the campaign team, with her alleged fun with him, including a few white lines? Does Bristol Palin get to play a surrogate Chelsea Clinton wannabe?

That said, how a person who probably had an affair to produce her last child (hence insisting she give birth, not just back in Alaska, but in Hooterville, aka Whazzup, aka Wasilla), and who had a dalliance with NBA star Rice long before that, and whose daughter Bristol has claimed to be a spokeswoman for sexual purity after getting knocked up without benefit, and whose son Track (Marks?) Palin has now been arrested for family violence, after knocking his girlfriend up outside wedlock, ever got to be a spokeswoman or icon for the Religious Right anyway?

The reality is that this is a marginalized Sarah Palin, knowing she can never be elected to any political office greater than Dogcatcher of Wasilla, sidelined even by Faux News, unhappy with the still-wedlocked First Dude, desperately greedy for the limelight. Nothing more. (It's this that probably has discombobulated Track's life more than Iraq service, but the Mama Bear would never, ever, even come close to blaming herself for anything.)

Funny that some Palin fans are bemoaning her as a sellout, while the reality is that she was never a sell-in, other than in myth, in the first place.

Of course, she could care less about such boo-hooing — unless they stop buying her swag or otherwise hitting her wallet, or stop falling her on Facebook or otherwise cutting into her oxygen.

Speaking of, for the Religious Right, this photo speaks volumes.

I otherwise can't put it better than 538: Trump IS Palin 2.0, though that piece forgot to mention the biggest comp factor: both suck ALL the oxygen out of a room.

And, given that, contra Havana Ted, it may hurt Trump more than it hurts Palin OR Cruz (for not getting it). She'll do everything she can, for as long as she can, to turn the limelight from The Donald to her.

Splat Goes Blatt!

I Tweeted the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but too late Friday night for them to use that header, based on Eastern time. The Saturday morning paper, describing how the Cleveland Cavaliers dumped head coach David Blatt in mid-season, was surely already in bed.

That said, hoops fans know the basics, as broken by ESPN, it appears. Cleveland, despite leading the Eastern Conference and despite injuries to several players at the start of the season, above all Kyrie Irving rehabbing from offseason knee surgery, and Iman Shumpert also starting the year on IR, decided to can second-year head coach Blatt. (Timofey Mozgov and some guy named LeBron James also were dinged at the start of the year, but were on the opening roster.)

Why?

In a word, the King wanted him out, though he'd not talked to GM David Griffiin recently, and he wanted assistant head coach Tyronn Lue in. And, as a friend reminds me, ESPN's Mark Stein called out LBJ for coach-undermining last July.

All hail the King-tyrant?

As soon as I heard the backstory, I was reminded of middle of the 1981-82 season, in Los Angeles, when Magic Johnson got Jerry Buss to can Paul Westhead for some guy named Pat Riley. Per Stein, LBJ could and should, at a minimum, "man up" and say this was exactly what he wanted. Especially since Magic in 1982 was a third-year player and not even the established leader of the Lakers yet, still often considered second dog to Kareem. And, the Riles-Magic age gap was bigger than this one, which makes one wonder how Lue will keep James under control.

If this move works half that well, the James comes off smelling like a rose. (Half that well, I mean that technically — Lue winning two NBA titles to the four Riles won in LA.)

Anything short of an NBA title, if not this year, then next year, starts raising eyebrows. And not just at LBJ. Griffin will also come in the gunsights.

And, on the "losing control" theme? Sometimes one loses control, and sometimes, one has control ripped away. Per that, and per an ESPN follow-up, LBJ was bad-mouthing Blatt to other teams, as were other players. You just don't do that. Well, you shouldn't. However, outside of places like San Antonio and Golden State, this may, more and more, be today's NBA. But, players can't be fired when they undercut coaches and it goes wrong.

Per that, Tweeters, especially those with a modicum of Photoshopping skills, were eating this up.

Owner Dan Gilbert apparently had Blatt's back to near the end, but Griffin didn't. Yes, Blatt had screwups, or potential ones, at times last year, and James saved him once or twice, but James was overriding his coach too much, I think.

