It's a busy day here at UST Blackboard Support, this being the first day of classes for Spring 2019. But I wanted to toss out a link to Caitlin Johnstone's response to Tulsi Gabbard's announcement that she will her announce her presidential candidacy soon.

Caity says what I was thinking when I saw the video from Gabbard's interview with Van Jones over the weekend. But, being a full-time blogger, she says it better than I would.

Branko Marcetic's analysis of Gabbard from Jacobin in 2017 is making the rounds, reminding us that Gabbard is not perfect, progressivism-wise. Well, yeah, if she were perfect, she would not be running as a Democrat. Marcetic does give Gabbard allowances for the way her stances have evolved in a positive direction, but when it comes to her role as BJP cheerleader, she has a lot of explaining to do.

It's easy enough to say, Coverage of Syria has grossly exaggerated Bashar al Assad's human rights record because the US empire has had a hard-on for Syria for decades. The US and its Western allies have no such imperial designs on India (that we know of), so saying the same thing about Narendra Modi's record of lethal anti-Muslim attacks both in Gujarat and in India as a whole.

As for her drawing the admiration of David Duke and Steve Bannon, that's even tougher.

This is just a quick one, without any ponderous pondering. Common Dreams has a an article or an opinion piece involving Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez almost every day. Two recent pieces about her Madd Twitter Skillz have caught my eye: this one and this one. And almost every time there's a teaser about an AOC item, I click through.

While I'm under no illusions that Alex from the Bronx is a dyed-in-the-wool Democratic socialist or the Millennial political savior for US Progressives, she is a phenomenon well worth watching. Seeing how Republican legislators respond to her very presence in the House and her public statements interests me. Seeing how members of her own party respond—not just her colleagues in Congress, but other high-profile liberals as well--fascinates me. (See Mike Figueredo's analysis of Whoopi Goldberg's gentle condescension below.)

This Facebook rant was inspired by this piece posted in The Intercept last night after Trump's Wall Speech.

Last night's televised Oval Orifice address (which, I'll admit, I haven't watched) and the general response to it make me think of Dr. George Lakoff and Caitlin Johnstone. Both these writers have important, Big-Picture things to say about this and related issues—and how the Democrats lost 2016. (Hint: It wasn't Susan Sarandon's fault.)

Liberals and progressives have been trying to argue against the border wall using facts, statistics, and reasoning. That's a great approach if you're trying to convince other liberals and progressives. If you're trying to convince conservatives, or win elections against them, or talk to people who don't claim any ideology (Obama/Trump voters), facts and reasoning are mostly ineffective. Too many conservatives and non-ideologues care less about documentable facts than about whether you're telling a good story.

Yes, policy should be evidence-based. Not so long ago, in my lifetime, even Republicans believed that. But if you trot out facts and stats in your electoral campaign, you risk losing your audience.

Sorry about the sporadic posting. Been busy lately.

Since I hired on at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2002, I have admired Dr. John Mendelsohn immensely for what he did in raising awareness of cancer prevention & treatment, as well as raising the profile of MDACC itself. On occasions when I saw him, he had this transcendent glow about him, and not just because his lab coat was the whitest possible shade of white.

This morning, in my daily email digest from the Chronicle, I was saddened enough by the headline about Dr. John Mendelsohn's recent death from a glioblastoma. That ethereal glow of his did not shield him from cancer, nor did his years of oncological research, nor did all the advances in treatment that MDACC pioneered under his watch.

Millions of past and present patients and employees at MDACC will lionize this man. However, the news also leads me to reflect on the side of Mendelsohn those folks will likely overlook. I'm gratified that the article's author, Todd Ackerman, chose not to ignore that side.

This morning, Greater Houston was wrapped in a fog thicker than I've seen in years. In fact, I don't recall seeing fog this thick since leaving New London CT 28 years ago; I may be wrong.

​But today's fog is only slightly thicker than the fog that beset the entire month of November 2018. Now, in December, when the post–Election Day fog is clearing, all those Progressives giddy about a new Democratic majority in Congress are seeing that even candidates who campaigned left are now lurching to the right before they're even sworn in.

Recently some Progressive wonks (including Yours Truly) have taken to Twitter to remind fans of Beto-Bob O'Rourke that their El Paso matinée idol is no flaming lefty. Even O'Rourke claims not to know whether he is progressive, prefer to eschew ideological labels. Some of us know the answer to that.

Fact is, soon-to-be-ex-Rep. O'Rourke runs with the New Democrat Coalition, a group of staunchly pro–Big Business Democrats who prefer working with their Republican colleagues to working for working people.

Another fact is, as Jimmy Dore reports in the video above, his replacement in TX-16, Veronica Escobar, has also announced that she is joining the New Democrats. So are two Texas Democrats who defeated Republican incumbents last month: Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in District 7 (West Houston) and Colin Allred in 32 (North Dallas). They join Joaquin Castro, Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez, and Marc Veasey as NDC members of Texas.

