David Bruce Collins—the Official Site - Blog

David Bruce Collins—the Official Site

RCV Wins in Maine

19/11/2018

Steve Shepard of Politico says:

Politico's Election Night analysis of the "weird" Ranked Choice Voting system in Maine

If you're just tuning in, this blog has featured multiple entries centered around or casually mentioning Ranked Choice Voting and other Instant Runoff–style systems. The one in which I scolded Samantha Bee for her binary thinking is my favorite of the bunch.

Several days after Jared Golden in Maine's 2nd Congressional district became the first person to win a federal election via Ranked Choice Vote, I'm finally getting around to saying something about it directly here at dbcgreentx.net. And what I'm saying is...I'm psyched. RCV won't always produce the results we want, or even results we can tolerate, but it will reflect the will of the majority. Despite outgoing Rep. Bruce Poliquin's petulant protest (and lawsuit), RCV is also the will of the voting majority in Maine; it worked, and I'm pleased as Punch.

Correspondence with Edie, #2: Abby's Back!

19/11/2018

Note by way of introduction: I am a monthly contributor to the Empire Files Patreon account, currently one of 697 patrons. Not only am I glad to see EF back in production as Edie is (albeit without the budget that working with TeleSur afforded it), but also happy to have helped with its re-emergence.—dbc

*****
David,

Note the DATE on this video, Nov 12, 2018--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdhIYWb3XVU

I’m hoping that that means that Abby Martin is back—that is to say, that this isn’t an old Empire Files video that was just now posted.

The aforementioned video is excellent, well worth the time it takes to listen to it.

I place Abby Martin in the same category as Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Robert Wolff, in that they are all true radicals—they uncompromisingly deconstruct capitalism, nationalism and imperialism--something that, as much as I love him, Jimmy Dore doesn’t do.

Jimmy still holds on to the illusion that Bernie Sanders will make a fundamental difference. He won’t. Sanders is a useful tool of the Democratic Party, creating as he does the illusion that there is a left-wing to the Democratic Party. There isn't. Sanders only slows down the fundamental changes that MUST take place...fundamental changes standing between where we are now and a global disaster. (dbc NOTE: As Edie well knows, Dore has recently taken Sanders to task for reversing his long-held position on the possibility of reforming the Democratic Party from within.)

Godless Blogsmacking

19/11/2018

Thanksgiving? Hell yeah. All day, every day. Humility and gratitude my two main practices in this endless self-improvement project. Do I always succeed in those practices? No more than Lionel Messi scores every time he touches the ball. But when I fail, I resolve to do better.

The pilgrims at Plymouth did not invent anything new. Thanksgiving feasts have been around for millennia: The ancient Romans had what they called Supplicatio (pl. Supplicationes). As at Plymouth, there was always at least one god involved or invoked. I'm not grateful to any particular deity, anthropomorphic or otherwise, except possibly Gaia if one feels compelled to deify Mother Earth. I'm grateful to nature for constructing us humans in such a way that we can feel gratitude and give that feeling a name.

The Texas Progressive Alliance is grateful not to have to wrangle any actual turkeys for its holiday meal in this weather. Wrangling these blog posts and news items—not all of which are turkeys—is difficult enough. This week, I am grateful to PDiddie for linking to (ye gods & little fishes!) three of my posts from last week.

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Off the Kuff looked at the results of the Congressional races to find some themes about what happened and what we can learn from them.

David Collins also did some Congressional Kuffnering, along with a TX-23 follow-up, and wants you to know that he is down with the MPP (which is not the Marijuana Policy Project).

Correspondence with Edie #1

16/11/2018

I would like to introduce to you my fascinating friend, whom I have never met in person. We have been friends via Bridge Base Online for several months, during which time we have had some hilarious and poignant conversations about music, classic cinema, progressive/radical politics, New Jersey, Italy, baseball, and numerous other topics.

Yes, I do play bridge online—sometimes at home, sometimes when things are slow at work. Like crossword puzzles, it keeps the problem-solving parts of my brain active. I don't play extraordinarily well, still occasionally making rookie mistakes, so I play only at the Relaxed tables, where frothy-mouthed bridge pedants are less likely to hang out.