That ESPN follow-up has a lot on this, too. Gilbert didn't want a "retread," but when going out in free agency after hiring Blatt, the King and his Court were upset that they wouldn't have input.

Then, James took weeks to meet Blatt, while Blatt assumed that based on his past international coaching experience, he'd get respect that didn't come his way.

At the same time, the learning curve was steeper than Blatt expected, and perhaps he shouldn't have taken so much slight at Irving calling him an "NBA virgin" with his first coaching victory.

I think he'll learn from those mistakes, though, will Blatt, and per Mavs coach Rick Carlisle, he'll land another head job. But, he's got learning on both the player management as well as game management sides, especially if he goes to another veteran team.

Adrian Wojnarowski follows up with this on Yahoo. He also notes that for all the alleged love for Lue, the King and his Court originally wanted Mark Jackson as coach, who IS, as Bob Ryan recognized, a Bible-pounding phony who also, as Ryan recognizes, isn't even a legit Bible pounder.

If everybody is in the crosshairs, per Griffin's video at the second link, I'm guessing J.R. Smith and Kevin Love are probably the first two. Indeed, per ESPN's Brian Windhorst, who broke the story, when players first heard about a team meeting, they thought it was to announce the trade of Love.

That said, the Cavs should trade love, per Cleveland bloggers, if Lue can't fit him into the lineup, with whatever tweaks he plans — if they can get a decent return for him. Of course, that begs the question of what "decent return" means, especially if one is looking for chemistry, and for leadership if he's not a second banana, and not just stats.

Next then, is Griffin's worry about keeping the King, since next year is a player option for him, which makes Griffin next under the spotlight after Smith and Love, or maybe even before. I think LeBron will stay — but for  more money.

And, of course Griffin is going to deny the King forced Blatt out. It makes it look like Griffin doesn't have a lot of GM power.

Back to the Mavs. While the firing was weird, Mark Cuban canned Avery Johnson the year after he took them to the Finals but lost two the Heat. The guy who replaced him? Rick Carlisle, who went on to beat Heat five years later.

Green Party fields five presidential nominees

Truly liberal voters who think outside the two-party box know the name of Dr. Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party nominee.

She's back in the race this time, but, it's important to note, as does one of her challengers, that's she's not been coronated.

In fact, the party has five nominees, including her. I have a bit of knowledge of Kent Mesplay, but know nothing about the other three. I hope to remedy that before this year's state caucus, let alone Green Party national convention, which will be here in Texas this year, in Houston, on Aug. 4-7.

The five candidates are:

Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry ( http://www.facebook.com/skcmcurryforpresident )

Jill Stein ( http://www.jill2016.com )

Darryl Cherney ( http://www.feelthechern.com )

William P. Kreml ( http://www.billkreml.org )

Kent Mesplay ( http://mesplay.org )

For contact information, see the candidates' web sites or the Green Party's Presidential Candidates page (http://www.gp.org/2016_presidential_candidates ). 

One of the five, Jill Stein, the 2012 nominee, who has qualified already for federal campaign funds, was on CNN on Saturday. Here's a transcript.

Oh, and visit the party newsletter. And, if you want to be involved, give some election issues insight here.

Update, Jan. 26: I've seen initial campaign videos, here, of three of the "other" four candidates, all but Moyowasifza-Curry. Of them, Kreml caught my eye intellectually the most, with his constitutional theorizing, but none have caught my eye yet vs. Stein. Moyowasifza-Curry, as a woman and a person of color, interests me in knowing more about her. At the same time, if you're running for president, even with a third party, having nothing more than a Facebook page for your "campaign website" isn't impressing.

Major daily newspapers — run by snide, arrogant elitists

David Chavern, the CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, the trade and lobbying organization for the major dailies (it does represent some others, but the National Newspaper Association is the primary group for "community" newspapers) wrote a howler op-ed piece last week for Digiday, an online magazine that covers issues in digital advertising and publishing.