Although I'm a devout agnostic prone to aggravated depression during the Holiday season, I don't reflexively loathe all Christmas music. I loathe only about 80% of it. As with any musical form, I prefer my Christmas/Holiday music on the odd side. I treasure the Holiday CDs of Brave Combo, Barenaked Ladies, and Phil Spector's friends. Hearing "Merry Christmas from the Family" by either Robert Earl Keen or Jill Sobule is a true delight; the one with Rosie O'Donnell and the Dixie Chicks, not so much.

This past weekend produced some exquisite musical moments. First, I participated in the four December Rose concerts at the MATCH with International Voices Houston. (Yeah, henceforth I'll remember to promote our shows on this here blog.) It was a joy to present a mix of overt holiday music, implicit holiday music, and music about persisting through adversity that has little or nothing to do with the December holidays.

​Second, there was the music on the sound system Saturday morning at Generic Kroger: It was all bland pop Christmas tunes, except somehow the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" started up just after we walked into the store. Maybe "Blitzkrieg Bop" is a Christmas song now, like "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie?

On with the bloggage.

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Off the Kuff posted some extremely long and boring spreadsheets full of statistics that nobody except a few political consultants in Harris County could possibly give a shit about.

SocraticGadfly took a skeptical look at the Betomania 2020 Kool-Aid, one of dozens of articles about the phenomenon that shows no sign of ebbing. O'Rourke himself has marveled at his rock star hysteria, teasingly suggesting "it's a great question" whether he is ready for a run at the White House. As he rose in the early polling, many Democratic activists began questioning his progressive bona fides. (You will recall that PDiddie answered that for himself last January.) The NYT dug out--and published in October--the story behind his family's shady real estate deal in El Paso, and the Segundo Barrio residents who never forgot his role in it.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs exposed the oozing neoliberalism of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner in two posts: the first excoriating his interference in the developments surrounding HISD's legacy African American schools; the second, reminding Houstonians of the only consistent talents Turner has demonstrated over the last three years: his leadership void and political courage deficit.
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Democratic infighting over whether to monetize voter data for 2020 spilled out into the open.

Robert Francis O'Rourke has just three weeks remaining as a Member of Congress from El Paso. Texas voters determined last month that he will not be advancing to the US Senate. So, with his irrelevance looming large, why bother Monday-morning-quarterbacking his progressivity or lack thereof? Mostly because serious people are talking seriously about running him for president in 2020. It's not just the breezy speculation of starry-eyed rank-and-file Democratic voters.

For a number of reasons, that particular dog won't hunt. The tweet below shows us why.

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is still all over the news, and Edie has been paying attention to AOC's evolution from outsider to Democratic back-bench Congresscritter. She doesn't like what she sees. She has asked me to withdraw her laudatory essay from a few weeks ago and replace it with this one, which also has plenty to say about Senator Bernard Sanders (Independent, sorta, from Vermont).

This essay rambles a bit, but Edie assures me that it rambled more before she cut it from 16,000-plus words to fewer than 4,000. I have omitted almost all the photos and other graphics that Edie lovingly inserted into the original document. Saving them and inserting them here is more work than I can manage right now without risking repetitive motion injury.

Disclaimer: I don't agree with all of it, but I present it for your consideration.
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Desperately Seeking Bernie's Balls
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have faithfully and dutifully taken up the Democratic Party’s mantra: "You have no choice; you have nowhere to go: it’s either us or the Republicans. T.I.N.A.: 'There Is No Alternative.'”
 
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez can head up a third party movement and, in doing so, they can free electoral politics from the two-party stranglehold. But they refuse to do that.

Click here for an amazing video [from Jimmy Dore]. It begins with Bernie Sanders back in the 1990s arguing passionately for a third party movement. Then we hear from the all-new version of Bernie Sanders—the 2018 version of Bernie Sanders—arguing, just as passionately, against a third party movement.
 
His own words identify him as a sellout.

What Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are saying to those on their left is: “You have no choice; you have nowhere to go except with us.” Which is the same thing Hillary Clinton said to those on her left when she ran for president in 2008 and 2016: “You have no choice; you have nowhere to go except with me.” 
 
As far as the Democratic Party is concerned, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are safe. They’re in the fold. Wanna hear a joke? Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claim they’re socialists. Please! That doesn’t pass The Gag Test. Like the Democratic Socialists of America, they use the label of socialism to advance politically. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA are socialists like my Uncle Dominic wears a bra and poses for Playboy. They’re not about to rock the boat. They’ve been neutered.

Bernie Sanders isn’t a socialist, he isn’t a radical and he isn’t a revolutionary.  As Alexander Cockburn, one of the co-founders of Counter Punch, put it: