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And now for sports and weather combined. It has been rather interesting and a bit painful to watch baseball playoff broadcasts from Milwaukee and Boston, seeing players and coaches and spectators all bundled up. Here in H-Town, daily high temperatures have continued to hit the 90s Fahrenheit (low 30s Celsius), with no signs of any gradual descent into winter. My jackets and sweaters stay tucked away in a cedar chest.
Well, today, the first legitimate blue norther (not to be confused with Blue October) of Fall 2018 has arrived, complete with rain and brisk winds, dropping the temperature rapidly and drastically. It blew through the Dallas-Fort Worth MetroMess last night, where the US Women's National Team defeated Jamaica 6-0 and qualified for next year's Women's World Cup. The USWNT takes on already-qualified Canada for the CONCACAF Championship Wednesday night, while Jamaica battles Panama for ticket to the WWC (loser faces Argentina in a two-legged playoff for a World Cup berth). ============ Let's get this over with, eh? The following bloggage is brought to you by the Texas Progressive Alliance. TPA: Power to the People...and Stuff Like That. The McAllen Monitor caught up with Beto O'Rourke as he made his latest swing through the RGV, this trip with Rep. Joe Kennedy III, which prompted a predictably shitty joke from Ted Cruz. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had some unsolicited advice for O'Rourke on how he should be counter-punching the Zodiac Killer. The San Antonio Express News joined the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News in endorsing Kim Olson for Agriculture Commissioner over the incumbent, Sid Miller. (PDiddie sez: "This is a low bar, considering Miller is hot garbage as both elected official and human being." dbc has seen little evidence to suggest otherwise.) A big Indigeous Peoples' Day shout-out to Water Protectors everywhere, particularly the Houma and others fighting the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana. By whatever term they wish to be called—Native Americans, Indigenous, Autochthonous, First Nations, or their tribal/national membership—remember and celebrate them today. By whatever name history calls him—Colombo, Columbus, Colón—remember him for his atrocities, not his "discoveries."
Meanwhile, the Astros take a two-game advantage to Cleveland and may sweep the Indians this afternoon. FWIW, the team's choice of nickname in honor of a popular Native American player from in the late 19th century is probably a myth—or at least not entirely accurate. ============ With the deadline to register to vote in the November midterm elections tomorrow, the Texas Progressive Alliance encourages you to double-check your status if you have already registered to be certain you are ready to cast your ballot. The state's voter rolls have surged to 15.6 million Texans, surpassing the 14 million registered voters since the last midterm election (2014). More than 400,000 have signed up to vote since March, and Harris County led the way with over 55,000 of those. The state's website link to request a voter registration application (within the first link above) crashed and stayed down for several hours this past Saturday. dbcsez: We're about four weeks away from finding out whether, and to what extent, this 11-12% increase in registrations will correlate with midterm turnout numbers. ============ On to the roundup of lefty blog posts and news from around the Lone Star State from last week! The Texas Tribune collects everything you need to know about voting this autumn. Texas Standard says that the Brennan Center will be closely watching Texas again for indications of the kind of voter suppression tactics--excessively strict application of the voter id requirement, voters illegally purged from the rolls, and the like—the state has long been guilty of. Correct me if I'm deluded, but I'm told we have an election coming up. Actual Election Day is, y'know, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (or maybe you don't know—it's surprising how many otherwise knowledgeable Americans don't); early voting for many counties in Texas begins three weeks from today, Monday 22 October.