She goes by Edie, which is American for Aïda. Since we are cyberspace acquaintances, I don't know with 100% certainty if she's really a twenty-something Italian-born runway model who lives in Beverly Hills and spends her plentiful free time playing Bridge, or even if Edie is her real name. However, she has given me no evidence to cast doubt on her story, inadvertently or otherwise. Whatever. She's awesome. She is the queen of whichever virtual table she plays. Her knowledge of socialism and radical history has admirable breadth and depth. Plus, we're fans of a lot of the same political channels on YouTube. What's not to like?

By way of introduction, I would like to share some of her writing, lightly edited, which she has permitted me to publish here.

Congressional Kuffnering

16/11/2018

I'm about to do what I call Kuffnering—not the thing Chuck Kuffner does wherein 85% of his post is one gigantic blockquote from the Houston Chronicle or other such, but the thing wherein he tosses out a whole bunch of numbers and proceeds to draw some conclusions (or at least strong inferences) from them. I haven't given the blockquote thing a name yet.

This entry is light on links; go look up stuff for yourself.

Some of you who pay attention to electoral matters already know some of the facts I'm about to relate. But now that I've seen the numbers on US House elections in Texas and some other states, I'm mildly shocked.

To see the analysis of Texas's Congressional races, click the Read more link and scroll down past the California and North Carolina sections.

Green New Democrats

15/11/2018

Since yesterday, I've seen some grumbling on Green Party Facebook pages about this recent development. Greens are not complaining so much about A. Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and the Sunrise Movement staging a protest rally in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office at the Capitol. What rankles them is that progressive Democrats are misappropriating the "Green New Deal" language that Jill Stein made the centerpiece of her presidential campaigns.

Best birthday present a Greenie could hope for! #GreenNewDeal arrives in Congress wearing its ass-kicking boots. https://t.co/x2IZJJdtxA by @ryangrim @briebriejoy
— David Bruce Collins (@dbcgreentx) November 14, 2018

Also seen: Democrats wringing their hands about AOC and Tlaib upsetting the party establishment, virtually assuring that they won't get any committee assignments, let alone the ones they might want. If Pelosi et al. are that invested in bipartisanship and that petty about Progressives trying to shake things up a bit, that will reveal them as the Republicans in Democrat clothing they really are. Are the establishment Democrats smart enough to recognize that, though?

Sure, I would love to see these Democrats give full credit where it's due, tipping their hats to Stein and the Green Movement. If Green New Deal policies actually get implemented in full, without acknowledgment of their architects, I for one won't complain. We need to move forward on averting climate catastrophe with all due haste. Even if the Democratic Caucus adopts it but cannot get it past the Senate, I'll salute them for trying.

However, if the Democrats in Congress propose a watered-down version of the Green New Deal, fuck 'em. If they even try to include Cap & Trade language, fuck 'em harder.

Starting with a compromise, rather than battling toward one, is exactly why Democrats lose, both on Capitol Hill and in our polling places. On the issue of anthropomorphic climate disruption, science tells us that we have no space or time for compromise.

Follow-Up on TX-23

15/11/2018

Texas's 23rd Congressional district stretches from San Antonio west to the Rio Grande and up to the eastern edge of El Paso. It is larger in area than several US states. Brewster County alone is larger than Connecticut, but it contains fewer than 10,000 residents. You can waltz across the district without many people to get in your way or try to cut in.

In this century, it has also been one of the state's swingiest: Republicans tend to win, but by slim margins. It is also majority-LatinX, shining a harsh light on the myth that the Texas LatinXes lean heavily Democratic.

As of today, in the TX-23 House race, two-term incumbent Will Hurd holds a 1,150-vote lead over Democratic nominee Gina Ortiz Jones. That margin has increased since last week's figure of 689, but it is still well within the statutory amount to justify a recount request. Per the Texas Election Code, the margin must be less than 10% of the winner's vote total, and Hurd's count currently stands at 102,903; chop off the last digit to calculate the recount limit.

Some other links to share:

The Texas Tribune's article to which we linked last week has the up-to-date numbers now.
Texas Public Radio reminds us that no recount request can be filed until the Secretary of State says the last ballot have been counted, which may be the end of November.
Politico has this race among six--oops, now it's five—US House contests with no victor declared.
Ballotpedia mistakenly notes that Ortiz Jones and Libertarian Ruben Corvalan have lost the race, yet doesn't say that Hurd has won it.

I'm Down with MPP

13/11/2018

I couldn't resist using that for a headline. (Translation: Sorry, I couldn't think up a cleverer headline than that.)