The header should tell you just how snide, arrogant and elitist this is:

Ad blocking threatens democracy.

First, democracy was around before modern newspapers were, whether in its classical Athenian version, the Roman Republic, or the first modern gropings toward it of American founding fathers, the British realms, or the Swiss Confederation.

If one wants to claim that Athens and Rome with slaves weren't truly democratic, neither was America before 1865, and American newspapers, primarily but not only in the South, supported that slavery.

So, we should add both "historically inaccurate" and "histrionic" to the debunking of this nonsense.

That said, here’s Chavern’s nut graf, as far as I can tell:

People who download ad-blocking software may be looking for a faster browsing experience in the short-term, but they are also knowingly or unknowingly participating in the longer-term destruction of our ad-supported system for free and low-cost news and other content. As ad-blockers proliferate, the inevitable result will be either much higher subscription rates or a deterioration in the quality and availability of thoughtful, reliable news as news media and content creators are forced out of business. This, in turn, will put us on a dangerous path toward information inequality. News content will be reserved for those who can pay high subscription fees, and everyone else will be left without access to valuable information — with disastrous implications for our democracy.

But wait, it gets better!

Like this:

Are we really willing to exchange exposure to digital ads for significantly higher prices for everyone, where reliable information is only available to the elite? 

Wowza.

So, newspapers that use paywalls as part of their digital stream, not just the elitist Wall Street Journal and semi-elite New York Times, but the Gannett chain, are actually read only by elites? European papers, who long relied more on higher circulation prices and less in ads in print editions, are read only by elites?

Arrogant and elitist is what this piece is.

First, Mr. Chavern, as you either DO know or else SHOULD know, most newspapers were slow to jump on paywalls in the first place because Deano Singleton and other AP board members drank the "TV model" Kool-Aid, ignoring that pay cable channels like HBO existed already in the 1970s.

Second, "elitist"? From big metro dailies that run BOTH real estate ads AND puff pieces for McMansions, or BOTH auto ads AND puff review pieces for Beemers, Lexuses, etc. THAT's elitist.

Even more elitist is the "style" columnists and shutterbugs showing up at black-tie events for the locally rich and famous, and the name-dropping that goes with that.

Third? Newspapers who may have written about growing income inequality without tackling the causes of it, and without really wanting to do that too much (I'll plead a small mea culpa myself, at least on being afraid to rock corporate boats on op-ed pages) are elitist.

Fourth? On the technical side? Besides craptacular web ads? Let's not even get into the abuse of tracking cookies. Some websites, sometimes newspapers, sometimes others, Ghostery shows me it's blocking 30 cookies.

But let us please get into what Chavern calls "native advertising" and I still call good old "advertorial."

Chavern says:

Part of (improving digital ad experience) may also involve better “native ads” that are more fully integrated into the overall experience of visiting a news site. 

First, the Federal Trade Commission has already ixnayed that, publishing guidelines that it wants advertorial less "integrated," not more. So, we have an industry trade group CEO who's either making up shit and hoping people don't pay attention, or else one who's not paying attention himself. (Speaking of, I use the browser extension called Ad Detector, folks. It can't block advertorial, and it's not perfect at what it catches, but what it does catch, it flags with a bright red bar.)

He then points to TV native ads. Well, IMO, a lot of his comparison is apples to oranges, and the apples to apples part needs ....

More FTC regulation.

That leads me to Steve Brill, who writes the perfect antidote to Chavern and his member newspapers.

That's because, in part, he said that at American Lawyer, he resisted urges to put lipstick on the advertorial pig to make it look more editorial.

But, that's down low on the piece.

The starter is calling out papers for their timidity and cluelessness on paywalls, saying stuff I totally agree with about use of the paywall, where to set the "meter" and much more.

It gets better from there. He says many newspaper publishers inherited their businesses, sometimes through multiple generations, and were and are clueless about running them well as businesses because of that.

(And, although the publisher of THE Dallas Morning News is not a Belo family member, nonetheless, Monroney is arguably a snide, arrogant elitist, as it continues to slouch toward Gomorrah.)