Democracy does not begin or end with the ballot, however. The weekend before the start of early voting, there will be some real democracy going on: the Women's March on the Pentagon. Cindy Sheehan and friends will make an earnest and unarmed effort to occupy the Pentagon, or at least its parking lot. Last I knew, Green Party of Texas co-chair Joy Davis plans to be there. ============ The Texas Progressive Alliance soldiers on to November—and beyond—as one of its original members has summarily and without announcement ended his participation. (Sidenote from dbc: For years now, Chuck Kuffner's posts have been progressive only sporadically. As I've stated previously, I still find his blog valuable for his willingness to crunch electoral numbers and identify trends.) Socratic Gadfly broke down the motivations of Kavanaugh and interlocutor Jeff Flake, as the confirmation process paused for the FBI to conduct an investigation into some of the allegations against the nominee. Bonddad's thought from yesterday is that Trump is stomping all over the economic message that Republicans are trying to run on in 2018. After the second debate between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz got postponed due to the machinations associated with the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Beto scheduled a rally in Austin with Willie Nelson. And it was huuuuge. RG Ratcliffe was there and filed a report. Lupe Valdez got the best of Greg Abbott in their debate Friday evening, but RG wondered if their fundraising difference would be an insurmountable obstacle for the challenger. Too much about Beto-Bob vs. Rafael from PDiddie, who has been a rather prolific curmudgeon over the last few days. The first half or so of his Weekly Wrangle deals with Friday's televised debate, the first of three, between incumbent US Senator Ted Cruz and Democratic nominee Robert Francis O'Rourke. (More recent PD: Sunday Funnies as usual, Saturday Democrats not on Diddie's list, Friday the urgency of loudly & proudly courting the LatinX vote.) I'm a baaaaad political blogger. I did not make the effort either to watch or listen to the debate Friday evening. By the time I even thought about it, it was over, as they scheduled it early so as not to conflict with Texas religious services (i.e., high school football games). But then, since I will not cast a vote in the Senate race, the debate is of no immediate interest to me. I'll try to catch the video online. (UPDATE: I made it through about 15 minutes of the debate on YouTube, then quit when I was just one "in this country" short of plotzing on the screen.) Notably absent from the debate, of course is Libertarian challenger Neal Dikeman, because having more than two candidates in a political contest is too complicated for American brains. Dikeman's appearance on Capital Tonight with Karina Kling impresses me no more or less than his website. However, as a matter of public interest and maintaining democracy as anything more than a cleverly crafted illusion, all nominees from parties with a ballot line and qualified independent candidates should at least be invited to participate in these debates. Also, in light of my recent posts about getting help with chronic depression, I find longtime Green comrade Harry Hamid's casual mention of his near-suicide this summer (linked below) both disturbing and comforting. I'm not the only one in my circle ready to leave this fucked-up world behind, feeling powerless to unfuck it. ************ PDiddie at Brains and Eggs lists the Texas Democrats he'll be voting for in November, as well as the ones he won't. And in the wake of SD-19's GOP upset by retired game warden Pete Flores of longtime pol Pete Gallego, PDiddie offered some advice to Texas Democrats on how to save their blue wave. Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer quoted Dan Patrick as saying "the tide is out." Additional post-mortems of last Tuesday's SD-19 special election—complete with eulogies of the Texas Democratic Party—arrived via the Texas Observer and Texas Standard. Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast links to an NYT piece that reveals a shocking test result: most crime labs analyzing DNA evidence accuse the wrong people of committing a crime. And in his statewide roundup of criminal justice news, the Houston Chronicle's Keri Blakinger told the story of Texas inmates who are refused dentures. The Texas Tribune via Progrexas writes about the $430 billion farm bill, which is nerve-wrackingly close to expiring, leaving Texas farmers in the lurch. Congressional leaders are just days away from a deadline to work out a compromise on a massive farm bill or risk a lapse in funding for crucial safety net programs used by thousands of Texas farmers. Much more at the link, including the politics complicating the matter.
Kennedi W. at Houston Justice describes #ProjectOrange's successful voter registration drive. Civil rights groups are changing bail practices in Texas one city at a time, writes Michael Barajas at the Texas Observer. Murray Polner at The Rag Blog wonders if there are any honest and independent observers still available to sort out the truth. David Collins has a review of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9." And Harry Hamid wishes he had another hole in his head where the memory of the presidential candidate he voted for in 2016 resides.
September 16 was Mexican Independence Day, as noted by Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, and today is Citizenship Day/Constitution Day. Senator Ted Cruz purports to know a lot about the Constitution, and about the citizenship of someone born in Canada to parents from the US and Cuba. Texas State Rep. Gene Wu (District 137, Sharpstown-Gulfton-SW Houston) has been tweeting rather vociferously, in a most immoderate tone, about Lyin' Ted's latest adventure in flouting state law. Our junior senator, or someone on his campaign staff, appears to know considerably less about deceptive trade practices laws than about the Constitution (particularly the Tenth Amendment thereto).
Your homework for Citizenship Day is to take this practice test to see whether you might pass the naturalization interview. You can pass with 60% correct, but if you're a US-born high school graduate, you shouldn't feel too happy about any score less than 80%. ----------- Here comes the blog post and lefty news roundup from a busy week passed. A US Border Patrol supervisor was arrested in Laredo for the murders of four women in what officials are calling "serial killings." Authorities issue more search warrants as the investigation into the murder of Botham Jean by a Dallas police officer continue. Experts are disagreeing on the credibility of the officer involved. Tee-hee. Barbed. Thank you for that, PDiddie. See below.
This is a rare day for this blog, as I'll be posting thrice including this one. Also cooking as this goes to press are items on the 2018 endorsements from the fledgling Our Revolution Harris County and on a couple of events I attended over the weekend. ************ Here's the blog post and lefty news roundup from last week. Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who shot Botham Shem Jean in his apartment— erroneously thinking she was entering her own--has finally been arrested on manslaughter charges after a few days' delay, attributed to the Texas Rangers' assumption of the investigation from the DPD. Texas Standard reports that a federal judge buried the fetal remains law passed by the Lege last year, but the case will be appealed to the country's most conservative appellate court, the Fifth Circuit. And it's on to the SCOTUS, with Brett Kavanaugh sitting in judgment, should it lose there. Consider the bill a zombie, resting for awhile before it rises and walks again. Influence Texas and Texans for Public Justice announced the release of Influence TX OS, an open source app providing campaign finance and voting records of Texas state politicians. This is a very valuable and insightful tool for those who wish to hold elected officials accountable for their political donations. For example: why did "good Democrat" Gene Wu take $7,500 from one of the world's greediest people, Alice Walton? Saturday evening, as noted in last Wednesday's entry, I went to BBVA Compass Stadium with a party of six to see the Dash play Sky Blue FC. Six different Dash players scored a goal each, one for each in our group. And my niece got a photo with Dynamo Diesel before the match. Even a 6-1 victory wasn't enough, however, to keep the club's playoff chase alive, as the Chicago Red Stars beat the Orlando Pride that evening, and one of Chicago's two remaining games is against the Utah Royals, who are ahead of the Dash on head-to-head results, so effectively there's no way for the Dash to jump into fourth place.
Consolation: the Dash can go have fun and play under no pressure against the first-place Courage in Cary NC. It sure beats where the squad was at this time last year, playing home games in Frisco and Edinburg while their stadium and the surrounding neighborhood were partially submerged. (Sidenote: Frisco and Edinburg, along with Cary, are venues for the upcoming CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifiers.) ***** Reminiscences were the theme of the week, as Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers and news sources looked back at Hurricane Harvey, John McCain, and other people and events in the week that was. Last Tuesday's conviction of Paul Manafort and guilty plea by Michael Cohen--which occurred within minutes of each other—was a turning point for the Trump presidency, and both items were briefly summarized by Somervell County Salon. Socratic Gadfly remembers Senator Maverick (not fondly, either). #Harvey1YearLater was an opportunity for many Houstonians to contribute their stories to the narrative of the region's most destructive storm in over a century:
Sorry I missed it. Friday the 17th was the Feast of Saint Hyacinth, or San Jacinto in Spanish. The flowers on the crest of the University of St. Thomas, Houston, are a hyacinth, subtly symbolizing the 13th-century Polish ecclesiastical reformer, namesake of a major river in Texas and the site of the decisive battle in the War for Texian Independence. It's hard to tell what type of flowers appear in the lower-left quadrant of the UST shield, since they lack that distinctive purple, but they do have star-shaped blossoms.