About a week before Election Day, I began earnestly considering transferring (or perhaps expanding) my allegiance into the Movement for a People's Party. I have already signed up to volunteer and should soon receive an organizing packet from the group's membership coordinator.

In lieu of a big, momentous announcement of a new direction, this post is my "soft opening." I just hope it works out better than my declaration last summer that I would be working with Lina Hidalgo's campaign and rebooting the county chapter of Move to Amend—neither of which, to my continued bewilderment, actually happened. (This is a great illustration of why I prefer not to make plans.)

Of all the progressive post-Bernie spin-offs that I've seen, only MPP has held firm to its doctrine that the Democratic Party is not a friend to Progressives. This is not equal to saying that individual Democratic candidates or voters are all to be painted with the Enemy Brush; however, per MPP, neither corporate party is reformable from within, and neither is not worth our time, money, or labor.

Becoming a Brana Bro
As if to confirm my lingering suspicions, MPP organizer and spokesperson Nick Brana appeared in a lengthy segment with Jimmy Dore et al Friday, wherein Brana said a lot of things that got me nodding along. Most pertinent of all is this: Whatever joy Democrats and their friends may get from reclaiming a majority in the US House, plus picking up a few governorships, this victory for the Democratic Party and its candidates is not a victory for Progressives, their policies, or indeed for the planet.

It Ain't Over Till the Last Vote Is Counted ProgBlogs

12/11/2018

Everybody's got an opinion the week after the landslide, and the Texas Progressive Alliance rounds up the best (and worst) of them in a ride around the Texblogosphere to celebrate the Democrats' big wins—and mourn the losses—from last Tuesday.

It's also the day following the Armistice Centenary, or the celebration of the ending of WWI, a hundred years ago. As Caitlin Johnstone noted, the best way to thank veterans for their service is to not make any more of them.

Here in Texas, at least, no state- of federal-level races from last Tuesday remain undecided. The same cannot be said for Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Maine. In those states, it's all down to the three "R's": recounts, runoffs, and Ranked Choice Voting.

I didn't cover Georgia in a recent post about the other three states because I don't foresee Brian Kemp's gubernatorial vote total falling below 50%. If Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams does not force a runoff by raking in about 21,000 additional votes while Kemp earns 0, Kemp's victory is assured. However, everyone in Georgia who shapes state policy will know that Kemp cheated or gamed the system in multiple ways, starting with that whole keeping-his-job-as-Secretary-of-State-right-through-Election-Day business. He will not be a legitimate governor.

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This synopsis of the US Senate race--from January of 2017 to last Tuesday—by Patrick Svitek and Abby Livingston of the Texas Tribune is the best ten-minute read on how the most important election in Texas unfolded.

RG Ratcliffe at Texas Monthly corrected the knobs at Politico about O'Rourke's shunning the use of political consultants as a reason why he lost. RG also had the best morning-after quick takes.

Beto's extremely long coattails for a losing candidate were the focus of many stories: Tarrant County turning purple, Fort Bend and Hays turning blue, the appellate courts flipping, the sweeps in Harris and Dallas Counties.

Mejia Closing In on 26%

11/11/2018

Here's an update on the CA-34 top-two Congressional race mentioned on this blog a few days ago. The turnout is a little less appalling, up over 100,000 total votes at this point. Green candidate Kenneth Mejia's count is at 25.98% and rising as the absentee tally continues.

In case anyone needs reminding, to most of the voting world, a 74-26 margin looks like a slaughter. For a minor-party apparatchik, a 26% showing against a corporate-party incumbent is pretty damn impressive.

Our vote count increased to 26,160 votes!

26,160 & counting people voted GREEN, to break the status-quo!

Btw, we got the HIGHEST % of votes (26%) for ANY GREEN running for US Congress against a Democrat in the history of the @GreenPartyUS!

In Los Angeles, it's Blue v Green! □ pic.twitter.com/TS3Ftb7obE
— Kenneth Mejia (@25forcongress) November 10, 2018

As a bonus, a little ways down the San Diego Freeway, the Blue Wave appears to have wiped out Republican former surfer Dana Rohrabacher in CA-48. Once upon a time back in the 1990s, Rohrabacher was something of a moderate, at least on social issues, but he has moved rightward with the rest of his party. Apparently his Orange County district hasn't kept pace with that rightward migration. In 2016, he won re-election by a comfortable 58-42 margin, even while Hillary Clinton won it with 48% to 46% for What's-His-Face.