Also hard to tell, if your news diet is limited to mainstream media, is that the US is right now complicit in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in history. The cable news channels at long last seem to have awoken to this fact, which alternative media have been reporting for years. So the next time a Facebook friend posts some version of that graph showing which media sources are trustworthy, ask why those oh-so reliable founts of information spent so many months not even mentioning Yemen while telling us about every mole and freckle on Stormy Daniels. ***** Beto O'Rourke enjoyed a swelling enthusiasm for his effort to unseat Ted Cruz and go to Washington as Texas' new junior US Senator. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs collected favorable polling and mentions of television and Facebook advertising to revise his prediction to a much closer contest, while Kuff seemed to be feeling a little pessimistic about Beto's chances and speculated on some consolation prizes for Texas Democrats. The TexTrib's Ross Ramsey has an analysis--reprinted at Progrexas--of Greg Abbott's attempt to expand gubernatorial power that would make even Pa and Ma Ferguson, among the most corrupt Texas governors in the state's history, blush. (With envy, not shame.) Retiring state legislator Byron Cook warned that the governor's move represented a constitutional overreach, aka power grab. I have just returned from a few days in Minnesota, spent visiting relatives and rediscovering tennis. It was my first visit to the Gopher State since summer 1986, apart from passing through it on the Amtrak Empire Builder in 1998.
Highlights of the trip included playing tennis with Mom and her friends, seeing a very live production of West Side Story at the legendary Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, devouring a rhubarb pannekoeken at the Pannekoeken Huis in Saint Louis Park, hearing Minnesota regional accents everywhere dontcha know, and dinner with a friend who moved to the Twin Cities from Houston last year and absolutely loves the place. Not-so-highlights included a visit to the Mall of America (it's just not my thing), constant political ads on the TV, and noticing how incredibly white my parents' summer neighborhood is. And it is very much a summer neighborhood: Owners can live there only between 15 April and 15 October. Next visit, I definitely want to go to St. Cloud (or the Cities) and try some Somali cuisine. Reminder: The United States of America remains the only nation to use atomic/nuclear weapons. Seventy-three years ago this week, the USA used those weapons on two militarily important cities in Japan, with the full knowledge that thousands of civilians would be incinerated. This nation has no moral authority to dictate to any other nations what weapons they may or may not possess—especially given that, as we speak, it is participating in a non-nuclear holocaust in Yemen. (UPDATE: not just participating.) One would hope that an international authority such as the United Nations could move toward a consensus that all nations with nuclear weapons should dismantle them as quickly and safely as possible—and then act on that consensus.
Over the weekend, I received a notification that Cindy Sheehan had been invited to return to Hiroshima and give a speech there. Also, while grocery shopping Saturday, I saw a gentleman wearing a cap that said WORLD WAR II VETERAN. I calculated that the youngest veterans of World War II would now be in their 90s and reckoned he might be about that age. For his display of courage in visiting Generic Kroger on a Saturday morning, even with the aid of his wife and an electric scooter, I salute that veteran. ============ Here's the blog post and lefty news roundup. In ordering the Trump administration to immediately begin locating immigrant parents and reuniting them with their children, a federal judge declared that the danger of creating "permanently orphaned children" will be "100% percent" the responsibility of the federal government. Calls for a state investigation and to cease approving licenses for immigrant detention centers were made after a report that a toddler died after being released from a facility in South Texas, and allegations of sexual abuse of at least eight immigrant boys at centers in Arizona run by Southwest Key, the company that wants to open a "baby jail" in Houston. Texas Standard wonders if Pope Francis' call to eliminate the death penalty will change any minds among Texas Catholics...like Greg Abbott. |
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